Should brands care about new photo

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Chinese tech giant Bytedance is disrupting the social media space once again with its latest app, Lemon8. TikTok’s new stablemate is generating buzz after launching in Asia in 2020 and making its way to the US in February this year. Described as a mix between Instagram, Pinterest and the Chinese lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, Lemon8’s entry comes as TikTok faces a potential ban in the US. 

Short-form video content has become a focus for a number of social media platforms (notably Instagram) as they seek to rival fast-growing TikTok. However, Bytedance’s latest app is exclusively for photos and image galleries. Uploads are divided between five main categories: beauty, fashion, travel, wellness and food. 

“Lemon8 is creating a community where everyday users discover and share content related to beauty, fashion, travel, fitness, pets and other topics in an authentic and diverse environment,” a spokesperson for the app tells Vogue Business. “By providing a platform that enables users to share content and connect with others with similar interests, we see Lemon8 as an ideas-nurturing platform to benefit everyone in our community.”

By Kati Chitrakorn

Lemon8 has already built a strong presence in Asia. After Japan, it expanded to countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. The majority of Lemon8’s active users are still predominantly based in the East, says Seema Shah, director of research and head of investor research at market research firm Sensor Tower. However, 34 per cent of downloads have come from the US since it launched there in February. According to Sensor Tower, the average age of Lemon8’s users is between 28 and 30 years old.

Bytedance pays content creators to post on the platform, making it difficult to form an accurate picture of how it is playing with everyday users. “A lot of posts are tagged with #Lemon8Partner, meaning Lemon8 is paying the creators and micro-influencers to post,” says Mira Kopolovic, cultural research and insight director at the social media creative agency We Are Social. She notes that platforms including Instagram and TikTok did not launch with a reliance on paid influencer partnerships. “First they developed followings of everyday users, then they became corporatised. Lemon8 is optimising for a shopping and influence landscape from square one — and this is hugely defining to the platform experience,” she adds. (Bytedance declined to comment on this strategy.)

There are teething problems: engagement is hard to quantify, says Sammi Jefcoate, a content creator with more than 1.5 million followers on Instagram. “I am currently posting every few days, in time frames that suit me — rather than driven by follower locations — and have noticed that most posts need a few days on the app to be seen and picked up,” she says. The platform could change dramatically in the next six to 12 months as more everyday users join, experts say. 

It is not yet possible to directly tag items or add shoppable links to content on Lemon8. However, content creators are finding ways to monetise their posts.