Small businesses in Alaska are bracing for the Supreme Court to rule on a law that would ban TikTok in the United States.
TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, and many critics worry the Chinese government could gain access to user data, control content, and say the app is a national security risk. Others argue the ban is unconstitutional because it would violate free speech.
Last April, President Biden signed a law that allows the government to ban foreign-owned apps that threaten national security. If TikTok isn’t sold by Sunday, it faces a nationwide ban.
Roughly 170 million Americans use it, and it’s the most downloaded app worldwide. It’s banned in several countries.
The state’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) director, Jon Bittner, said the ban could hit Alaska businesses hard.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Jon Bittner: When the government decides to sort of take down an entire platform like this, it has longer term implications.
I understand sort of the security concerns on some level, but a lot of businesses, both in and out of Alaska, have invested a lot of time and effort into building their followings on these platforms. And if they can just disappear overnight, you can't take those with you. It's a big problem, and it's not like there's just an easy pivot.
You can't just say, ‘well, TikTok is just the same as Facebook or X.’ They're disparate programs, platforms with disparate audiences. And for that to disappear this quickly, I think it's going to have some pretty interesting implications going forward.
Just because you understand one platform doesn't mean you can be as effective on another platform. Some people are gonna get demonetized just in general, unfortunately.
Ava White: I've been on the app for several years, I think, since it started, and I've seen several small businesses essentially blow up from the app. Can you talk a little bit about how small businesses in Alaska utilize not just TikTok, but social media overall, to boost business?
JB: In Alaska in particular, social media is such an effective and sort of low barrier entry way to market your business, to showcase your products, to connect more, sort of organically, with your clients and customers.
In the past, it was big marketing firms, smoke filled rooms, logos, branding. Today, people want to know who you are behind the business and that's not really achievable in traditional media. I think there's still a role for traditional media.
Social media is, especially if you're a small business, so much more effective, impactful and cheaper.
We're seeing, in terms of TikTok, a lot of the sort of visually impressive businesses, the tourism businesses, the food businesses, even the influencers, we have quite a few of those up here, that's a viable business model. And so for this platform to go away, it's going to have an impact on their marketing and, sort of, their ability to reach their customers.
AW: You mentioned influencers, I was interested in influencer marketing. Without TikTok, how might businesses look to market themselves instead? I know, like other social media apps do still exist, but how might they look at it going forward?
JB: I think that the answer is that things are going to get a little more difficult and they might get a little more lower tech for the near future.
One of the things that we're advising and that we're hearing from our businesses that we work with is that don't put all your eggs in one basket. It's a lot of work to manage a single social media account or even multiple social media accounts. It's even more work, but you're going to have to spread your presence over multiple platforms, just in case one of them goes under.
So having multiple channels to reach your audience. But also at the end of the day, you don't own your audience, or the right to your audience on these platforms. If they go away, there's nothing you can take with you really, whereas if you develop your own in house marketing, like it's old school, but emails, newsletters, things like that, you keep those contacts, and they really can't be taken away from you.
So, defaulting, or at least falling back a little bit on in house stuff like that, I think, will also give you a little bit more safety.
Last, but not least, it's going to start to matter where these companies are located and who owns them. So you're going to have to do a little bit more research. Like, where is this company from? Is it a company in a country that the US is or may eventually have a problem with?
Because we've seen now that we have the ability and the wherewithal to shut a company down because of basically their nationality.
AW: There are only a few days until the ban would take effect. How can small business owners that utilize the app prepare?
JB: First and foremost, you're gonna want to learn about other platforms, do your research. I think AI, chat GPT can help you out here. They can give you a comparative analysis. But if you've been leaning heavily into TikTok, figure out what it is about TikTok that really has been a benefit to you, and see what's close.
They're going to have different algorithms, different sorts of cultures, different ways of engaging people. You spend the next five days to figure out what that is, and then try to engage your TikTok audience now and tell them where you're going and push them to your new platform.
I would also try to develop your in-house email list so that you can weather the next storm a little better. And last but not least, don't just put them all into one platform.
