TikTok, Meta 'chaos' reminds Canadian businesses of the value of diversification

Monika Scott (left) and Robyn Mair, the Ucluelet, B.C.-based entrepreneurs behind Mint Cleaning, say recent developments at TikTok and Meta have made it stressful to run a cleaning products business whose sales overwhelmingly come from social media. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Jess McLaren from Blackbird Creative

For Monika Scott and Robyn Mair, the last month has brought a whipsaw of emotions every time they log onto social media.

Between a divest-or-ban government ultimatum that downed TikTok in the U.S. for several hours on Saturday and users fleeing Facebook and Instagram over Meta ditching fact checkers, the Ucluelet, B.C.-based entrepreneurs say it’s been stressful to run a business whose sales overwhelmingly come from social media.

“Relying on social media outlets that are run by private billionaires can get a little dangerous,” said Mair, co-founder of Mint Cleaning. The cleaning products company attributes 90 per cent of its sales to Instagram, but is also on TikTok, YouTube and Facebook.

“We’re kind of at the mercy of them in a way because we do rely on (these platforms) and it’s a hard battle for us.”

Though Meta’s changes have been restricted to the U.S. so far and U.S. President Donald Trump gave TikTok a 75-day reprieve Monday, Canadian businesses like Scott and Mair’s aren’t ready to breathe a sigh of relief just yet.

They see the looming TikTok deadline as the latest in a string of social media changes that have taught them to be nimble and never rely on one platform too much.

“The biggest takeaway is that nothing is guaranteed,” said Scott. “This just really made us aware to diversify our marketing more so than we are now.” In addition to reminding customers it is active on several platforms, Mint Cleaning also pushed the public to its newsletter.

That’s a lesson Aruna Revolution, a Dartmouth, N.S.-based fibre tech company that makes compostable menstrual products, is also heeding.

After observing the recent social media “chaos,” CEO and founder Rashmi Prakash directed customers to sign up for her company’s email blasts, which can’t be threatened by any social media firm’s whims.

She’s also exploring if it makes sense to continue pouring resources into the platforms Aruna Revolution uses: LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

Prakash is particularly wary of whether recent Facebook and Instagram policy changes will increase “greenwashing” — false claims about a product’s environmental benefits.

“With this lack of fact-checking now, there’s going to be more and more people making claims that aren’t true or using the consumer’s lack of knowledge to make them think something is a more sustainable or healthier product,” she said.

Shifting entirely to other platforms isn’t a quick fix for such risks because many are just as fraught as Instagram and Facebook.

Waves of users have fled X, formerly known as Twitter, since it was bought in 2022 by eccentric billionaire Elon Musk, who relaxed content moderation policies, which critics say allowed misinformation to spread.

Some tried Threads, BlueSky and Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote), but none have animated the zeitgeist in the same way TikTok or Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram do.

Aruna Revolution signed up for BlueSky and RedNote but doesn’t really use either.

“It certainly does take up a lot of our effort and time to go onto a new platform, understand how to use it, understand what content works and doesn’t work, while at the same time looking at the social media platforms that we’re already on and seeing so much change,” Prakash explained.

And more change could be coming.

Even if TikTok overcomes the U.S. government demand that Chinese parent company ByteDance sell the platform to American buyers or face a ban, the platform has come under threat in Canada as well.

Ottawa ordered the dissolution of TikTok’s Canadian business — but not a ban of the app — in November after a national security review of ByteDance. TikTok is contesting the order.

“My inbox is full of people. It’s full of media and advertisers asking me what to do,” said Sara Koonar, president of Toronto-based influencer talent agency Platform Media & Management Inc.

She’s told Canadian advertisers looking to reach Canadians on TikTok to “carry on as usual,” but suggested ones with American ambitions pivot to YouTube or Instagram in the short-term.

While Platform Media’s influencers mull what apps to invest time in, Koonar’s agents are ensuring contracts with advertisers compensate clients for content they create but can’t post in the event a platform goes down or their account gets blocked.

Clients are also being reminded that a multi-platform approach can soften the blow if something dramatic happens to one site.

“Typically, if we sign a creator that only is on one platform, like they’re only on TikTok or they’re only on Instagram, we are always very, very vocal (in telling them) to diversify because being around for the last decade, we’ve seen things happen,” Koonar said.

“We’ve been down this road before.”

She often reminds people of the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, when companies like Lululemon Athletica Inc., Arc’teryx, Coca-Cola and Unilever boycotted Facebook as part of a global StopHateForProfit boycott.

Participants withheld ad dollars because they believed the Meta-owned platform had not done enough to keep racist, false and dangerous content or white supremacists off its platform.

“We had months where there were no Instagram ads being sold,” recalled Koonar.

That was around the time that Tina Nguyen was starting XXL Scrunchie & Co., a Belleville, Ont.-based business that primarily sells hair ties online.

She now has more than 154,000 followers on Instagram and 567,900 on TikTok.

After TikTok warned it would go offline for its 170 million U.S. users on the weekend, Nguyen “felt kind of lost” and eventually posted a goodbye to followers unable to access the app.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this journey, it’s that small business owners and creators are so resilient,” she wrote on the platform. “Change isn’t easy, but we’ve faced challenges before, and we’ll rise to meet this one, too.”

TikTok service being restored was a relief for Nguyen but knowing how fleeting that reprieve can be and how fast things can change, she’s resorted to “going with the flow.”

“I’m just going to keep posting and hoping for the best,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 23, 2025.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press