A proposed ban of TikTok would be a devastating blow to many of the small businesses that have turned to the app to reach potential customers instead of shelling out for more traditional and pricey forms of marketing. When Lauren Wyman felt crushed under the weight of her corporate finance job in 2019, she found solace in launching a small goth and alternative clothing business.
The Biden administration has recently increased efforts to force a sale of TikTok by its owner ByteDance, which is a Chinese company subject to Chinese law — the same thing Trump sought to do in 2020 with a TikTok ban that was blocked by federal courts. TikTok offers the broadest organic reach of any of the channels right now,” Landrum said. “If you’re very successful on TikTok, that’s probably most of what you’re focusing on because [as] a small business, you can’t afford to attack marketing on a bunch of different fronts at the same time.”
”It was insane and kind of unexpected,” Ha said. “When I look back at the video, it probably wasn’t my finest work.” When he started moving content that he posted on Instagram and Facebook to TikTok, they were “just going through the roof in the numbers,” Nolan said. A week after the Senate bill to give the federal government the power to ban the app was introduced, TikTok launched an initiative highlighting small-business entrepreneurs who have found explosive success on the platform, allowing many to quit their day jobs. That is what Wyman hopes to do, but the uncertainty of TikTok now gives her pause.