Why the U.S.’s TikTok Ban Could be a Boon for Canadian Businesses
I’ve always been addicted to my smartphone, but my screen time went way up as soon as COVID-19 hit Canada in March — partly because I couldn’t stop doomscrolling Twitter, and partly because I had fewer social commitments and needed things to fill my downtime. I’m not alone in being glued to my screens — in July Statscan reported that 63% of men and 69% of women have increased their screen time due to COVID, and internet usage has skyrocketed in Canada in the past several months.
In addition to the usual routine of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and news sites, I decided to add in a new app to my rotation: TikTok. I’m 35 so even though I was familiar with the app I had always assumed it was meant for Gen Z’s, not an older millennial, and I stayed away. But after receiving a few hilarious and creative TikToks from friends, I decided to download the app and see what all the fuss was about.
By its nature TikTok is addictive: instead of having to find people to follow, it opens to a “For You Page” which gets smarter and more tailored to your interests as you use the app. From the first time you open it, it’s populated with content, and it makes it easy to dive in. I quickly got to know the various memes, dances, and viral songs that defined the TikTok landscape, and while I liked and commented on other creators’ videos, I held off on posting my own. As spring progressed, TikTok increasingly began to dominate my screen time — sometimes I would scroll for hours a day, despite not creating any of my own content.
As I scrolled, I started to see a trend — peppered in with the dog videos and lip syncing teens were professionals leveraging TikTok to build a profile for their business. I saw creative videos from nursing homes, charities, nutritionists, lawyers, dental hygienists — you name it, a professional had found a way to make TikTok’s memes work in the context of their business. Some of these creators were getting thousands if not millions of views on their content.
I also noticed that there was lots of content aimed at people like me: the thirty-plus millennial or Gen X users who had joined TikTok on a whim during COVID-19 and who had, like me, fallen prey to its algorithm. Comscore reported that the share of 25- to 34-year-olds on TikTok grew from 22.4% to 27.4% of the user base in April, while the share of users 35–44 grew from 13.9% to 17.1% — so almost half of TikTok’s users were 25+ as of this spring. This adoption by older users combined with evidence of professionals using the app with success inspired me to try TikTok for my own business, an online will platform called Willful.
I figured there were likely thousands of others on the platform who were having kids, buying houses, and getting married, and they might need a will — and more importantly, they might need some education on how to go about it, and what the laws are in Canada. In over three months I hadn’t seen one video focused on estate planning, so I thought it was a niche I could own. The only challenge is that estate planning isn’t exactly the most fun subject matter for an app dominated by comedic videos — but the beauty of TikTok is that you can communicate serious information in a lighthearted, creative way, and it may actually be more effective and easy to consume than a lengthy educational article.
So I set out on an experiment. Could a thirtysomething founder use TikTok to attract a new audience for her business? I started with weeks of prep — I made notes on the memes I could use, I read tutorials on how to create and edit videos, and I looked at data on the top questions people have about wills to map out a content strategy for my videos. After defining my strategy, I was ready to hit record — although my husband, who is also my co-founder, was skeptical as he watched me practicing my lip syncing.
I posted my first videos in early July, and they focused on my entrepreneurial journey and education about wills in Canada. I was expecting a few views on my videos — after all I think I had less than 10 followers on the platform, so how much exposure could I really get. That’s the beauty of TikTok though — it’s not about how popular you are; it’s about the quality and creativity of your content. Because the For You Page presents strangers’ content to you, your content also shows up in other people’s feeds — and this resulted in thousands of views on my videos in the first 24 hours, and almost 100,000 views within the first week.
That was the only positive indicator I needed to keep going. I posted about 5–6 videos a week for the next several weeks, filming about 8–10 in one weekly filming session (complete with outfit changes). I tried every kind of video format — lip syncing to songs, dancing (however cringeworthy), text captions on video, and some in which I just spoke to the camera and educated people about wills. I saw the likes and views roll in, but more importantly I started getting questions and comments from Canadians who were interested in estate planning and had questions. This allowed me to answer dozens of questions about wills, and to engage with potential customers (many of whom said they would check out our platform).
In less than two months, I’ve had over 200,000 views on my videos, thousands of likes, and comments from users, financial planners, and personal finance influencers. TikTok doesn’t allow website links in profiles, so it’s hard to know how many website visits or purchases have resulted, but several customers have mentioned to our support team that they first learned about us on the app. Whether or not it’s resulted in lots of sales, it’s been a great way to increase awareness of our brand and connect with a new audience on a platform that I’m sure our competitors aren’t using.
This weekend’s U.S. ban just spells opportunity for a Canadian entrepreneur like me. Many of my 200,000 views have likely come from U.S. users, and since we only operate in Canada, that doesn’t help me grow my business. Banning U.S. users means more Canadian users seeing my content, and a big potential positive impact on my business. To me it’s an opportunity for any Canadian small business to experiment with a new social platform that only requires a bit of creativity and some time.
That’s the thing with being an entrepreneur — it’s about seeing opportunity where others see challenges. You’re often priced out of the mainstream advertising and marketing channels that big companies use, so you’re constantly looking for new ways to grow your brand in an affordable way. Founders have to be open-minded and take risks, and that might mean getting out of your comfort zone and lip syncing to a TikTok meme.
