TikTok on the Apple app store Jan. 10, 2023. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREENVILLE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The fate of TikTok in the U.S. is still up in the air due to privacy concerns. The app went dark for about 14 hours last month, but came back when President Donald Trump signed a 75-day extension of TikTok.
Now, some Northeast Wisconsin small businesses worry if they can survive without the app and are fighting to try and save the app long term.
“I have a presence on TikTok, it’s a growing presence. I’ve went from 1,500 followers to over 3,000 in two weeks,” Tria Frog Treats owner Tricia Hermsen said.
Hermsen is doing everything she can to try and save TikTok. She’s downloaded other apps, but said they’re not as interactive and efficient as TikTok.
“I don’t think anything else exists like that. It doesn’t exist, and so for people to say ‘let’s just jump on another app and do the same thing,’ it doesn’t exist,” Hermsen said.
Hermsen has been going live everyday on TikTok for the past three weeks, taking full advantage of the app’s algorithm. She’s also collecting specific stats on how her business has grown and will use that as proof to show state representatives that her business needs TikTok.
“I would invite our representatives to stop by our small business, have a one on one chat, talk to those businesses that are being impacted. I mean right now, I’m being impacted positively, so of course I don’t want to see it change,” Hermsen said.
When a TikTok ban was looming in last month, many small businesses and users switched to the app, RedNote. Many of those businesses are proclaiming themselves “TikTok refugees.”
“They have some really interesting ways to accept TikTok refugees, that has been the big hashtag through there, everybody has been so nice and accepting of us,” Mobile Minis Bloom Bar owner Sami Schmidt said.
Mobile Minis Bloom Bar is a mobile flower bar serving people in Northeast Wisconsin. Schmidt said her business used TikTok as a key marketing strategy, but as the app’s fate became in question, she moved to RedNote and doesn’t see herself returning to TikTok.
“There’s a lot going on even with some of the conspiracies going on there too, it’s just a lot of information overload when you go back into the app now,” Schmidt said. “It’s a totally different dynamic than it was before, which is sad.”
Trump’s extension for TikTok ends April 5.
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