What is Lemon8? | Is TikTok’s parent company coming for Instagram with new platform?
Bytedance is pushing a new lifestyle app in the US. Pegged to compete with Instagram and Pinterest, Lemon8 offers beautifully curated content.
A new (to the US) app shot up to among the top 10 most popular apps in the United States last week. Sharing a parent company with TikTok, Lemon8 is a lifestyle app from Bytedance that could potentially cause a stir in the social media scene.
Lemon8 is a photo and video-sharing app geared towards users’ interests in food, beauty, wellness, and travel. The app has already garnered popularity in Japan and Thailand but is fresh in the US. Many popular creators and influencers have suggested Lemon8 feels as if Instagram and Pinterest “had a baby”.
Unlike its cousin, TikTok, Lemon8 does not support vertical scrolling. In a world where everything seems to be switching to this format, will a more old-school board-style interface be greeted like welcoming an old friend? With so many creators echoing this description, it’s fair to assume Bytedance has paid influencers to share this view.
What is Lemon8?
It’s another photo and video-sharing app, but with a slightly different intention. We’re used to Instagram Reels and TikTok content by now. Videos that are designed to follow fleeting trends and grab our attention for a few seconds. How is this newer platform different, then?
Lemon8’s preferred content seems to be “evergreen reviews, lifestyle content, text, and photos”, according to venture capitalist, Turner Novak. This is more akin to Reddit, Pinterest, and Instagram. Each of these topics contains recommendations, suggestions, get-ready-with-me style videos, and beautifully curated content.
In the fashion section, influencers can tag their outfit details and prices, similar to Instagram, where the app aims to influence users to purchase similar items.
Unlike Instagram, which is known for staged and edited content, Lemon8 offers visually appealing content free from the “contrived spontaneity” that drives some users away from Instagram. If you appreciate aesthetically pleasing content, Lemon8 might be the app for you.
Where has Lemon8 come from?
In China and the East there is already a popular lifestyle app dominating that section of the social media sphere. Little Red Book, or Xiaohongshu, is a significant part of China’s social media and E-commerce space. However, Little Red Book is less popular in Japan, which is where Lemon8 has slid in.
Bytedance already has a strong reputation within social media, thanks to its video-sharing giant, TikTok. Popular creators can link their existing Instagram and TikTok accounts to Lemon8, broadening their reach.
As of yet, there aren’t any standout popular creators on Lemon8. The majority of posts on Lemon8 currently feature the hashtag #Lemon8partner at the end of the caption. This heavily suggests that creators have been paid to populate the feed of this fledgling app.
Will this new app grow organically?
Plenty of new apps experience and initial buzz and hype. The companies behind them tend to do what Bytedance have done – pay creators to use and promote the app. But, what happens when that partnership comes to an end?
To truly prove their mettle, apps need to be able to survive in the wild. This relies on organic growth, generated from word of mouth and unpaid users. Lia Haberman, an adjunct instructor for social media and influencer marketing at UCLA, shared that: “It’s possible [creators] might explore Lemon8, but at the same time you’ve got Pinterest, YouTube Reels, Instagram,” she said. “If people are being paid to post on Lemon8 it’s great for creators, but I find it hard to see how creators are going to embrace this.
TikTok vs Lemon8
Should creators be making a choice between these two apps?
It’s likely that, rather than competing with TikTok, Lemon8 serves a separate purpose and caters to users differently. TikTok tends to be more about the connection between creator and audience.
Of course, TikTok creators can have cooking, beauty, or lifestyle as their niche. But, on Lemon8, it appears the objective is more focused towards selling. For instance, fashion creators will likely share photos of outfits, with the items they’re wearing tagged in the post.
However, this feature is much like Instagram’s shopping features. With creators already performing a content creation balancing act, will they want to add a new platform to the routine? Whilst Bytedance’s primary social media app has been a huge success, time will tell if Lemon8 will follow suit.