Last week, TikTok shut down service in the United States for a day while it navigated the complexities of a potential legislative ban on operating in the country. That brief weekend outage might not have seemed like a big deal to you and your business. But, it was a very big deal for millions of Americans who are part of the user-base that makes the video micro-content app the 5th biggest social platform in the world.
Even if your business doesn’t use TikTok for social marketing, there are lessons we can all learn from the app’s sudden shutdown that apply across the board to digital marketing in 2025.
While the simple takeaway might be “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” when it comes to social media, we think there is more to learn from this newsworthy outage. As a Digital Marketing agency experienced with Digital PR, TikTok’s brief disappearance comes with some deeper lessons about how you should produce, manage, and distribute your content online – whether or not that includes short form videos.
Own (some of) Your Content
This is the biggest takeaway from last week, and one of our top trends for brands in 2025!
TikTok is the leading platform for shortform video content, which makes it tempting for some brands and influencers to pour all of their video production efforts into TikTok. The same often seems true for other social content, whether that’s photos on Instagram, micro-blogging posts on Twitter AKA X, or company updates on LinkedIn.
But, posting your original content on a social network means you no longer own it. It’s subject to app outages and moderation and can easily disappear from the internet in the case of an outage.
If LinkedIn is the only place your favorite behind-the-scenes video to share with potential customers exists and LinkedIn is down, then your video currently doesn’t exist!
That’s why it’s important to maintain ownership and control of your own content outside of social networks.
Maintaining ownership also means looking at how you can publish planned social content on your own. That doesn’t have to be just hosting videos on your own website or on a video digital asset management (DAM platform in addition to social platforms. If you work with a digital ad agency, short form video content can be used for a lot more than TikTok! Digital video can be redesigned as CTV ads placed on tradition and streaming network like CNN, the History Channel, and Roku!
Our President Bob Generale recently produced a video we used on organic social but also published as a digital ad via CTV thanks to our Media Buying team. We’ve heard from new customers who saw it on their phones, while traveling in hotels, and in their livings rooms!
Bottom Line: When you are planning social content, you should also figure out how you can publish it on your own.
Own Your Subscriber List
You don’t own your following on any social network. No matter how big or how engaged your list of followers and mutuals may be, they can disappear in an instant in the case of a site outage.
Or, even worse, if you lose access to your handle – even briefly – you are suddenly out of communication with your customers!
That’s why it’s important to drive social clicks to top of funnel conversions on your own website. These don’t have to be heavy lifts, like getting someone into a sales process. Offering a newsletter signup or a white paper download offers your audience an easy conversion in exchange for their email address.
Having your own email list means your audience is portable. It not only gives you direct access to your audience member, but it allows you to cultivate them via your CRM – understanding when and why they interact with your content. That will allow you to find the true sales leads and serve them a custom drip campaign of content to move them along to conversion.
That’s very different than putting all of your social followers on blast with the same general marketing message!
Bottom Line: Your social media game shouldn’t just be about follower growth – it should include building your own email list.
Diversify your Social Media Editorial Calendar
We all have our go-to social networks – our favorites places to post. Maybe that’s because that’s where we get the best engagement. Or, maybe it’s because posting there is easy – never underestimate the power of simple!
However, something the past year has driven home is that a diverse social presence is necessity for competitive businesses. That isn’t just about the brief TikTok outage. It’s also reflected in how BlueSky surged to become the #1 most-downloaded app at the end of 2024.
Twitter AKA X remains one of the lowest-friction networks for sharing a quick thought, image, or link. But, if you’re not sharing that same post on BlueSky, you’re missing out on potential customers. The same is true with TikTok vs YouTube shorts.
Also, spreading similar content across networks to lessens the potential for single points of failure. Shortform video content that will do well on TikTok could also work on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Twitter AKA X, and BlueSky. You could also upload it directly to your own site or to an additional video DAM platform like Vimeo.
Bottom Line: Don’t put all your efforts into just one or two social networks. Different social networks serve different needs and audiences and help with content resiliency.
Focus on SEO both in and out of apps
This is a lesson learned not from when TikTok was down, but from when it came back up! Not only were existing users in a hurry to load up their timelines, but inactive users and new users were spurred to check in on the app for the first time.
There was a massive surge in users searching for information, because everyday users use every social network as a search engine.
In high-traffic situations like that, is your content ready to be found? A strong social media editorial calendar will keep SEO in mind for every social post just like it would for a blog on your own website.
Every social media app has its own search algorithm. Just like you can optimize your website for search with SEO, you can optimize your social media posts to be found within their own networks – both actively through search and passive as it is surfaced with “For You” algorithms.
This takes a different form on every network. For LinkedIn, hashtags help people find your posts in search. On YouTube, you have a title, an entire video description, and video tags to optimize your content for YouTube search results. It’s not helping you be found if you posting a video with no text or hashtags or use the same standardized text on every upload.
And, across many networks, more interaction means more visibility. Getting early interactions on a new piece of content helps boost its position in the algorithm – which is why you should pair a paid social boost with your organic social efforts.
Bottom Line: Making your posts findable both to users and to algorithms means you can benefit from surges of traffic.
Have a Robust Digital PR Plan for your Breaking News
When news breaks for your business, is your first instinct to run to a social network like X, LinkedIn, or TikTok to share the news?
Social networks are important for reaching your customers, but your should make sure your company news is working for you. Even if the news may not be picked up by The New York Times, a robust Digital PR plan can identify ways to get both earned media benefits and SEO advantages from news items.
For example, if you break the news of a new product on your website, you’ll want to line up several links back to that post using the right keywords from external sources. That could include a press release, a piece of earned media on a traditional news site, YouTube coverage (with good SEO) from a video influencer, and a podcast linking to your page in their description.
That multi-pronged approach to both traditional and digital placements is an example of how Digital PR can work for your business. Pitching and placements should cross the divide between traditional media and digital media, taking into account both visibility and SEO benefits for every potential placement.
Bottom Line: If you’re only breaking news on social networks, you’re missing out on major visibility benefits that come from Digital PR!
Partner with a team of Digital Marketing experts!
These are just some of the topics that got our team of Digital Marketing experts buzzing in the wake of last week’s TikTok outage.
The shifting landscape of social media networks is just one of the ways Digital Marketing is always evolving. Whether you are crafting your business’s first editorial calendar or managing a complex, multi-network schedule of planned content, our team can help maximize engagements and conversions across your entire media plan.
Get in touch with us today to talk to a team of experts who were working on SEO strategy before Google was a verb!
