TikTok’s decision to voluntarily go offline Saturday, even though the Biden administration said it wouldn’t enforce the ban, caused many creators to lose trust in the platform, said Lindsey Lugrin, founder and CEO of creator pay transparency platform F*** You Pay Me (FYPM).
Creators “are taking this as a threat and an insult,” she said. “They don’t appreciate it, and they don’t trust that the new president or the [social] platforms care about them or respect them. But the problem is they don’t have anywhere else to go. Because most creators monetize via brand deals, and they have to go where the advertisers are going, and that’s the major [social] platforms.”
Also read: TikTok ad spend resumes—but brands are hesistant after shutdown
To be sure, TikTok’s future remains unclear: On Monday, Trump directed his Justice Department to pause enforcement of the law for 75 days until the administration determines “the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown” of TikTok. The law requires Chinese-owned ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S.-approved company.
Last year, TikTok overtook rival platforms as the most-used social channel for influencer marketing, with 69% of brands leveraging it, according to Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2024 Benchmark Report. Just under half (47%) of brands reported using Instagram, the second-most popular platform for influencer marketing, according to the report. Creators can typically negotiate higher rates for their sponsored TikTok content than their Instagram collaborations, too, as many have amassed larger audiences on TikTok than Instagram.
For instance, Danisha Carter, a creator whose content revolves around political and social commentary, has garnered 161,000 followers on Instagram compared to roughly 2 million on TikTok, despite having had her Instagram account for twice as long as her TikTok account, she told Ad Age.
But her income from brand partnerships is currently in jeopardy on TikTok, too—and not just because of the ongoing threat of the platform shutting down again. TikTok banned Carter’s account while it was shut down over the weekend and, as of today, has yet to inform her why her account was suspended, she said. She’s been posting on her backup TikTok account, where she has over 254,000 followers, in the interim.