The majority of US TikTok creators don't believe the platform will be banned within a year, and most haven't seen the brands they work for divert their marketing budgets away from the app, according to a new survey of TikTok creators. people who make money by publishing posts. content on TikTok shared exclusively with WIRED.
The results suggest that TikTok's influencer economy is not experiencing existential dread after Congress. passed a law last month which jeopardized the future of the app's US operations. The bill requires TikTok to split from its Chinese parent company within a year, or face a nationwide ban; TikTok is difficult the constitutionality of the measure before the court.
Fohr, a influencer marketing platform which connects creators with customers for sponsored content, surveyed U.S.-based TikTok creators on its platform with at least 10,000 followers. It received 200 responses, half of which were from people who rely on influencing as their sole source of income. Of those surveyed, 62% said they did not think TikTok would be banned by 2025, while the remaining 38% said they thought it would.
Some creators may be skeptical that a ban is real after watching Trump's White House And Congress has tried and failed repeatedly to crack down on TikTok over the past few years. The platform has so far only continued to grow most popular in the United States, spark alarm in Silicon Valley facing the threat posed by its competition. It is also possible that TikTok will be sold to a group of American investors…several interested bidders have come forward– even though TikTok has made it clear that such an acquisition would be virtually impossible.
Some creators simply find it hard to believe the bizarre situation their favorite app finds itself in. “I'm in denial, because I think the ban on TikTok is ridiculous,” an anonymous creator told Fohr as part of its investigation. “I think our government has much bigger concerns than banning a platform where people are allowed to express their views and opinions.”
Most creators said they haven't lost business from brands that pay for marketing content on TikTok since the new law was signed: 83% of influencers who responded said their sponsorships didn't. were not affected. But others have seen signs of brands pulling back from the app or at least diversifying their marketing. About 7% said a brand had paused or canceled a campaign they were working on, and 8% said a brand had asked to move a deliverable to another social media platform or at least inquired about such a change.
Businesses may be reluctant to abandon TikTok because it has become one of the most popular ways for consumers to discover new products, especially those from small enterprises. Over the past year, TikTok has attempted to leverage this influence to create a new revenue stream through an e-commerce feature called TikTok Shop. On 11 percent of U.S. households have made a purchase through TikTok Shop since September 2023, according to credit card transaction data released in April by research firm Earnest Analytics.
It doesn't appear that the passage of the divestment bill last month has caused people to spend significantly less time on TikTok or avoid the app altogether. The platform's popularity in US app stores has remained largely consistent over the past month, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Fohr found that 60% of creators said their video views stayed the same, 28% said they saw them drop, and 10% said their engagement increased. These changes could simply be caused by routine changes TikTok makes to its algorithm, variability in content shared by influencers, or the whims of users consuming videos.
The rise of TikTok has prompted US tech giants to imitate many of its features, with Google's YouTube pushes its Shorts format And Meta's Instagram launches Reels. Fohr's survey suggests that if creators start leaving TikTok due to uncertainty about the app's future or a ban, Instagram will benefit the most. A clear majority of creators (67%) said they considered YouTube the best alternative for growing their audience, while 22% cited YouTube. Only a small fraction pointed the finger at Snapchat, Pinterest and other platforms.
Several creators, however, said it's harder to gain traction on Instagram than on TikTok, and one noted that Meta's platform doesn't offer anything like TikTok's creativity program. , which pays users based on view counts and other engagement metrics. videos receive.
On social platforms, the most common way for creators to get paid is to sign deals with brands to publish posts featuring their products. But Fohr's survey also showed the growth of a new monetization program called the TikTok Creative Challenge, which the app launched last year. It allows businesses to post requests inviting creators to make marketing videos that brands can then use on their own channels. Influencers are paid based on how their video performs in terms of views and engagement.
In Fohr's survey, this type of content, known as UGC, represented TikTok's largest source of revenue for 18% of creators. Whatever happens to TikTok in the United States, history suggests that its American competitors may not be long before launching their own user-generated content initiatives.