“Honey, did you see this!?”
My wife slid her phone across the dining room table, right off the edge into my lap.
“Smooth,” I said, glancing down at the screen.
Groaning, I grabbed her phone and read the Twitter post out loud:
“In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.”
I stopped, looking up at my wife. “What SMALL business owners are they talking about? I don’t think selling pictures of your feet counts as ‘small business owners,’ does it?”
“Do people do that on TikTok?” she grimaced.
🤢
I have no clue what people do on TikTok, because the app only survived on my phone for 9.5 seconds.
Like many of the ‘small business owners’ TikTok championed above, I thought it would be great for reaching new customers.
It’s what ‘the youth’ are doing.
But after opening TikTok for the first time and IMMEDIATELY being assaulted by an autoplaying video of some 19 year-old huffing glue to a sped-up remix of Mamushi, or whatever people do on there, I banished that shizz like a poltergeist.
Look, I’m sure right after TikTok came back online, approximately 7 trillion Gen Z-ers went down to Dirty Dan’s Tattoo Emporium and blasted “DJT” or #47 onto their shoulder in Olde English font.
(Probably while crying.)
For worse or worse, TikTok is back, baby.
But here’s the thing…
All these apps, networks and platforms…TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, whatever…they all have one major, fatal flaw if you care about marketing.
It ain’t yours. And it never will be.
Imagine if you actually had a $10,000 a day bidniz on TikTok, like some of these “influencers” do.
Now imagine your business VANISHING overnight.
All of your traffic, throttled.
All of your clicks, Thanos-snapped.
All of your sales…literally yoinked out of your pocket.
A lot of you are sitting there scoffing right now, thinking that could NEVER happen to you. Yet how many of you truly OWN your business?
Meaning if you were de-platformed from every social network in existence and your website disappeared in the blink of an eye, could you recover?
Only if you’re building an email list.
(And backing it up daily, but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.)
Problem is, 80% of the businesses I work with AREN’T building a list…and another 10% are just doing it wrong.
How confident are you that your business is the ‘1/10’ doing everything right?
Put your doubts to rest, and let’s discuss building a customer list that’ll stand the test of time.
Because Trump can’t always save you…but I can.
