One of the fastest-growing social media platforms in history, TikTok is a creative, collaborative, and engaging environment that reaches a large audience and is gaining attention from marketers across all industries. Masu.
But President Joe Biden just signed a bill that could prevent TikTok from operating in the U.S. unless its Chinese parent ByteDance sells it to a U.S.-based company by July. This could impact 5 million businesses and 150 million Americans who are at risk of losing access to the popular social media platform.
Global brands are recognizing the importance of TikTok as a key way to reach and engage with their audiences, encourage user-generated content, and partner with relevant influencers. Duolingo, McDonald's, and Stanley are just a few examples of companies that have successfully used TikTok to grow their audiences and create viral content that drives multi-generational engagement and brand affinity.
Will TikTok disappear, at least from the US? Time will tell. But this new law reminds us of the benefits of platforms and warns us about the risks of over-reliance on uncontrolled third-party platforms to connect with your audience. This is a lesson in protecting your marketing strategy from unforeseen circumstances.
Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter (now X) showed how a single disruption, such as a change in leadership, can have a huge impact on a platform.
In addition to the name and logo change, Musk also made a series of sweeping changes to the app that caused UX issues, outages, and an exodus of users and advertisers. Musk recently hinted that X may start charging new users for their posts.
In March, the business networking site LinkedIn experienced an outage. An error page appeared when trying to access the Microsoft-owned platform. Just one day ago, about 2.4 million of his Facebook users had the same experience. Later that month, more than 5,000 Instagram users panicked as the platform went down for several hours.
As for TikTok, a ban has already begun in the United States, and federal employees and contractors will not be allowed to use it on any devices that access government information starting in 2023.
What about take-home? Brands do not control social media platforms. They are simply using them as intermediaries between them and their viewers. There is always a risk of losing branded content and social media visibility.
Let's dig deeper: What marketers can do the next time a major social network goes down
Without a doubt, social media platforms are extremely powerful marketing tools that can increase brand awareness and reach a wider range of consumers. Social media offers brands a quick and free way to post regular content updates and connect with consumers throughout their journey.
However, as a managed asset, social media platforms ultimately cannot be completely controlled and are subject to vulnerabilities such as:
- Leadership impulse.
- Financial hardship and failure.
- Market trend.
- law.
- Other external unknowns.
Social media platforms can ban, restrict, and penalize your company at any time, and they don't even need a reason (otherwise the AI can get a little confusing). Not to mention the risk that certain platforms will simply disappear. MySpace, Vine, Friendster, to name a few.
Considering the possibility of a TikTok ban and other social media issues, marketers are understandably giving pause. But brands need a social media presence because these third-party platforms are definitely better at connecting with consumers. Both can (and should) be true at the same time. Marketers must intentionally use these managed assets as part of a diverse mix of more controllable assets.
Brands must ask themselves how much of their marketing budget, capital, and effort would be blown away if they lost access to a single channel. Next, you must work to mitigate these potential losses.
Let's dig deeper: A forward-looking martech strategy against macro forces
Lesson: Brands need to prioritize owned assets
After all, social media platforms are just one channel among many. To minimize marketing expense and resource risk, it's important not to spend too many resources on a small number of uncontrolled channels. Instead, invest in assets you own, such as websites, white papers, blogs, and branding.
In this way, you can extend your span of control, diversify your assets beyond managed and leveraged channels, and optimize to meet consumers where they are. You can also use assets you own to influence emotions across areas that are less controllable.
Asset optimization transforms traditional channel-first marketing into well-supported and coordinated campaigns. This introduces control over a brand's asset mix, builds a digital ecosystem, and creates more direct consumer touchpoints for authentic connections.
Brands need to own their stories as authoritative storytellers. By prioritizing owned assets and using third-party channels to amplify core messages, brands can survive anything that comes their way, including social media bans.
Let's dig deeper: How to turn your brand into a performance publisher
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.
