The TikTok ban and the Necessity for Independent Content Generation
Why it is important to create digital assets on your own platform
What happens when all your social media content is wiped off one fine morning? Have you ever even considered such a possibility? You never did; perhaps up and until the TikTok ban.
How would it be when all your personal interactions, shared opinions and much more, your business promotions that brought in the entire crowd evaporates into thin air or is made inaccessible in a matter of a few hours!
The recent ban is a wake-up call. As all the activities on the short-DIY-video platform come to an abrupt end, throwing its vast community of influencers off the ground and bringing all personal and business promotion on the platform to a halt, it is time to ponder deeper.
With the TikTok ban, the ongoing trend to treat social media platforms as exclusive launch pads for marketing campaigns and brand building will soon shift gears.
It is time we come up with better alternatives to social media strategies.
The dicey dais of social media apps
While the sudden ban on TikTok would seem unpredicted or unusual, it isn’t the first time a country banned an app or a web platform owing to concerns over cybersecurity breaches. We know that many organisations and corporations that have access to sensitive data were hacked, many times in recent years. The possibility of a cybersecurity breach is predicted for every 39 seconds.
In the immediate past, the popular social networking platform LinkedIn was banned in Russia in 2016 following a tiff over LinkedIn’s refusal to store personal data of its users in the country.
In 2017, the U.S banned Kaspersky, the Russian security company due to its allegiance with the Russian government while the same year Germany took My Friend Carly – an American speaking doll – off its markets because the doll’s conversations were processed back in the U.S.
During the early part of the decade, there were several instances of products and e-platforms getting banned in countries including India. In 2009, China blocked social media giants like Facebook and Twitter and even Google for fear of infiltration. The following year the much popular Blackberry faced a ban or possible ban in nations like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India.
As every platform, service or product that serves online or is linked to the Net has the potential to become a Black hole in cyber security, the probability of frequent bans is also increasing.
Today as we enter a more techno-centric decade that is driven completely by the internet and web-based applications, it is mandatory that we have our back-up plans sorted out and intact as well.
Safeguarding your digital assets
The times have changed when your business content online was limited to your website, emails and e-brochures. Today any e-platform is a dais; any app is your voice to the audience. And there is massive business content that floats on the net: information, awareness, advertisements, product launches, promotions and much more.
To get your business moving and growing, you need to have a good digital strategy and third party platforms like TikTok come handy, given their mass appeal and quick sharing.
For Corporates as well as SMEs, a lot of investment goes into customer interaction and campaigns on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube etc. With the probability of an unanticipated cyber attack, national security breach or political standoffs on international affairs, we are walking today on fragile floors when it comes to online strategies. Unexpected restrictions like that on TikTok could wipe your social media platforms clean, drowning all your time, efforts and money on online engagement off the drain.
Building a reliable and grounded platform that you can manage and control is a far feasible and futuristic solution than looking for TikTok alternative or similar platforms. You can generate all content on your own digital platforms like say, your website and create links on third party platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.
We all know that a website is no more the sole proprietor of online content. But branching out into third party platforms keeping the website as the main trunk for content generation will help in safeguarding your digital content far more effectively. Your website is one of the primary and most significant digital assets.
Your complete control over your website and the versatility of the type of content that can be generated on websites – like blogs, emails, videos, pictures etc – makes it a convenient and dependable platform for digital asset management.
Leveraging such individual platforms not only keeps the digital assets safe and accessible during unanticipated catastrophes but also drives in more organic traffic to your web pages.
Conclusion
The day is not far away when better alternatives for TikTok or any such apps or social media platforms will emerge. But so will the risk-factors of online content. Post-TikTok, and 50+ apps that have been banned with immediate effect within a month by the Government of India, we will be standing in unsure grounds. Streamlining your business content or digital assets wisely and ensuring a reliable back-up for the same will determine your brand success in the long run.
