The company is pushing its users in the US to try out sister app Lemon8 in the face of increasingly stringent regulation, and in light of the possibility of a ban. That follows a time of increasingly being exposed to sponsored posts on TikTok that marketed it as a safe destination to transfer content, followers, and usernames. This shows that ByteDance is hedging its bets on growing regulatory pressures facing TikTok.
As one would note, Lemon8 is owned by the parent company ByteDance. However, since the discussions in the legislation aim at targeting the ByteDance-owned apps, most of the attention has been toward TikTok, and hardly any attention was focused on Lemon8.
In the past few weeks, Lemon8 has rapidly gained visibility largely because of support from TikTok through sponsored videos. Some creators have introduced the app as a way to easily transfer profiles and usernames, giving users the comfort of knowing their TikTok presence could be saved.Lemon8 integrates the short video format of TikTok with that of Instagram-style photos to bring the feeds customized as in “For You” and “Following” sections on TikTok. This design is young appealing, appealing to Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
ByteDance has long been pushing Lemon8, with the company combining the backends of the two platforms last year, making profile linking easy as well as the sharing of data. Users were made aware that, by default, their Lemon8 profiles would be tied to TikTok unless they chose to opt out. ByteDance has downplayed any association between the push for Lemon8 and the ban on TikTok, saying that the integration was unrelated, but the timing of the promotion implies a strategic intent.
Though Lemon8 is still a far cry behind TikTok in terms of DAU, over one million, it has been steadily growing its engagement over the last year. There’s every indication that ByteDance is keen to grow the DAU of Lemon8 as a hedge, even as the future of TikTok is indefinite. With the debate over a TikTok ban ongoing, Lemon8’s increasing visibility could be a backup plan for ByteDance, offering both the company and users a way forward under the cloud of regulation.
