How Brands Are Responding to Tariffs on Social Media

"Customers want to know what's going on. They feel unstable, especially when it comes to their own spending. People are looking for more predictability."

By now you already know that last week President Trump announced new tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners. You also probably know that yesterday Trump paused those reciprocal tariffs for 90 days—still keeping the 10% baseline tariffs in place while increasing tariffs on China to 125%. The uncertainty for many businesses, despite the updates, remains. Some brands have taken to social media to keep their customers updated.

On Sunday, April 6th, spice company Burlap & Barrel shared an Instagram post that announced they were turning their already planned spring cleaning sale into an “impromptu Tariff Sale” with up to 20% off sitewide. As part of this, they made clear that they would not be raising their prices in response to the tariffs. “To show that we’re serious about not raising our prices, and to finance another year of purchasing from smallholder farmers in the face of economic instability and political crisis, we’re extending our biggest sale ever, up to 20% off sitewide, through Tuesday 11:59pm ET.”

The quick thinking from the brand paid off. On a call with Ethan Frisch, Burlap & Barrel’s co-founder, he told me, “Sunday wound up being possibly our biggest sales day ever. It's right around what we did the day we were on Shark Tank which had something like 4M viewers and was on primetime TV.” Even by Tuesday, a few days after their big sale push, the orders were around seven times more than what they usually see on a weekday.

Frisch attributes some of the success of the sale to timing. He noted that the social post and email went out the day after the over 1,400 “Hands Off” protests across the country. He said, “I think there was a lot of energy. People were looking for a way to act, not just to watch.” I noticed the post shared across Instagram Stories of people I follow. Helen Rosner, New Yorker staff writer, posted about the sale and included a photo of her spice drawer, which was filled with Burlap & Barrel products from previous purchases. I bought more spices as soon as I saw it. When I asked her what inspired her to post, she said, “Honestly it’s just that I really love the brand—the quality of their spices is unreal, and I love their commitment to transparency and ethical business…I was really struck by their response to these idiotic tariffs—refusing to pay their farmers less, and refusing to raise consumer prices. I think that speaks to their integrity as an operation, that it really isn’t about maximizing profit or getting rich. The products alone are good enough, but the good-guy operational decisions really speaks to something special, to me.

Frisch said the post was an important way to communicate to their customers about where they stood. “It wasn't just a statement of what the tariffs are going to do our business, but more of a statement of how we are handling the tariffs. What our values are, why we won’t raise our prices to make sure that we stay accessible, and also make clear we won’t cut payments to our suppliers as a social enterprise. We encouraged people to buy spices because we needed to raise some cash to be able to get us through whatever the next few months brings. We needed people's help to navigate that.”

More brands have begun sharing updates on how the tariffs are impacting their businesses. The brand Areaware, known for their colorful products, shared an update with their followers saying “But (you knew it was coming) the tariffs you’ve likely been hearing about are going to be hard on us. Eventually we will raise our prices. We really wish it wasn’t this way.”

Culture Wine Co., which is the sole importer, wholesaler, e-commerce retailer in the United States dedicated exclusively to the wines of South Africa, has been sharing video updates from their founder.

Andrew Chen, owner of clothing brand 3sixteen and previous Link in Bio interviewee, shared how the tariffs would impact small fashion brands. The video appears to be their most-viewed Reel of all time at over, reaching over 700K people.

Dame posted a photo of what their “Trump Tariff Surcharge” looks like.

Still, a lot of companies don’t know quite what to say yet. When I asked Frisch what advice he’d give other business owners when it comes to communicating around tariffs and uncertainty online, he focused on the importance of transparency. He said, “Customers want to know what's going on. They feel unstable, especially when it comes to their own spending. People are looking for more predictability. So if you can give them that predictability one way or the other—and they may not like the answer that you're giving them—but they’ll appreciate you being clear about it.”

I talked to Grace Clarke, marketing consultant and founder of GraceAI, about how she thinks the tariffs might effect other parts of social—like product seeding, influencer gifting, sales, and storytelling. She told me, “There will be two shifts, one invisible, one obvious. First, this will create a lasting shift toward performance rigor. Not in a ‘cut all creativity’ way, but in a ‘have a hypothesis before you do anything’ kind of way. That junior marketers get more fluent in P&Ls. That there is a scaffolding of serious quantitative and qualitative assessment before putting execution in motion. It’s overdue anyway. Second, we’ll see more storytelling around the brand’s world and less about product, and that means more content and experience and community, and it’ll be more distinct, personality-filled, maybe risky. But, to my point above, it will be more rooted in principles.”

This is going to be a complicated and potentially devastating road ahead for businesses—even with this current tariff pause. Social media and other forms of direct communication with your customers are going to continue to be vital. Right now, the energy from followers on the above posts is very much that of support. It’s possible that temperature might change as consumers pull back on their own spending—but for now there’s a lot of comments, Instagram Story shares, and even purchases.

During my call with Frisch, he had just got some good news from their CFO. He told me, “It looks like the amount that has been raised through the sale is enough to cover her estimate of what the tariff increase would be. It may have worked out just perfectly. Obviously it’s a little too soon to say for sure, but the numbers line up nicely.”

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