A Wake-Up Call for TikTok News Creators: Diversify Now

👋 Welcome to the inaugural Project C newsletter on beehiiv. Exsiting Project C subscribers, welcome to the future! New friends, so lovely to have you. Please take this opportunity to share with anyone in your networks who is interested in creator-model journalism. Let’s go!

From TikTok to where?

A potential U.S. TikTok ban won’t likely kill the creator economy, but will have influencers who made it their primary platform looking to diversify. While one Vox article cautions, “If you’re a professional TikTok creator, it’s probably time to get a new job,” the more pragmatic AdWeek predicts the influencers (and eyeballs) will relocate – predicting Instagram and YouTube will be the big winners in the post-TikTok attention lottery.

Some of the top news producers on TikTok aren’t even U.S.-based and definitely not targeting a U.S. audience, so rest assured, News Daddy (aka Dylan Page) and his 14 million followers will come through this just fine.

U.S.-based TikTok newsies will in fact have to diversify. Luckily, most of them are already multi-platform. Under the Desk News’ V Spehar stands to lose 3.3 million TikTok followers, but already has healthy followings on Instagram (615K) and YouTube (76K). There’s room to grow, but it becomes easier to transition an audience to a new platform when that biggest audience suddenly can’t access your work on their platform of choice.

Below, a handful of the top U.S.-based TikTok news creators and their audiences across other platforms:

Let the TikTok ban ‘25 (if it happens) be for creator news what Facebook’s ‘22 disinvestment in news was for publishers: A BIG wake-up call on avoiding over-reliance on one platform. If I were advising the group above, I’d tell Carlos and Harry to launch a newsletter – right now the only way to 100 percent own your audience relationship – ASAP.

Although Lisa Remillard, TikTok’s The News Girl, isn’t convinced the ban will happen, she’s ready to shift to YouTube as her primary platform, but invests time and care in her Substack newsletter.

“For more than two years I have sent out a daily email newsletter to folks that includes my news videos so they never have to rely on someone else's algorithm to get information from me,” wrote Remillard in an email exchange with me over the weekend.

Update: Right after I published, I saw Substack CEO Chris Best posted a note yesterday offering a $25,000 “TikTok Liberation Prize” to the “creative genius who can make a TikTok video that sparks a trend. The winner is not the video with the most views, but the one that inspires others to post their own video inviting their audience to Substack and building a sustainable future. The prize winner will be announced on January 19, regardless of what happens with TikTok.” Hmm.

🗞️ the latest

• Creator journalists will network (aka bundle) and newsrooms will learn to work with them. These are the predictions from the Reuters Institute’s 2025 journalism trends. Food for thought on that bundling bit. How do we do it differently than big media? Also, the bulk of respondents in the accompanying survey see the trend towards influencer journalists as “neither good nor bad.”

🔧 tips + hacks

• At CES, YouTube announced it’s testing a new tool that will allow creators to easily cut clips from a long-form video to turn into separate 16:9 videos.

• Hey publishers, start thinking of your employees as influencers, says ICYMI’s Lia Haberman, in a piece that cites WaPo’s Dave Jorgenson as a prime example. That will no doubt. be a welcome shout-out to Post CCO Kathy Baird, who last week announced the launch of an in-house “star talent unit.” 

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