One of the most popular apps in the app store could see major changes with new owner.
SAN ANTONIO — Your dreams of becoming TikTok famous are not exactly over, but the platform itself and its algorithm could be part of sweeping changes for a new ownership deal.
President Donald Trump said he has spoken to multiple parties about buying TikTok and says the app could have a new owner in the next 30 days.
But as a new vision to keep the app online takes shape, experts say sweeping changes could be in store regardless of who owns it.
Wendy Gratereaux, a marketing professor of practice at UTSA, says the changes reflect a lot of things from addressing security risks to reflecting Western values.
“No matter what, if TikTok gets to stay China-owned or if it gets purchased by an American-based company, it will change,” Gratereaux said. “There is no way that the TikTok that you knew from before everything will continue on going forward. There will have to be adjustments to the algorithm. And it could reflect a lot of things. So, granted if it changed over to U.S. ownership, the algorithm could reflect more western values and it could be a good thing for content creators in the U.S., it would also have to face transparency and scrutiny just like any other social platform, so it will change.”
Possible buyers for the app include YouTube personality Mr. Beast, James Stephen “Jimmy” Donaldson, Elon Musk, Microsoft and more tech players in Silicon Valley.
Gratereaux says Trump is turning the race for control of the app into a bidding war which could have both positive and negative impacts for users overall, especially if your brand or business depends on social media marketing.
“There’s a lot of people who their social media are very intermingled with their business and we’re not just talking regular, traditional influencers like I have a platform and I get sponsorships or I get paid advertising to promote products or I have deals,” Gratereaux said. “There’s other ways that people use TikTok for their businesses. We have realtors, they use it for fun and social and also to promote their real estate business. So, all these other individual small businesses that rely heavily on platforms like TikTok and have built a good following, they’re also going to have to find ways to pivot and look at other platforms that they can potentially use. Building up a following like that on Instagram that’s been around a lot longer is going to take a while.”
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers have cited a direct threat to national security as one of the key reasons for why a government-mandated ownership change of TikTok is necessary. Gratereaux says it all lies in the algorithm.
“The algorithm is not governed or protected by anything that the other U.S.-run social media platforms have to adhere to or have agreed to incorporate into their algorithms, so, China doesn’t have to follow the same rules,” Gratereaux said. “So, the way that the algorithm feeds you the content is also different in the U.S. than it is in China. So, the way that they feed content to their citizens is not the same content that we see. There is a lot of U.S.-created content that is not visible in China.
Gratereaux says it will be a wait-and-see game to see who buys the app and what changes they eventually roll out. Right now, the name of the game is diversification if you’re a small business owner or just trying to get your content out to a wider audience.
“If you were not already doing diversification a year ago, you’re a little behind,” Gratereaux said. “Because other people have already been trying to transition their following to other platforms. You need to think, ‘okay, what other platforms can I produce kind of the same results in content…’ Instagram Reels, stories are making a big hidden comeback in that you can pin those to your profile in highlights. So, highlights, keeping those fresh and not so long and lengthy … and then of course Shorts (YouTube) are new, so they are looking for more content creators on YouTube to want to use YouTube Shorts feature functionality. They’ve also increased the monetization of Shorts.”