TikTok stars migrate to other platforms

NEW DELHI: Within minutes of the order blocking

TikTok

and 58 other Chinese apps, SaltNPepper, a wannabe actor in his early forties, reached out to his near-one million followers, advising them to follow him on his new personal website as well as Instagram and YouTube channel. He was not alone, with many Indian TikTok

influencers

, whose accounts were inaccessible on Tuesday, doing the same.

Some even went to the extent of praising the government’s action and exhorted their followers to back them up by following them on other social-media channels.

The most popular social

media channels

due to the ban of TikTok include Instagram and YouTube, which hitherto had been losing the race in bagging new subscribers to the Chinese app.

However, many of the TikTok influencers are worried that their popularity may not be matched so aggressively on the other American platforms which have “more sophisticated users and followers”.

TikTok and ByteDance’s other app, Helo, had a bigger appeal in the hinterland and rural and semi-urban India. Instagram and YouTube are more of a metro phenomenon, and are popular with upmarket advertisers.

Surbhi Sikri, a 22-year-old

Tiktoker

known as RevolverRani on the Chinese platform, had over 6 million followers. “My parents are a bit worried as I had taken this as my career. There are some financial problems in my family and this will impact my earnings by at least 50%,” he told TOI.

On an average, a reasonably successful TikToker makes around Rs 2 lakh a month.

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