SPRINGFIELD — The impending ban on TikTok has local small businesses rethinking their marketing tactics.
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News Center 7′s Malik Patterson speaks with workers from Coffee Expressions, a local coffee shop that used TikTok to grow their audience around the Miami Valley.
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“Personally, I feel as though by banning the app, it’s shutting down a lot of possibilities and a lot of revenue for us and other businesses,” Liv Farmer, a shift supervisor at Coffee Expressions, said.
Coffee Expressions started making TikToks after the Covid-19 pandemic, as businesses were working to rebuild their consistent customer bases.
It started out as an experiment, just something to try, Jessica Steele, a manager at Coffee Expressions, said. But it grew from there.
“It allows businesses who maybe don’t have much of a marketing budget to edit these videos and make posts for free,” Steele said.
Friday, the US Supreme Court decided to uphold its ruling to ban the app, citing national security concerns. The ban is set to go into effect Monday.
People who use the app daily, like Farmer, have questions about the ruling and want the app to stay.
“[It] treads in the area where it’s infringing on our freedom of speech and our freedom of being able to express our thoughts and be able to market as well,” Farmer said.
Businesses like Coffee Expressions are working on transitioning their content to other platforms, like Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, but creators say it isn’t the same.
“It’s more an unserious form of content on TikTok, because we can be a little bit more humorous and kind of connect with our customers,” Farmer said.
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