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Hello from the future!… or, 9 hours into the future, anyway. I’m in Dubai right now, speaking at the 1 Billion Followers Summit! Always enjoy coming to this side of the world to chat with marketers & creators—so many cultural & preferential differences in how these folks think about content.

Meanwhile back home, social media’s burning down (as well as my home state). Everyone’s mad about the TikTok Ban, everyone’s mad at Meta’s moderation, and everyone’s mad at Twitter because Elon. I swear, sometimes the I think the social media industry hates social media more than anyone.

But hey, that just means we’ve got a lottt to cover today, like:

• How brands should handle the TikTok Ban

• Why Facebook’s moderation changes mean for brands

• Which social network brands should bet on

—Jack Appleby

What the TikTok Ban means for brands

I really never thought we’d lose another social network. Certainly never thought it’d happen over national security & data privacy concerns. But here we are, with TikTok very likely getting banned, and brands & creators alike scrambling to handle a reality we doubted would ever happen.

Will TikTok actually go down? Maybe, maybe not—I tend to think Trump will find a way to save it, since it’s a lay-up for his popularity—but I wanna focus on the contingency plans if it’s truly tick tock for TikTok.

When banned, what happens to TikTok?

It’s been hard to get a straight answer. What we know for sure:

• TikTok will be removed from App Stores. This one’s pretty universally agreed upon. No new users because none of the places to download the app will have the app anymore.

• You won’t get TikTok updates, eventually making it unusable. You get your app’s updates through the App Stores, so no more bug fixes, new features, or changes. The app will likely work fine for awhile, but should theoretically eventually become unusable for any number of reasons.

• It’s not illegal to have TikTok on your phone. The rulings are built to stop companies from providing services to TikTok, not to punish users for having TikTok. Keep on scrollin’ til you can scroll no mo’.

What should brands do before the TikTok Ban?

I put together a little checklist for ya.

• Turn off all TikTok advertising. This is definitely item 1A. Can’t spend money on a platform you can’t trust will even work. Do yourself the favor of immediately redistributing those funds across other social networks.

• Cancel all TikTok Influencer advertising. Self-explanatory, see above.

• Download every TikTok your brand has made. Those short-form TikToks have plenty viability on other short-form platforms, so if you don’t have your pre-uploaded final versions handy, use a tool to grab every TikTok you’ve uploaded. The myfaveTT Chrome Extension can download every TikTok you’ve ever made, without a watermark! SnapTik is also handy for single TikTok downloads.

• Grab your analytics. You’ve probably already gathered your numbers for your 2024 annual reports, but if you haven’t get that data in your hands. Realistically, you’re never gonna look at it again, but you never know.

Should brands keep using TikTok for now?

Yes! If your brand’s built a TikTok audience, keep posting until the lights go off.

There’s no reason to stop posting content until you literally can’t post! I don’t anticipate scrolling & traffic to drop—everyone’s too addicted, no one’s changing their habits until they have to. And hey, with the way the ban works, you might have even a few months left on TikTok after doomsday.

The bottom line: refer to your own analytics. If people are watching & engaging with the content, keep on posting. If the numbers flouder, abandon ship.

How should brands replace TikTok?

For organic content, I’m begging you, brands—get your short-form vertical content on YouTube Shorts. That platform is straight gas. Because YouTube Shorts can be up to 3 minutes in length, every TikTok and Instagram Reel you’ve ever made can be ported right over to YouTube Shorts. You also probably don’t want the entirety of your social media marketing efforts hosted on Meta platforms, so please, please, please give YouTube Shorts a try.

I wrote a how-to guide for YouTube Shorts for in a previous issue, so swing over there if you’ve got questions!

When it comes to your paid budget, I’d assume most brands weren’t running unique advertising on TikTok, so just shift those dollars to the social platform of your choice.

What does this mean for the overall social media landscape?

It’s Meta’s world, baby, and we’re all just living in it. Sure, you’ve got YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, and a handful of other social/social-adjacent platforms still competing with notable userbases, but TikTok stood next to YouTube as the biggest engagement + cultural driving competition.

Let’s make your brand a household name.

In 2024 & 2025, influencer marketing is the best way to grow your business—if you do it right. Do it wrong and it’s a great way to waste money fast. To succeed, you need the right creators (for you), an expert-led creative strategy, and seamless execution of all the moving parts involved in a campaign. That’s where Ubiquitous comes in. We run full-service, end-to-end influencer marketing campaigns with white glove service for brands like Crocs, Lyft, and GNC. We handle it all—you just grow.

Talk to an expert

What Facebook’s moderation, throttled topics, and fact-checking changes mean for brands

Sorry for the jump scare, I know that’s a Big Zuck.

But honestly? Your brand doesn't need to worry at all about Meta’s announcements on removing third party fact-checking, adding Community Notes, and lifting restrictions on previously throttled topics like politics. I genuinely don't think you need to make any tactical changes to your social strategy, staffing, or responsibilities based on Zuckerberg's new moves, mostly because this won't have any effect on brands or the followers or brands.

Sure, the cautious move would be to increase community management staffing or social listening—more reports, a closer watch on your brand's content as well as the world's content. But I can't in good faith suggest you shift around your already finite social budget in those directions from these Meta policy shifts. I'd stay exactly where you're at, with my evergreen recommendation to be dumping as much of your budgets into content creation as possible, because nothing will ever matter more to your brand than making great content.

These changes will affect what content users see on the feed! Things will naturally get a little hotter with more political content getting through the gates! But that's not gonna affect brands, or the brand content you make, or how people reply to your brand content—these changes just don't really have anything to do with brands.

If you wanna dip your toe into posting on LinkedIn, I’ve got a program for you.

My first $100,000 newsletter sponsor came from an organic LinkedIn post. My last 3 jobs before becoming a writer? All started in DMs. And all of that happened simply because I was willing to share my thoughts on LinkedIn.

So, I built a little tool to help you dip your toe into personal branding on LinkedIn!

Welcome to Break An Egg 🐣. For just $5/month, you’ll get:

• 30 LinkedIn prompts designed to mine your experience for content

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• A community of 1000+ other BAEs who help each other!

You can sign up right here. Cheaper than a latte. I’m keeping it at this $5/month offer until the end of the month, then things are gonna go up a dollar or two! (you’ll be grandfathered in if you grab it now!)