But RedNote’s long-term potential in the U.S. is uncertain, and the app seems more like a fad for TikTok users frustrated by U.S. attempts to ban TikTok. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of a law passed last year that would force China-based ByteDance to divest from TikTok—or risk the app being blocked on Jan. 19. TikTok has been in jeopardy before in the U.S., and moments of peril typically send social media users looking for new apps that ultimately have fleeting moments atop the app charts.
“RedNote seems like a ‘spite’ move as opposed to true engagement,” said Navah Hopkins, specialist and public evangelist at Optmyzr, a digital marketing platform. The influx of U.S. transplants onto RedNote is a statement from disgruntled TikTok users, rather than a lasting migration, Hopkins said. The usual top platforms—YouTube Shorts, Meta Reels, Amazon’s connected TV—stand to gain the most, Hopkins said.
“It will be easy for Google to pick up that business, especially with how well they’ve integrated e-commerce into the platform,” Hopkins told Ad Age, referring to YouTube Shorts. “Amazon gets a nod because of the huge infrastructure investments they’ve made on enabling smaller brands to monetize through video as well as their Twitch channel.”
Still, the rise and fall of niche apps during this moment of crisis for TikTok is an important one. Brands and creators have become reliant on TikTok, which has 170 million users in the U.S. and a unique hold on Gen Z’s media consumption. TikTok has also transformed social commerce, helping products achieve virality and generate sales. If TikTok can maintain its operations in the U.S., it stands to generate about $11.2 billion in the U.S. this year, an 11% increase from 2024, according to WARC, the marketing data and analytics firm, which shared TikTok ad estimates with Ad Age. Brand and social media managers are having serious conversations this week about where to invest all that money if TikTok is ultimately banned.
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Meanwhile, platforms, new and established, are vying for the TikTok mantle, trying to make the most of any disruption to the popular rival. This week, Triller, the video app, re-emerged to make an appeal to TikTokers. Flip, a social commerce app, rose in rankings, as did the short-form video app Clapper. TikTok sister app Lemon8 app also was trending. On Tuesday, Substack, the creator and blogging monetization platform, attempted to capture potential TikTok castoffs, explaining how it has expanded livestreaming video and detailing how creators could migrate to the platform.
Should the TikTok ban take effect, the platforms that attract the most creators will also determine which of these emergent platforms, if any, pull in the largest number of new users, said Holly Jackson, VP of influencer marketing innovation and insights at Traackr, the influencer marketing platform. Roughly three in five (61%) of Gen Z and millennial U.S. consumers said they would explore a new social platform if “an influencer they know and trust” begins posting, according to Traackr’s 2025 Influencer Marketing Impact Report.
“It’s not out of the question for other platforms [beyond Instagram and YouTube] to rise up quickly, because audiences follow people, not necessarily the platforms,” Jackson said. “As much as the platform matters, the connection between creator and audience matters more.”
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Some creators have already begun setting up new accounts on these trending platforms. On Monday, Sarah Schauer, a comedy creator and podcaster who got her start on the now-defunct social media platform Vine, directed her 2.1 million TikTok followers to her newly launched RedNote account. She plans to use the platform alongside Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts to promote the upcoming launch of her new podcast “Schauer Thoughts” over the next few weeks, she told Ad Age.
Unlike the shut-down Vine, where the six-second video limit made it hard to build a fan community, the TikTok ban would rock the large community Schauer has established on the platform, she said.
“If TikTok were to end, I would be devastated because of the loss of community and information,” she said. “But what I would also be excited to see is the total transformation of the cultures of other social media apps. When Vine ended, it switched up the content of YouTube and Instagram. It really changed the cultural landscape of all the other platforms.”