Millions of U.S. TikTok users are now considering saying goodbye to the viral video app that has been their source of entertainment, news, community, and even income over the past few years. The app has built empires — securing a shoe brand and reality TV slots for the D'Amelio family, and launching the careers of Lil Nas X and, most recently, Benson Boone. It also accelerated the discovery and popularity of sub-genres around the world, expanding Afrobeats and mexican music Chilean rap and Korean pop.

On January 19, the Supreme Court is expected to implement the Protecting Americans from Applications Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, or shut down Chinese platforms in the United States if TikTok owner ByteDance fails to sell by then . Despite hints of a last-minute rescue by former and incoming President Donald Trump, the platform's losses - which are far greater than those of its predecessor Vine - will create a huge gap in connectivity and revenue, affecting both its largest and smallest users. beneficiary.

Representatives from the major labels and many other music companies declined to comment, given the complexity, uncertainty and political fallout of the situation, but digital music veterans agreed.

If the ban continues, "in addition to being a blow to the independent community or small creators, established artists may be relieved to never have to make a TikTok again," said co-founder and chief creative officer Claudia Claudia, a digital marketing expert. Claudia Villarreal is the founder of social media and entertainment agency FanMade. "For us, it's an opportunity to showcase our 360-degree marketing (skills) - because, honestly, I think the app, while it's a shortcut to success, takes away some of the creativity from marketing campaigns. It actually Might be really refreshing.”

Along with her co-founder Olivia Rudensky, Villarreal has worked on campaigns for Miley Cyrus, Hailey Bieber and Zach Sang, in addition to helping promote numerous brands. They met online while running their own updates, or fan accounts, for other celebrities and musicians, and later joined forces to leverage the strategies they applied to music and product marketing as fans.

Rudensky said that in the beginning, “TikTok was all about dance challenges, lip-syncing videos — it was always just for fun. It wasn’t as serious as the route Instagram was taking at the time, which was more oriented toward business and e-commerce ”

Rudensky saw an opportunity to succeed on TikTok early in its rise: In 2019, Cyrus appeared in the Black Mirror episode "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too," playing the fictional pop star Ashley O, and Original music was released to complement the series, including an infectious track called "On a Roll."

“If done right, TikTok can generate almost as much marketing impact as a radio station,” Rudensky said. "The song was popping up in all sorts of different feeds, and its reach was unmatched by other social media platforms at the time. That's when record labels started paying attention. Miley didn't want to dance or lip-sync on TikTok Sync to promote the song, so we leveraged Ashley O's momentum by having (Cyrus) comment on TikTok. It only worked because of the nature or specificity that a viral TikTok sound provides."

While TikTok has been a major platform for discovering unknown or independent artists for five years, major record labels may view the ban differently. Not only does the platform pose a threat to more traditional gatekeepers, which the majors may find easier to control, but its negotiations over royalties, piracy and artificial intelligence have also become tense in recent months. From a record label's perspective, signing a licensing agreement with the app offers more than it needs, and TikTok has long argued that the average music consumer won't go to the platform to consume music the way they do on a DSP. When Universal Music Group removed its catalog from the app last March in an attempt to secure better pay for its artists, the negotiations were largely based on TikTok's argument that TikTok's 30-second or one-minute clips were used passively and therefore No fees should be paid to them. The same rates as streaming services like Spotify.

Despite TikTok's purported efforts to combat piracy, there is still a large amount of unlicensed music on the platform — lo-fi, slowed down and reverb mixes often escape detection — that push the boundaries of traditional music marketing strategies. This is all thanks to its addictive algorithm, which is designed to spread the content most likely to appeal to users based on their daily interactions on the app (also taking into account their gender and the ads they view). Arguably, it’s this algorithm more than any other that helps TikTok maintain its dominance in the music industry and beyond.

While many expect less dedicated TikTok users to migrate to Instagram Reels or YouTube if the ban goes ahead, those platforms are unlikely to gain the same level of attention — at least not immediately.

“No one asks, ‘What do we do on YouTube?’ No one asks, ‘What do we do on Instagram?’” Villareal said. “In the past few years, the priority has been TikTok because if you take a viral sound off TikTok, that means it has the ability to spread to Instagram, X and beyond. Without it, everyone will have to rethink their digital marketing campaigns. You have to be proficient in all applications to get the results you get with TikTok.”

Villareal and Rudensky concluded that even if the platform is effectively banned, "millions of people still believe TikTok will come back." "This may not be the end of the app."