Valley businesses react to pending TikTok ban

CAMERON COUNTY, Texas ( ValleyCentral ) — In the coming months you may not be able to use TikTok if you’re in the Valley or anywhere else in the United States.

Local business owners might be especially impacted by the social media platform’s shutdown.

Jermain Walton owns Glizzey’s Food Hut in Harlingen and says social media is important for his outreach.

“It allows me to reach more people in a second so as far as I go, I’m always creating something new so it allows me to shoot a video for then add some caption and boom,” said Walton.

TikTok is aimed towards a mostly younger demographic and is important for businesses to advertise to and gain future customers.

Kimberly Banda is a local business owner in San Benito and worries her Step By Step Dance Studio will lose out on a key audience.

“We were a little worried because that again is our younger generation that’s our audience, so we love keeping up with the trends keeping up with the dance challenges and that’s our marketing,” said Banda. “You know right there it’s just reaching that audience because you know like I said our competitive dance studio wants to reach that generation.”

If TikTok isn’t sold per the act signed in April, the app could be shut down completely by next January.

If this does happen Banda has a plan.

“I think we’re going to have to reevaluate our content strategy, especially our marketing and go back to Facebook and go back to Instagram maybe develop short clips and repurpose what our TikTok has right now,” said Banda.

Walton agrees, sharing his solidarity with other business owners.

“I’m sad for other people who make a living off of that and they’ll have to regroup and you know probably lean more onto other forms of social media.”

Support for smaller businesses like theirs will be important amidst the pending ban. Glizzey’s Food Hut and Step-By-Step Dance Studio can be reached on its websites.

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