The app strikes an excellent resemblance to Xiaohongshu, a Chinese language social media platform with 260M MAUs
Amid a wave of heated debate over whether or not TikTok needs to be banned, one other ByteDance product, Lemon8, has popped up and rapidly climbed into the highest 10 on America’s app shops.
Lemon8’s sudden rise is harking back 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 subsequent degree by way of its content material advice algorithms, a system that had confirmed immensely profitable in China for its sister app, Douyin.
Some trade observers are actually describing Lemon8 as one thing on the crossroad of Instagram, Pinterest and Amazon, however these conversant in 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 corporations that specific their ambitions to turn into China’s OpenAI; however a reversal of the development can also be taking form as China’s homegrown tech expertise turns into extra subtle and provide you with more and more novel companies that don’t but exist overseas.
At a look, Lemon8’s photo-heavy structure and peer-to-peer critiques strike an excellent resemblance to Xiaohongshu, the Chinese language social commerce platform with 260 million month-to-month lively customers. Xiaohongshu, which suggests “Little Pink Ebook”, has over the previous decade turn into the go-to on-line neighborhood for Chinese language kids to be taught life hacks in areas starting from maternity well being and surviving centralized quarantine in China to discovering the most effective Chinese language eating places in Düsseldorf.
Bike sharing, stay buying 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 way of Uniik and Spark, however neither took off. Now ByteDance is taking the playbook of Xiaohongshu westward, mirroring TikTok has achieved with studying from Douyin’s mannequin again residence.
The Little Pink Playbook
Picture Credit: Xiaohongshu
Based as a platform for sharing abroad buying guides, Xiaohongshu has principally saved its concentrate on 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 probably the most glamorous pictures. Slightly, photos are used to contextualize the notes posted by customers, comparable to a COVID-19 PCR end result wanted to board a flight to China.
Slightly 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 stay 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 convey the zhongcao tradition to the U.S. and past. For now, a lot of the app’s traction appears to stem largely from splashy ads and influencer endorsement by way of 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 hardly ever shelled out massive 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 interested by monetization, but it surely’d be attention-grabbing to see what steps it takes to become profitable if and when the app accumulates a large consumer base. It would look to Xiaohongshu, which presently monetizes by way of advertisements and e-commerce commissions. After all, it’s by no means simple to easily transport an present enterprise mannequin from one nation to a different, be it copy to or from China. Even ByteDance’s mammoth has struggled to evangelize stay buying, which is now driving an enormous chunk of Douyin’s China revenues, in Western nations.
