Lemon8 is Taking Over the U.S.

Good afternoon! Let’s see what creators are buzzing about this week. But first, we have a quick announcement. We’ve implemented a referral program to reward the readers who help us grow. Learn more about this at the end of today’s email!

In Today’s Email:

• 🍋 Lemon8 explained… (the next big opportunity?)

• 📈 The side of the Creator Economy that flies under the radar.

• 🎮 5 game-changers for new creators.

Lemon8 gains popularity with 2.4 Billion Views

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance recently soft-launched the lovechild of Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok. The app has grown substantially over the past few weeks, but the driving factor behind that growth might not be what it seems.

So what is Lemon8?

As previously mentioned, Lemon8 is a social media platform that closely resembles both Instagram and Pinterest, with a very similiar layout to TikTok. It is owned by ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) and is a direct competitor to Instagram.

The app allows you to share both images and videos but doesn't offer any exploratory swiping feed, which makes getting the “click” crucial for the performance of your posts.

As seen above, similar to TikTok, there are two different feeds - following and for you.

The following feed allows you to swipe through the content from creators who you follow (which closely resembles Instagram’s home page). The for you page consists of an explore feed, with content curated to your specific interests, while also dedicating entire tabs to specific niches like fashion, beauty, food, travel, etc.

The numbers so far:

Since its launch in March 2020, Lemon8 has been downloaded roughly 17 million times globally. According to Axios, within the last week and a half alone, it’s been downloaded over 650,000 times in the United States.

In addition to soaring in downloads, #lemon8 on TikTok has grown to 2.4 billion views, which is most definitely playing a role in the app’s explosive growth. In addition to being widely discussed on TikTok, google searches for Lemon8 have grown by 47,000 in the past month.

It was reported by The New York Times that ByteDance has been partnering with influencers to spread the word about the platform, offering the chance to receive a small stipend and to become a launch partner.

There’s no doubt that the flood of content surrounding Lemon8 on TikTok is the result of two things: FOMO and a mass marketing campaign.

According to the NYTimes, Lemon8 plans to guide its initial US creators on popular content topics and aesthetics to post during a "content accumulation" phase in April. In May, the focus will shift to adding users and helping creators gain followers. By September, Lemon8 will concentrate on "commercialization opportunities," assisting creators in monetizing through brand and agency deals and other advertising forms.

At this time, Lemon8 only appears to be available in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore.

If you want a more in-depth breakdown of how the Lemon8 algorithm seems to work, and which creators can benefit from moving to the platform, either reply to this email or scroll down and vote in the poll about today’s email.

The Creator Economy Continues to Expand

As of 2022, the global Creator Economy was worth something around $104 billion USD. The number of creators worldwide as of 2022 ranges from 50 million, all the way up to 200M.

More people want to become content creators than ever, meanwhile, there’s another side of the creator economy that’s starting to heat up: Creator Economy Startups.

Of all the startups coming out of the space, Our Future, a TikTok media company has one of the most notable stories.

In January of 2023, it was announced that Morning Brew acquired the digital media startup (Our Future) and according to Michael Sikland, co-founder and CEO of Our Future, this acquisition was one of the first involving a TikTok media company.

Sandhu and co-founder Michael Sikand first connected on LinkedIn, both already operating as creators. Early on they realized the potential of short-form video and came up with the idea for Our Future, a short-form channel for business news (geared towards Gen-Z).

As many creators have experienced, revenue from content creation can be sporadic and unpredictable. To work around this problem and generate a source of recurring revenue, Sikland, and Sandhu created an agency to help other businesses make better short-form content. They started out by handling My First Million podcast's TikTok content and eventually secured contracts for other major brands like HubSpot and StartEngine LA.

As they continued to grow, they started looking for funding, but after to reaching out to Morning Brew CEO Austin Reif, they decided to sell instead.

But, this isn’t the only wild story of creators turned entrepreneurs.

If you’re into hearing about more startup stories, it’s definitely worth taking a look at pitch decks that helped 21 creator economy startups raise millions of dollars

5 Game-Changers for TikTok, Instagram, and Shorts Growth

Over the past 11 months, I've been lucky enough to work with well over 100 different creators and brands within the short-form content space. They've ranged in follower count from zero to hundreds of thousands.

I want to share a few of the findings that would be most beneficial to new content creators, or individuals trying to leverage short-form content.

1) The creators and brands that have the most success are constantly providing value.

They don't expect people to watch their content just because they post it. Creators who oftentimes struggle to grow feel like they "deserve" to be seen. If you want to grow an audience without hurting your feelings in the process - assume that nobody knows you or cares about you. Provide as much value as you can and the followers will come.

2) Stop doing what everybody else is doing. 

The other day I heard this really good quote on the My First Million podcast from Sam Parr, “When people say like we're at peak something or we're over-saturated with something, I always say like yeah maybe, but really to me what you're saying it is that you're we're at peak bad stuff”.

If you’re not experiencing any growth, there’s a good chance you’re operating with the perspective that putting out what everyone else is putting out will result in a better outcome for yourself. Unfortunately, this is never the case. Always go above and beyond and growth will follow.

3) Follow the 1% rule.

If you've never heard of the 1% rule, it's actually very simple. Every time that you post a new piece of content, try to make it 1% better than the last. If you follow this rule for 90 days straight, you will be a dramatically better creator than you were when you first started.

4) Create content for a new audience.

A lot of the creators I work with come to me because they've stopped seeing organic growth. Most of the time it comes down to one main issue. They're no longer creating content for an audience that's never seen them before. TikTok, Shorts, and IG Reels are amazing platforms for reaching a huge audience, but if you're not hitting at least 90-95% on the for you page, or a significant new audience every time you post, think about making some changes to your strategy.

5) Avoid trends unless you understand this first.

Trends do not build community. Sure, you might pull more views than usual, and there are definitely specific use cases where this makes sense. But, 99% of the time, unless you’re trying to get a big group of disconnected followers, trends are a no-no. 1,000 dedicated followers can be more powerful than having 100,000 random followers, trust me.

I’m going to share another 5 learnings on Thursday, so make sure to tune in!

Our new referral program:

We want to reward members of the hive who help build our community! 🐝

3 Referrals = My Viral Short-Form Content Starter Kit

5 Referrals = My Complete Guide to TikTok SEO

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