TikTok creators lament ‘overnight’ success app

For online sensation Erica Thompson, TikTok is the most powerful social media platform to teach her 11 million followers about the love of her life: bees.

The loss of the platform in the United States – which is more likely after the Supreme Court upholds a ban due next week – would be financially “beneficial” for Texas beekeeper Ms Thompson, but it would also be a loss. Educational tool.

“There are a lot of people on the platform who provide educational content or informative content,” she told the BBC. “That’s the biggest loss and that’s what needs to be addressed. Financially, it’s a loss that we as a community – people who use Tik Tok – definitely feel.”

Some 170 million Americans use the app and website. The platform is set to go dark in the United States on Sunday unless China-based parent company ByteDance sells the platform or intervenes from the executive.

The social media giant’s fate rests in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court after both Democratic and Republican lawmakers voted to ban the video-sharing app last year over concerns about its ties to the Chinese government and fears the app posed a national security threat.

TikTok has repeatedly said it does not share data with Beijing.

But users and content creators say the social media platform has stood out in the community — and regular users have helped it stand out with millions of followers. It has quickly become the social media of choice for some and a key source of income for others.

Now they worry about what will happen if the ban is not lifted.

Creators who make a living from social media apps have told the BBC that TikTok is a superior platform.

That was true for Ms. Thompon, whose first TikTok video garnered more than 50 million views in the first 24 hours after it was posted.

“I haven’t had the same success on other platforms,” ​​she says. “For example, I can post the same video on Instagram and not even get close to the engagement.”

Ross Smith, who shares funny videos with his 98-year-old grandmother to more than 24 million followers on TikTok, says it’s one of the few platforms where it’s easy to be creative.

On Tik Tok, he said, “You can be an overnight success.”

Other platforms that have tried to replicate the short-form scrolling format offered on TikTok have not yet met with success, Mr Smith told the BBC. Mrs. Thompson agreed.

“I’ve never heard of people going viral on Instagram or someone being an Instagram sensation, but those are the words you hear over and over again on TikTok,” Ms Thompson said.

Cody James, a fashion influencer with tens of thousands of followers on TikTok, told the BBC that viewers don’t necessarily have to transfer from one platform to another.

“I know someone who has hundreds of thousands of TikTok followers and maybe ten thousand Instagram followers,” Mr James told the BBC.

Many content creators survive on Tik Tok earnings.

Some told the BBC their lives would change too much without the platform.

When brands and companies want advertising content from creators, they want those creators to post on TikTok, fashion designer and artist Nicole Bluegarden told the BBC.

“Indirectly, TikTok was the majority of my income because all the brands wanted their stuff advertised on the app,” Ms Bluegarden said.

It is not statistically clear if TikTok is the most profitable source of income for creators, but many have told the BBC that it accounts for the majority of their income.

2022 survey of startups focused on creativity Linktreefound that 12% of full-time creatives earn more than $50,000 per year from social media platforms.

A survey of 9,500 people found that 46 percent reported making less than $1,000.

This isn’t the first time a major social media platform has gone down.

In the year In 2017, Vine — a platform where users could share video clips of up to six seconds — shut down.

It was a shock to creators at the time.

Q Park, a content creator with 37.7 million followers on TikTok, was one such person.

He spent years building a following on Vine — the only platform he was using at the time — and when it disappeared, he says, “I felt like my whole business was closed.”

But in some ways it was good for him too. It forced him to learn how to create different content for different audiences.

“That experience showed me that if you have confidence in your ability to create content, you will build a following elsewhere,” Mr Park told the BBC.

As the ban loomed, some creators began flocking to other Chinese platforms; RedNote – a popular TikTok competitor among young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking nations.

RedNote was the most downloaded app on Apple’s US App Store earlier this week.

Some creators are diversifying where they post in hopes of growing audiences elsewhere, while others hope the ban won’t work.

“TikTok is a beast,” Park said. “I think part of me is that it’s probably too big to fail.”

“Somehow it will rise again, now it’s a very big economy.”

Additional reporting from Grace Dean and Natalie Jimenez.