11 Things To Do Before The Potential TikTok Ban
It’s no secret — the uncertainty around a potential TikTok ban has left many of us on edge. While we can’t predict the outcome, what we can do is prepare. For brands relying on social media, staying ahead of the curve is essential to maintaining audience engagement and achieving continued success. Read on to discover how we’re preparing our clients for the potential TikTok ban!
TIKTOK BAN STRATEGY PLAN: PLAN AHEAD & STRENGTHEN YOUR COMMUNITY
REVIEW TALENT CONTRACTS
The last thing brands want is for a previous partnership investment to disappear. As part of your strategy plan, revisit your agreements with influencers to include clauses that require them to post on alternative platforms, like IG Reels, if TikTok becomes inaccessible. This proactive measure ensures sustained reach and ROI, allowing your brand to seamlessly transition its promotional efforts without disruption.
EXPAND COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
A tactful strategy plan should emphasize building and nurturing communities across multiple platforms. We’re no strangers to the fact that enriched social media communities are beneficial in near-endless ways: it enhances your engagement rate, humanizes your brand on social media, and encourages loyal followers.
When you create these loyal followers, they’re likely to follow you across platforms — especially when one platform may be deleted. Engage with your audience on Instagram, YouTube, and emerging networks to foster a loyal following that isn't dependent on a single platform. This diversification mitigates risks associated with platform-specific disruptions and enhances overall brand resilience.
DON’T DELETE YOUR TIKTOK ACCOUNT
This step in our potential TikTok ban strategy plan may be a surprise to you. While TikTok could be banned on January 19th, it will stay active for users who already downloaded the app and created accounts. It would take much longer for the app to stop functioning on our phones, so the possibility of an active community is real. TikTok could also make a comeback in the future, however, you should leverage this time to encourage followers to follow you on other platforms with clear "Come Find Us Here" messaging!
TIKTOK BAN STRATEGY PLAN: SAVE AND REPURPOSE CONTENT
SAVE YOUR TIKTOK CONTENT
A comprehensive strategy plan is a non-negotiable for brands on social media to navigate the potential TikTok ban effectively. In a time of uncertainty, it's important we think strategically and cover our bases. We recommend beginning by downloading your entire TikTok catalog without watermarks and securely storing it on platforms like Google Drive. You can download your content without watermarks by dropping the link in SnapTik.
This ensures that your creative assets remain accessible for future use so you never lose your hard work, even if the platform goes away. Furthermore, consider posting your TikTok content across platforms as it goes live currently to get ahead of your stored content.
DON’T SHY AWAY FROM RESHARING
Now that your strategy plan has your content safely stored, optimize and repost these videos on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts to maintain engagement with your audience. Tailoring your content to fit the unique formats and audiences of these platforms can help maintain and grow your follower base while leveraging content that you've already spent time perfecting.
SECURE BRAND HANDLES
Because brand awareness is everything — ensure your strategy plan proactively reserves your brand's usernames on emerging and established platforms like BlueSky, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Twitter/X. This ensures brand consistency and prevents potential impersonation. Even if some followers lose track of you on TikTok, they'll know exactly what to search for.
GET FAMILIAR WITH YOUR AUDIENCE DATA
As social media marketers, it's crucial that we're familiar with our audience so we know who we are speaking to. When it comes to potentially losing a platform, we need to craft a strategy plan that can help us gain this audience back. This is why we recommend exporting your TikTok audience analytics. It will help guide your future content strategies, as understanding your demographics can help you develop an approach on new platforms.
STRENGTHEN YOUR OWNED CHANNELS
While social media platforms can come and go — your website is here to stay! Make sure your strategy plan includes investing in strengthened owned channels — we're talking about your website, email marketing, SMS campaigns, and CRM systems. This will help to maintain full control over your brand's communication and audience engagement, independent of social media platform uncertainties.
TIKTOK BAN STRATEGY PLAN: DIVERSIFY YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY
EXPLORE ALTERNATIVE PLATFORMS
With a potential TikTok ban emerging, you should begin leveraging alternative platforms in your strategy plan, and consider moving to new platforms while keeping up with your current TikTok profile. As we see other brands begin to cross-post on multiple social media platforms, we also see movement toward a new app. As we see influencers head to RedNote, a Chinese app with a similar interface to TikTok, we expect to see their audience follow. It has seen a major spike in downloads, reaching #1 on the App Store charts, prompting our prediction that brands will follow influencers and audiences to RedNote ahead of the potential TikTok ban.
By including a new platform, whether that be RedNote or a different app, and posting your evergreen content on multiple platforms, your strategy plan is preparing your brand for a successful transition amidst a potential TikTok ban. These developments highlight the importance of diversifying your social media presence and not relying solely on a single platform. With this, brands can continue to reach and engage their audiences, dodging the risks associated with potential platform bans or changes.
OPTIMIZE YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY
It's essential for brands on social media to develop a strategy plan that focuses on creating evergreen content that will appeal to audiences across platforms. By prioritizing timeless and universally engaging content, brands can maintain audience interest and trust, regardless of the potential TikTok ban. So — how can you ensure your content is evergreen? We’re glad you asked. You likely are familiar with your core themes already, so make sure to stick to those and re-emphasize them in content across platforms. Your content should continue to appeal to your audience’s pain points and find ways to relate, delight, and engage. This ensures that your content remains relevant and engaging over time!
LEVERAGE UGC
Now that you’ve diversified your marketing platforms and created evergreen content in your strategy plan, leverage user-generated content to further enrich your community across platforms. This is essential for brands on social media aiming to enhance community engagement and authenticity.
Encouraging your audience to create and share content related to your brand not only fosters a sense of community but also provides genuine promotional material that resonates with potential customers. An iconic UGC campaign that we can’t forget comes from Coca-Cola. They have successfully leveraged UGC through campaigns like #ShareACoke, which encouraged users to share photos with personalized Coke bottles, leading to a massive collection of UGC images. They’ve modernized this campaign with #CertifiedCoketails, where they invite Coke fans to create cocktails (or mocktails) with the iconic soda. This hashtag has gone ultra-viral on TikTok as well, earning over 26M views on some posts.
We hope this blog post has provided valuable insights into developing an all-encompassing strategy plan for your brand's social media presence, in light of the potential TikTok Ban. Want more guidance on how our agency is navigating the potential TikTok ban (and the learnings we’re applying for future strategy)? Book a consultation with our Founder & CEO here and explore our services here!
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xx,
The Homies
