Canadian small business owners face challenges: social media fluctuations affect business, big ups and downs are difficult to control
Recently, a series of adjustments made by some well-known social media platforms have brought many challenges to Canadian small business owners.
According to CTV, for Monika Scott and Robyn Mair, their emotions have experienced ups and downs every time they log in to social media over the past month.
Last Saturday, the US government issued a final ultimatum to divest or ban TikTok, causing it to be suspended for several hours in the US, and users also fled Facebook and Instagram platforms due to Meta's abandonment of fact checking. These two entrepreneurs from Ucluelet, BC, said that running a business whose sales mainly come from social media is under a lot of pressure.
Relying on social media channels operated by private billionaires may be a bit dangerous, "said Mair, co-founder of Mint Cleaning. This cleaning product company generates 90% of its sales from Instagram, but also has businesses on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook.
We are somewhat constrained by them because we do rely on (these platforms), which is a tough battle for us
Although Meta's changes are currently limited to the United States and US President Donald Trump granted TikTok a 75 day grace period on Monday, Canadian companies such as Scott and Mair are still not ready to breathe a sigh of relief.
They believe that the upcoming TikTok deadline is the latest in a series of social media changes that have taught them to be flexible and not overly reliant on one platform.
The biggest takeaway is that nothing is absolute, "Scott said. This has indeed made us realize that we need to diversify our marketing more than we do now. In addition to reminding customers that it is active on multiple platforms, Mint Cleaning has also pushed its newsletter to the public.
Image source: unsplash@amandavickcreative
Aruna Revolution, a fiber technology company headquartered in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, is also learning from this lesson by producing compostable menstrual products.
After observing the recent social media chaos, CEO and founder Rashmi Prakash instructed clients to register for her company's email mass messaging services, which are not threatened by any whimsical social media companies.
She is still exploring whether it is necessary to continue investing resources in the platforms used by Aruna Revolution: LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
Prakash is particularly concerned about whether recent policy changes on Facebook and Instagram will increase "greenwashing" behavior - the environmental benefits of falsely promoting products.
Due to the lack of factual verification, more and more people will make untrue statements or use consumers' lack of knowledge to make them believe that a certain product is more sustainable or healthier, "she said.
Completely shifting to other platforms is not a quick way to address such risks, as many platforms are just as dangerous as Instagram and Facebook.
Since being acquired by Elon Musk in 2022, a large number of users have fled X (formerly known as Twitter), and Musk has relaxed content moderation policies, which critics say has led to the spread of false information.
Some people have tried Threads, BlueSky, and Little Red Book (also known as RedNote), but none have been able to inspire the zeitgeist like TikTok or the Meta platforms of Facebook and Instagram.
Aruna Revolution registered BlueSky and RedNote accounts, but did not actually use these two platforms.
Entering a new platform, understanding how to use it, and knowing what content is effective and ineffective does indeed require us to invest a lot of energy and time, while also looking at the social media platforms we have already used and discovering so many changes that have occurred recently, "Prakash explained.
And there may be more changes.
Image source: unsplash@screenpost
Even if TikTok overcame the US government's requirement that its Chinese parent company ByteDance sell the platform to US buyers or face a ban, the platform was also threatened in Canada.
Ottawa ordered the dissolution of TikTok's Canadian business after conducting a national security review in November, but did not ban the app. TikTok is raising objections to this command.
My inbox is packed with people. Media and advertisers are asking me what to do, "said Sara Koonar, president of Platform Media&Management Inc., a Toronto based talent agency.
She told Canadian advertisers who want to reach Canadians on TikTok to "continue as usual," but advised advertisers with American ambitions to turn to YouTube or Instagram in the short term.
When platform media influencers are considering which applications to invest their time in, Koonar's agents are ensuring that they sign contracts with advertisers to compensate clients for content they create but cannot publish, in case the platform crashes or accounts are blocked.
Customers are also reminded that if a major incident occurs on a website, a multi platform approach can mitigate the impact.
Usually, if the creators we sign up with are only on one platform, such as TikTok or Instagram, we are always very, very blunt (telling them) to diversify because we have seen some things happen in the past decade, "Koonar said.
We have also walked this path before
She often reminds people of the difficulties during the pandemic, when Lululemon Athletica Inc Arc’teryx、 Companies such as Coca Cola and Unilever are boycotting Facebook as part of the global StopHateForProfit boycott campaign.
Participants refuse to pay advertising fees because they believe that Meta's platform is not doing enough to prevent racist, false, and dangerous content or white supremacists from entering their platform.
We didn't advertise on Instagram for several months, "Koonar recalled.
At that time, Tina Nguyen was founding XXL Scrunchie&Co., a company headquartered in Belleville, Ontario, primarily selling headbands online.
She now has over 154000 followers on Instagram and 567900 followers on TikTok.
After TikTok warned 170 million American users that it would go offline over the weekend, Nguyen "felt a bit disappointed" and ultimately posted a farewell message, paying tribute to fans who couldn't access the app.
If I have learned anything from this journey, it is that small business owners and creators are very resilient, "she wrote on the platform. Change is not easy, but we have faced challenges before, and this time we will also face them head-on
The restoration of TikTok service is a relief for Nguyen, but she knows that this relief is fleeting and things change quickly, so she chooses to "let nature take its course".
I will only continue posting and hope everything goes smoothly, "she said.
Source link:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/tiktok-meta-chaos-reminds-canadian-businesses-of-the-value-of-diversification/