The US Supreme Court has backed the ban of TikTok, meaning the app will be shut down in the United States on Sunday (19 January).
This comes after Chinese owner ByteDance was ordered to sell TikTok to a US buyer last April, after concerns over national security and the potential spread of propaganda and disinformation.
The app has more than 170 million users in the US, with brands investing large sums of money. Ad spend in the US during Q3 of last year alone was $2.17bn, with spend projected to be $4.17bn in Q4 2026, according to WARC, meaning TikTok stands to lose billions.
However, President-elect Donald Trump could overturn the ban when he takes office on Monday (20 January). He has previously said he will back the app and will have the option to advise the justice department to drop the law.
Impact on creators
Experts acknowledge the significant blow TikTok’s ban in the US could have to the creator economy.
Scott Guthrie, director general of the Influencer Marketing Trade Body, tells Marketing Week he sees the ban as having a knock-on effect on the UK creator economy, but says creators are taking steps to mitigate the fallout.
“A ban would impact many UK creators, potentially culling 30-40% of their views at a stroke. But creators are resilient and are already diversifying their revenue streams,” he says, as creators have already moved to the likes of RedNote, Reels and YouTube Shorts.
He says going forward “advertisers need to know where their key audiences are and where they’re migrating to”.
“The ‘TikTokification’ of social media is bigger than TikTok,” he adds. “Many other platforms have aped TikTok’s features. Advertisers need to follow wherever their communities head and join the conversation there.”
Thomas Walters, Europe CEO and co-founder of Billion Dollar Boy, tells Marketing Week the ban will have an “immediate impact”, and marketers will need to rethink “how they cast creators and are integrating their creator content with the creators that will be impacted more meaningfully into their paid media plans”.
“Creators in the UK have a relatively large proportion of their followers from the US. As a result, there will likely be a hit on organic performance across brands and creators if they’ve got large followings in the US market.”
He says he doesn’t see engagement in TikTok overall decreasing as the app is “well loved”. He adds: “TikTok has been preparing for this for some time now”, and has been “seeking to protect itself”, indicated through “generating revenue from formats that aren’t as reliant on advertisers” such as TikTok Shop and TikTok Live.
In terms of where brands and creators may migrate, he agrees with Guthrie and sees Instagram Reels as benefitting due to being “the most similar experience to TikTok”. He also thinks YouTube Shorts will benefit.
Closer to home, he notes that this could be an opportunity for “potentially far greater audiences for UK brands”.
“If you think about going global and filling the void left by American creator content, there’s real potential – as much as there is a risk,” Walters concludes.
‘Disruptive’
Forrester’s principal analyst Kelsey Chickering agrees a ban will be “incredibly disruptive” to the influencer and creator community, and sees it as a “reminder that social media platforms can come and go, and diversified content distribution is critical”.
“It’s where over a million creators have invested in making content and amassing a following that many of them have effectively monetised. If access to TikTok simply disappears, they will have to pivot and rebuild their followings, equity, and content on other platforms – likely Instagram and YouTube,” she says.
She advises advertisers to “pull out their contingency plans for both their paid media dollars that were planned for TikTok and creator partnerships”.
“In the longer term, they may need to revisit the mix of creators they work with to ensure they have partnerships with creators best suited for this new social media landscape,” she adds, saying that Meta and Google will have “a lot to gain” if the ban stands.
Forrester’s research on US TikTok users last month found that 56% would use Instagram Reels more if TikTok gets banned, and 51% would turn to YouTube shorts. It also reports that CMOs would divert their media dollars to Meta and Google.
