TikTok's murky future threatens stability for small businesses across Alabama
AI-assisted summary
The future of TikTok in the U.S. is uncertain due to a ban imposed out of national security concerns, causing anxiety for small business owners who rely on the platform for low-cost advertising.
Owners of small businesses in Alabama statewide found entrepreneurial success by promoting their businesses on TikTok.
TikTok's unique algorithm and accessibility have helped many small businesses reach a wider audience and increase sales.
If you had told a younger Joshua Miller he'd own a coffee shop in his hometown of Opelika, Alabama, where he could talk ghost stories with patrons on the daily, he would have never believed you.
But now, on top of normal coffee shop duties, Miller has to figure out new ways to market his business, as TikTok — the platform that helped Miller's shop take off — runs in the United States on borrowed time.
In 2023, Miller and his wife purchased what is now the aptly named The Coffee Shop. It was a coffee shop before, but the change in ownership scared off some patrons who were unsure if the quality of the coffee would change. Gradually, Miller and his wife learned coffee-making, and people came in, but progress was slow.
That was, until Miller posted The Coffee Shop on his TikTok page dedicated to sharing ghost stories and Alabama folklore. After that, Miller said the traffic in his coffee shop went up by "at least 20%," and that "people who live around the corner who never even knew we were here came in, saying they saw us on TikTok."
Miller's finding of TikTok-fueled entrepreneurial success is not unique. Just a 20-minute scroll through the app's For You Page will show users a number of small businesses that hail from around the country promoting restocks of products that sold out online after their content went viral, with some businesses barely being able to keep up with the popularity their merchandise accrues. Recent data from Oxford Economic, collected in collaboration with TikTok itself, reports that 45% — nearly half — of small-to-mid-sized business owners in the state of Alabama consider the platform critical to their success.
The numbers — $260 million contributed to Alabama's gross domestic product and the 2,800 jobs supported by small businesses' usage of TikTok — don't lie. Creators on the app say TikTok has offered them unprecedented growth in a way no other platform does.
While the future of TikTok in the U.S. hangs in uncertainty, small business owners on the app fear that the unique exposure, opportunities for growth and stability they've found are under threat, along with the economic stimulation — both on a statewide and nationwide level — the platform provides annually.
More:The Coffee Shop on Joshua Miller's TikTok
What makes TikTok tick?
TikTok as a platform is unique because of how pointedly its algorithm works. Digital media expert and University of Alabama professor Jessica Maddox described the platform's algorithm as "scarily accurate," in that though we don't know exactly how it's programed, but it gauges user interest through several metrics to create a "very tailored, very specifically focused online experience."
Along with "guaranteeing" every post at least 100-200 views, the accessibility the app provides is crucial.
"You had to have a high degree of technical expertise, know editing software like Adobe Premier Pro or Final Cut, and how to do lighting and audio to be successful on YouTube," Maddox said. "But TikTok takes all of that technical expertise and collapses it into one in-app editing interface ... and so that lowers that barrier to entry and content creation."
These features, Maddox said, are essential to what makes TikTok a platform where it's "easier to be successful."
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Many small-to-mid-sized businesses enjoy a higher level of success than they may have organically generated without utilizing the features on TikTok.
Jessica Simon, owner of Mississippi Candle Company, is currently based in Foley, Alabama. She said that when her business — which began as a hobby to ease the grief of the death of her dog — took off on TikTok, her revenue "grew over 600%."
"Within a week of doing all the things they tell you to do, I went viral on TikTok. Saying that my business changed our life overnight is an understatement," Simon said. "My husband was able to quit his job as a machinist to work for our small business full time, and with the cash we generated from TikTok, we were able to build a house here in Alabama and a warehouse."
Simon isn't the only one. In Alabama, 85% of small-to-mid-sized business owners say that their sales increased after promoting themselves on the platform, and 78% of them say they sold out of a product that gained traction on the app.
Beyond higher access to purchasing their goods, 62% of small-to-mid-sized businesses say that the platform has helped them reach audiences they may have never had access to otherwise.
More:Mississippi Candle Co. on TikTok
"Who's to say we would have had this many people in our shop every day?" Miller said. "We'd have to work a lot harder without TikTok to get people in. I've made strong bonds from business owner to customer, from person to person. It's impacted business for sure ... people come from 100 miles away, from states away, even, just to come to the shop. People every day tell me they came in here specifically because of TikTok."
Miller said that TikTok's value also comes in the form of advertising that feels more genuine and costs nothing monetarily.
"Without TikTok, we would have had to go traditional ways, but TikTok cut out that middleman — the money, advertising budget aspect — and allowed us to just be," Miller said. "We could be us in our truest form, no bells, no whistles, just, 'Here's my shop, take a look at it.'"
Simon highlighted that TikTok's lack of monetary barrier is crucial for small businesses, especially because of how other platforms differ.
"With Facebook and Instagram, you can't grow organically, you have to pay to play," Simon said. "You don't just pop up on people's screens like you do on TikTok. With Meta, you can't even pay $100 a day to be seen, it takes hundreds of thousands to compete with big business, which just isn't possible for small businesses."
Additionally, Simon said the stability and growth she's found from TikTok has enabled her to provide employment to people who have struggled to find work in traditional settings.
"One of my staff members told me upfront when she applied that she was pregnant, which wasn't a problem, because we know there's moms out there that need to work," Simon said. "She told me that she had applied to 30 jobs, and we were the only ones to give her a call back. We were able to provide her with something stable because of the income we generate from TikTok."
Is TikTok getting banned? It's not that simple.
As of now, the future of TikTok is uncertain. President Donald Trump issued an executive order within hours of being in office that delayed enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — which former-President Joe Biden signed in spring of 2024 — for 75 days while the government looks to broker a deal with a U.S.-based buyer for TikTok's U.S. operations.
There are several buyers that have been publicly floated. Business Insider reported that Trump himself has said he would be open to tech mogul Elon Musk buying it "if he wanted to," or that he'd "like Larry [Ellison, CEO of software company Oracle] to buy it, too." Jimmy Donaldson, better known as his online moniker Mr. Beast, has also expressed interest publicly on TikTok in buying the platform.
Some experts say that they don't think it's likely ByteDance, the parent company that owns TikTok, will sell the platform with the algorithm, but Maddox says it's still possible a deal could include the algorithm.
"President Trump has indicated that he would like a 50/50 sale, almost like co-ownership, and if that ends up being the case, that likely means the algorithm is safe," Maddox said. "Given [TikTok CEO] Shou Chew's meetings with Trump, I do believe that in that sort of deal, he'd still be involved."
Overall, though, Maddox emphasized that the situation is murky at best.
"The range of possible buyers indicate the fickleness and precariousness of the situation, we don't know what will happen in the next 70-ish days," Maddox said.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act made TikTok's distribution illegal in the U.S. as ByteDance failed to sell the platform by Jan. 19. U.S. service on the app went dark for about 12 hours starting the night of Jan. 18, and though Trump's executive order has allowed TikTok to operate again, the app remains unavailable to download on the Apple App Store and Google Play store.
Talk of banning TikTok goes as far back as Trump himself in 2019 issuing a national emergency on the basis of "foreign adversaries" using technology and services to "exploit vulnerabilities in information." Biden upheld this view in a 2021 executive order, and in 2022, signed a bill prohibiting TikTok on government devices, which Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey also introduced at the Alabama state level that same year.
Where do we go from here?
While casual users still enjoy service on the TikTok app under Trump's executive order delaying the enforcement of the law, business owners worry.
Simon said she's preemptively opened Amazon and Walmart accounts, revamped her Etsy and Meta sites, but none of those create the number of sales that her TikTok shop did. She also had to stop construction on her house and a second warehouse for her business until TikTok's fate is sorted. Miller said his plan is to keep getting his business out by word of mouth and thinking creatively.
All in all, Maddox said she thinks small business owners will come out okay, even if TikTok does go and no other platforms can quite replicate it.
"These are resilient people, because they have to be," Maddox said. "This situation is an undue burden for people who have made their livelihoods this way, especially for small business owners who really are just trying to do right by their families or employees or the communities they operate in. But even with this undue burden, they will find ways to succeed."
Sarah Clifton covers business for the Montgomery Advertiser. You can reach her at sclifton@montgome.gannett.com or follow her on X @sarahgclifton.
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