The app strikes an important resemblance to Xiaohongshu, a Chinese language social media platform with 260M MAUs
Amid a wave of heated debate over whether or not TikTok must be banned, one other ByteDance product, Lemon8, has popped up and shortly climbed into the highest 10 on America’s app shops.
Lemon8’s sudden rise is paying homage to TikTok’s early-day development. On the time Vine had already pioneered brief video sharing within the U.S., however TikTok took the media format to the following stage by its content material advice algorithms, a system that had confirmed immensely profitable in China for its sister app, Douyin.
Some business observers at the moment are describing Lemon8 as one thing on the crossroad of Instagram, Pinterest and Amazon, however these accustomed to the Chinese language web ecosystem would instantly acknowledge that the app is an occasion of “copy-from-China”.
For a lot of China’s early web historical past, entrepreneurs discovered inspiration in tendencies with robust momentum within the U.S. and construct one thing comparable in China, giving rise to the nation’s solutions to Google, Fb and the likes. That apply remains to be right here, as indicated by the clutch of firms that categorical their ambitions to change into China’s OpenAI; however a reversal of the development can be taking form as China’s homegrown tech expertise turns into extra subtle and give you more and more novel providers that don’t but exist overseas.
At a look, Lemon8’s photo-heavy format and peer-to-peer evaluations strike an important resemblance to Xiaohongshu, the Chinese language social commerce platform with 260 million month-to-month energetic customers. Xiaohongshu, which suggests “Little Purple Guide”, has over the previous decade change into the go-to on-line neighborhood for Chinese language kids to study life hacks in areas starting from maternity well being and surviving centralized quarantine in China to discovering the very best Chinese language eating places in Düsseldorf.
Bike sharing, dwell procuring and social commerce are a simply few Chinese language web enterprise fashions which have discovered customers overseas. Xiaohongshu has dabbled in different Asian markets by Uniik and Spark, however neither took off. Now ByteDance is taking the playbook of Xiaohongshu westward, mirroring TikTok has accomplished with studying from Douyin’s mannequin again house.
The Little Purple Playbook
Picture Credit: Xiaohongshu
Based as a platform for sharing abroad procuring guides, Xiaohongshu has principally stored its deal with corralling sensible info. Posts are organized in a Pinterest-like grid however ranked partly by the variety of “saves” they get. And in contrast to Instagram, there’s little competitors to publish essentially the most glamorous pictures. Quite, photographs are used to contextualize the notes posted by customers, resembling a COVID-19 PCR outcome wanted to board a flight to China.
Quite than favoring professionally made influencer posts, the app encourages the invention of long-tail content material and stresses relevance over leisure. When customers are on Xiaohongshu, they’re experiencing what’s known as “zhongcao”, actually “planting grass,” an idea popularized by the platform to convey the impact of wanting to purchase one thing after seeing another person, whether or not a pal or influencer, recommends it.
Of Xiaohongshu’s 260 million MAUs, 69 million of them are content material creators, the corporate mentioned at a current occasion. Seventy p.c of its customers are feminine and born after 1990. Most of its customers dwell in China’s extra affluent, top-tier cities. At its peak, the corporate’s valuation reached $20 billion however reportedly dropped to $10-$16 billion final yr as China’s tech crackdown dampened investor confidence.
It’s too early to say if Lemon8 can deliver the zhongcao tradition to the U.S. and past. For now, many of the app’s traction appears to stem largely from splashy commercials and influencer endorsement by TikTok.
There are additionally indicators that Lemon8 is paying influencers to publish content material. It is a widespread apply seen amongst Chinese language social media platforms, together with Douyin. However this may additionally be the most important distinction that separates Lemon8 from Xiaohongshu, which has not often shelled out giant subsidies to influencers. Authenticity, many argue, is the rationale why Xiaohongshu’s content material has stood the take a look at of time.
In its infancy, Lemon8 might be nonetheless removed from occupied with monetization, however it’d be attention-grabbing to see what steps it takes to earn cash if and when the app accumulates a large person base. It’d look to Xiaohongshu, which presently monetizes by advertisements and e-commerce commissions. In fact, it’s by no means simple to easily transport an current enterprise mannequin from one nation to a different, be it copy to or from China. Even ByteDance’s mammoth has struggled to evangelize dwell procuring, which is now driving an enormous chunk of Douyin’s China revenues, in Western international locations.