With the clock ticking on TikTok’s future in the United States, millions of users, including small business owners like Brandon Hurst, are scrambling to figure out what to do. Hurst, better known as “Brandon the Plant Guy,” has built his plant delivery business on TikTok and relies on the platform to reach customers and sell products.
“It allows me to go live, share who I am, but it also makes it easy for people to buy,” Hurst said. Since he started selling plants on TikTok last year, Hurst’s company has tripled its business. “In the last year we’ve been able to sell 57,000 (plants),” he said.
TikTok is one of seven million small businesses on the social media platform and claims it supports more than 224,000 American jobs. However, a ban on TikTok was signed into law Wednesday by President Biden as part of a $95 billion foreign aid package. Under the new law, ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese-based owner, has nine to 12 months to sell the platform to an American owner or face being banned in the U.S. A ban would force scores of entrepreneurs like Hurst to look for a new home. Meanwhile, TikTok plans to file a lawsuit over the ban in federal court.
Jasmine Enberg, an analyst for eMarketer, believes that Meta would be “one of the biggest beneficiaries” of a TikTok ban. “Instagram Reels is the most natural fit,” she said. “It isn’t exactly the same
