By Isabelle Shee, CFO at GROW and 1/2 of @sheesisters, digital creators specializing in golf and lifestyle.
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As you’ve probably heard, TikTok is currently at risk again for a ban in the United States. TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew and 30-plus creators recently flew out to Washington D.C. to speak on behalf of the platform.
Whether it’s your main marketing channel or not, the idea can be frustrating to creators who have invested time and energy in building an audience and platform on TikTok.
I am a firm believer that there is a silver lining to almost any negative event, and sometimes we may just need a new perspective. On that note, here are four ways you can pivot from a potential U.S. TikTok ban, but more importantly, future-proof your social media presence when it comes to any platform.
1. Drive Your TikTok Followers To Other Platforms
We should always be driving our followers to our different accounts and making curated content for each platform, but let’s be real—it’s a lot of work and sometimes we want to have a life outside of content creation.
What many of us are guilty of doing is spending all our efforts on one killer reel and posting it on TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and calling it a day. This is a great short-term gain because the content will likely get more eyes on it, but it has a long-term effect because it doesn’t incentivize followers to follow your different platforms.
This could be a good wake-up call to start driving your TikTok followers over to your other platforms such as Instagram and YouTube Shorts. One way I recommend doing this is to run some kind of giveaway on TikTok and encourage followers to follow your other accounts to enter the contest.
2. Use A VPN To Expand Your Audience Demographic
A U.S. TikTok ban would mean that most American users wouldn’t be able to access TikTok anymore. However, there are still countries that haven’t banned TikTok from the public. Right now could be a great opportunity to use a VPN and grow an international audience outside of the United States.
A VPN, or virtual private network, is an internet encryption connection that hides your IP address and physical location. For example, if you’re looking to grow an audience in London, you would turn on your VPN to show yourself connecting from London so that the algorithm will be more likely to show your content for this”local” area. I have personally used ExpressVPN, but there are countless other great options like NordVPN and Surfshark, just to name a few.
3. Solidify Your Presence Outside Of Social Media
Perhaps it’s a good time to start thinking about what life outside of social media looks like. If any of our social platforms got wiped away one day, what would your social imprint be? Would it look like you never existed? Or would you still have news articles, personal websites or TV appearances that exist outside of your social platforms?
It may be time to start investing in a larger PR strategy and using an updated business plan that includes things like television appearances to prevent yourself from putting all of your eggs into one basket.
From YouTubers who launched their own fashion lines from the platform to TikTokers who used their social media fame to land movie roles, there are many ways to use social media to launch into other areas for visibility.
4. Keep Your Eyes Peeled For The Next Video Platform
With all the negative press on TikTok, I have a feeling that a new short-form video platform will appear from the woodwork soon, so keep your eyes and ears open for what could be the next TikTok. As we know, it’s a huge benefit to be early on a booming channel. I’ll be on the lookout as well and will share what I find.
While we know this news cycle has been exhausting and you may feel helpless and out of control, this is a good reminder to take our power back to create our own destiny. At the end of the day, we need to see these social platforms as stepping stones for our careers, goals and aspirations. Keep your head up, we’re all in this together.
