Little Red Book (小红书) is one of the largest and fastest-growing social e-commerce apps in China. The platform is based on user-generated content (UGC), including recommendations and reviews. This is a kind of online community and a reference application for a lot of young people (mostly between 16 and 35 years old). Little Red book counts now over 70 million active users, who are participating actively in its promotion through sharing, commenting, and creating content. Besides being mentioned naturally, a lot of brands started to leverage Little Red Book for their Marketing Mix strategy.
RED: A Social Platform
Little Red book blurs the line between social media and e-commerce unlike any other platform out there. It’s a social platform built around discovering new products and sharing reviews, yet is also an e-commerce platform where people can directly purchase products seen in those reviews. Thus, you need to think also about social advertising tools to boost your sales results.
1. Work with Key Opinion leaders
The celebrity of a KOL (or Chinese influencer) is the key to attracting people’s attention. KOLs can be a star, internet celebrities, or simple users. Hence, influencers on Xiaohongshu are much more powerful than those on other social media. Every single user can become a micro-influencer as long as they’re willing to share their real and comprehensive experiences. They often have a huge fan base, who are following closely their activities. The content generated greatly affects users purchasing decisions as they are considered more trustworthy than reviews from other platforms or brands.
Also, KOLs are meeting nowadays Chinese consumers’ ideals quite well. In recent years, the Chinese consumer has evolved. The days of indiscriminate spending on products are in the past. The focus is shifting to prioritizing premium products and living a more balanced, healthy, and family-centric life. If you plan to collaborate with an influencer, be sure to find a good person to be the brand representative.
We know the most effective influencers on Little Red Book and with our experience (and the help of the little Red Book team) we know the top influencers and analyze their Results nonstop.
2. Create quality posts / Quality Photos
The quality post includes attractive Pictures, which can be live shots, showing the natural aspect of things. Putting a good-looking person in the featured image is a way to attract people’s eyeballs.
The contents quite popular on Xiaohongshu are the ones talking about advice that people can take directly. It is named “Gan Huo” (干货). For example, when a user is searching for eyeliner, they will like to read the one that gathers a lot of products from different brands in one, to make a comparison. Even If they won’t buy directly on Xiaohongshu, the content viewed will influence their future purchase.
In Xiaohongshu, it isn’t really the place for a brand’s storytelling but more to provide useful information on products, such as the price, the available range of colors, the place they can buy them, etc.
3. Add and use the ‘Hashtag’ function
If your account isn’t backed by the Redbook team, it can be quite difficult to be on the main page or viewed by a lot of people. When users open the platform for fun, most of them only check the posts on the “Explore” section, matching their latest research or their interests. If they already followed your account, you will figure it out in their “following” section.
However, to reach more people, you need to use hashtags actively in your posts. Besides being found more easily by users, you will also figure on their main page (the “Explore” section) if they searched for a topic similar to yours.
4. Be reactive in the comment section
The number of likes, the profile of the author, the comment section… all these things around the content are important to build a post’s credibility. As the Chinese are very active online, they may have questions about the product shared. It’s important to be reactive and provide answers in order to guide them in their research. There is a lot of content created on the same topic and to differentiate and catch their interest from them, the author needs to follow people’s comments.
It’s also a good occasion to introduce a channel for purchasing or your contact. Because when it is written in the content, sometimes it can be viewed as an ad post instead of a real review post.
5. Link your Weibo or other social media accounts
Different social media in China are leveraged for different use. The most important is to retain your consumers once you have caught their attention.
Weibo is a platform for micro-blogging, it’s also a platform for sharing, but you can put more information about your own brand and share events or new products with a higher number of viewers. While Redbook’s users are going on the app most for product research (Redbook is a kind of product search engine), they are going on Weibo most by habit and for entertainment. Thus, they will be more often present on Weibo.
You can also add your WeChat account, but be sure to remain useful for consumers or you will be considered as obvious advertising. WeChat has the advantage to be more official and it helps to support the customer relationship as people can ask questions more directly to you or your management team.
How to develop your RED commerce in China?
Thanks to the digitalization of society and new marketing tools. China has a lot of booming industries and represents a huge market, which is attracting a lot of investors and entrepreneurs here. To break through the market, you need to know your target consumers, including their preferences and their habits.
As mentioned above, you can work with KOLs. They are very active online and often have a huge number of followers. Collaborating with them can boost your brand’s activities, reaching Chinese consumers in faster way.
Being up to date with digital tools and social media channels is also important because Chinese society is based on it. Gentlemen Marketing Agency is specialized in digital marketing in the Chinese market. Do not hesitate to contact us if you want to discuss any projects in China.
Little RED book ECommerce & Marketing Agency
We are a little red book (Xiaohongshu) Agency, working on little Red Book since 2017, and have followed their Expansion.
We are closely working with this Quality APP and have already several Case studies for ECommerce.
- If you want to see our case studies: Contact us
- If you have a project on LittleRedbook: Contact us
- If you want to sell on Chinese ECommerce and need a quotation: Contact us
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2 comments
Tan
I would like to receive the report for the Little Red Book which you’ve posted about. by email
marion
Little Red Book is an unique APP very different social media in the sense that it’s solely focused on Real influenceru and product reviews