What To Learn From The TikTok Mess

This week, we witnessed a pathetic display of dysfunction in the US government, where both parties - which typically can't agree on anything - initially united on banning TikTok. Then suddenly, both sides decided the platform should have more time to operate, despite claiming it poses an 'imminent national security threat.' If those two sentences bored you more than anything I've ever written: 1) I don't blame you, and 2) I promise that's the end of that discussion. What I want to focus on this week is what you should be doing to weather this storm, since it sadly isn't over. We're terminally ruled by fickle, cranky senior citizens who throw tantrums, and based on Trump's comments on Tuesday, it seems he could turn on TikTok at any moment.

Always Be Cross-Posting

If there's one lesson musicians should have learned - at least from MySpace's death, if not from Facebook's transformation from the most important music promotion platform to a boomer playground of broken-brained misinformation memes - it's that you need to constantly remind fans who follow you on one platform about your posts on other platforms. We have to remember that fans often go through their own disillusionment with platforms (maybe their parent recently joined, they don't want to see an ex, or they just want to be less online) or may simply want to see more of your content. This means cross-posting screenshots of X/BlueSky/Threads posts to stories, reposting Instagram comments to TikTok stories and vice versa, and of course making sure you alternate links between Spotify and YouTube.

Owned Channels

I know this is one of the most boring things we marketing people talk about, and many of you think it's out of touch until you see the results: trading an unreleased alternate version, cover song, vault of demos, remixes, or whatever for a fan's email or SMS number is one of the most valuable tactics you can employ. I wrote about Tribly.FM recently which I think is the best tool for this job I have ever seen. Owning your audience and having access to addresses that largely stay stagnant for years to come proves valuable both in increasing sales profits and in the ability to quickly message fans to follow you on a new channel when a platform dies. Including buttons in every message to follow you on your various channels can really help diversify your follows and ensure you're reaching as many fans as possible with each post.

Hopefully, this storm simply dies down, but I grow less confident each day. A sad political reality is that President Trump has a long history of being volatile in his relationships, so counting on this 'saving' of TikTok to stick is not the safest bet. I would start cross-posting today, get a valuable trade for emails and texts setup and make sure you're spreading your fans across as many platforms as possible.