I have a confession to make: I’ve never really understood influencers.
Arguably, it’s never been easier to be one, though. There are, after all, such a plethora of social media platforms that can enable someone to sell their lifestyle to viewers or readers who are looking for what they’re saying. In some ways, that’s a good thing, in other ways not so much. Still, the Internet was seen a great equalizer, and this is one of the many ways in which it has enabled entrepreneurial users to start businesses and, in many cases, make a living.
When Congress passed a law last week to effectively ban the social media platform TikTok for national security reasons unless it was sold to a U.S. based company, there was an uproar from its user base. I’ve heard more than one story of successful media creators who got their start on TikTok, or for whom it is their primary platform. Regardless of how you stand politically on the issue, it’s difficult to not be sympathetic to someone who has potentially had their business model interrupted abruptly by outside forces.
I haven’t been much of a social media user for the past few years. My Facebook and Twitter accounts were deleted long ago, and my Mastodon was an experiment to which I rarely return. I left these platforms for a couple of reasons: data privacy concerns, and the feeling that they were generally just becoming rough neighborhoods. The toxicity of the conversation was overwhelming to me. So, LinkedIn is the really the only social media platform on which I can be found.
What made that decision easier for me to make, though, was that my content and income didn’t rely on them. I have my own blogs on my own sites, which I manage myself. I can move them if I want. They’re mine. I’m not renting…I own the house.
So, as much sympathy as I feel for media creators who are potentially about to be uprooted if TikTok is, in fact, banned, I also feel like it’s an important warning to those of us who make our living on the web. When content creation on the web was truly democratized, it took the form of everyone having their own sites and blogs. Businesses, likewise, began to stake out their own presence on the web. Social media came much later, and managed to change how people viewed the web in such a way that users felt that social media platforms were sufficient. The issue with that view for the user is lock-in. When a media creator is at the mercy of a platform that they don’t control, then what is happening now with TikTok is always a risk. The solution is to have your own site, build your own following with your content. There are a lot of tools that make this easy, and that allow data portability. Yes, it’s a bit more work to market yourself, but at the end of the day, you’re in control.
Incidentally, that also puts you in control of your content, and not the in the position that I’ve heard numerous YouTube creators complain of: that of having to play to the algorithm.
There is a lot of debate about the harm that social media has caused society, and I think that this is a hidden impact that we haven’t thought enough about. Most business owners would find it a questionable proposition to tie their business model to a system that they cannot control. That is no different in the digital world than it would be in the brick-and-mortar world, and the potential ban of TikTok is demonstrating the harsh reality of that risk.