As TikTok heads to court on Monday to challenge the U.S. ban, parent company ByteDance's new social app Lemon8 has once again rocketed to the top of the U.S. App Store, a rise that's in part due to an increase in advertising. The app, described by TikTok influencers as a cross between Pinterest and Instagram, or more recently as “Pinterest on steroids,” was appearing in the App Store's top charts when the TikTok ban was being debated in the U.S. Congress.
Apparently geared to act as a backup plan if TikTok is barred from the US market or sold by its Chinese parent company, Lemon8 offers TikTok creators a new platform to which they can transfer their followers if they are banned.
The app was launched globally in 2020, but ad spending and influencer marketing in the U.S. only began last year.
ByteDance has again invested in App Store advertising to secure its latest ranking of No. 10 in the U.S. App Store early Monday morning. The Beijing-based parent company of Lemon8 has run an “extensive” Apple Search Ads campaign over the past few weeks, with 5,300 keywords used in the past week alone, according to data from app information provider Appfigures. The campaign targets branded keywords such as TikTok, CapCut, Instagram and Canva, which receive the largest share of advertiser impressions, the company noted.
The company also ran ads for Lemon8 that appeared in TikTok's “For You” feed, stoking user curiosity. Additionally, TikTok creators are again talking about the app on their profiles. Many of these posts don't disclose whether influencers are being paid to promote the app, but they often use similar language to last year's campaign, including comparing Lemon8 to other social apps like Instagram and Pinterest. One video from August shows a creator opening a promotional package that contains a Lemon8 mascot plush toy.
Image credit: Screenshot from TikTok's For You feed
The app has been growing in popularity for several weeks thanks to advertising, according to data from Appfigures, but its latest surge is more recent.
For example, Lemon8 received an estimated 78,000 downloads on Saturday, about 44% higher than its average over the past few weeks. The app has been downloaded a total of 16 million times worldwide this year, with just under half of those (6.4 million) coming from the U.S., indicating it continues to be a key market for advertising deployment.
Downloads in other markets such as the Philippines and Singapore are currently declining, which could suggest that ByteDance is redirecting its advertising spend to target different regions outside the US.
Lemon8's development comes as the debate over TikTok's future in the U.S. heads to court on Monday. ByteDance will fight the ban, arguing that the law violates Americans' free speech rights. The law, signed in April, was temporarily blocked from going into effect in May by a lawsuit filed by ByteDance and TikTok. The company will also argue that the deadline for divesting the company in the event of a sale is too short, since ByteDance does not intend to sell its recommendation technology as part of the sale to a U.S. company.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department will likely argue that because TikTok is controlled by a Chinese company, the Chinese government can use the app to influence public opinion and potentially access personal information of U.S. users.