In the growing world of social media marketing, more and more businesses are exploring new platforms like Xiaohongshu (XHS) to connect with their customers.
Once a business sets up an XHS account, it’s just a start. To flourish on Xiaohongshu, businesses need to dive into content marketing, partnerships with content creators, digital advertising, and even setting up an online shop within the Xiaohongshu platform.
In this guide for businesses and marketers, it’s important to start by understanding the 6 main user groups on Xiaohongshu.
- Generation Z who are interested in socializing, following trends, online gaming, learning milestones, and sports.
- Urban Trendsetters who are fashion-conscious, care about personal image, independent thinking, and having opinions.
- Exquisite Moms who emphasize the quality of life, care about appearance, love skincare, and prefer high-end consumption.
- Emerging White Collars who are economically independent, passionate about work, active and lively, and have strong personalities.
- Singles with High Income who are economically independent, seeking enjoyment, pursuing quality, and usually light consumption.
- Pleasure Seekers who prioritize entertainment, interest-driven consumption, pursuing experiences and enjoyment.
You can learn more about Xiaohongshu’s infographic report here.
Content Seeding on XHS
Xiaohongshu is a social e-commerce platform where the whole marketing approach is initiated with content seeding or ‘内容种草’, which literally translates to ‘planting grass’.
In essence, the concept of content seeding is to ignite the desire within consumers to purchase an item they observed being endorsed by a peer or influencer on Xiaohongshu. It’s a strategy rooted in trust, and the power of peer recommendations.
Just like on other social platforms, the key to doing well on Xiaohongshu is making and sharing good quality content. Businesses and brands should use Xiaohongshu to understand what kind of video content the audience likes on the platform.
In general, content that gives useful information is more successful than content that just tries to sell products or services.
Most Xiaohongshu users are modern women, so certain types of content are more popular. These include:
- Women’s Interests: Beauty, weight management, fashion and OOTD trends
- Lifestyle: Travel, pet care, home & living
- Educational: Cooking/food, reading/literature, art/photography
- Technology: Latest gadgets, home appliances, etc.
Content seeding or marketing can be managed with just a standard XHS account, whereas everything that follows will require a Xiaohongshu Pro Account.
XHS Creators Partnership
Xiaohongshu offers a platform known as ‘小红书蒲公英平台‘ in Chinese, designed specifically for brands to source and collaborate with content creators.
Brands must possess an XHS Pro Account to take full advantage of the functionalities offered by this platform, which is similar to or perhaps more comprehensive than the creator marketplaces of Facebook/Instagram and TikTok.
While you can learn more about the XHS Creators Partnership Platform here, it offers 4 types of creator partnerships:
- Newbies Partnership: This enables brands to connect and collaborate with budding, micro creators.
- Custom-Made Partnership: This allows brands to specifically select and work with a particular creator of their choice.
- Invite & Recruit Partnership: This empowers brands to invite creators to be a part of their campaigns.
- Pay-per-Reach Partnership: This unique partnership sees brands compensating creators based on the reach of their content.
Of course, brands can also reach out to the creators directly without using the XHS Creators Partnership Platform, especially for those who don’t have an XHS Pro Account yet.
In the context of Malaysia, sponsored content rates on Xiaohongshu range from RM100 to RM300 for micro creators with a minimum following of 500. For Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) boasting more than 10K followers, rates start from RM1,000.
XHS Digital Advertising
Similar to Meta and TikTok, Xiaohongshu also provides a self-service advertising platform. It’s known as ‘小红书聚光平台‘ in Chinese, a platform where businesses can execute targeted ad campaigns.
Interestingly, it is reported that 60% of XHS users have a tendency for browsing content through feeds, while the remaining 40% often utilize the search function on Xiaohongshu to seek solutions.
As such, Xiaohongshu caters to both types of behaviour by offering 2 distinct types of ads – ‘Promote on Browse’ and ‘Promote on Search’.
Businesses must have an XHS Pro Account in order to gain access to and place ads on the XHS Digital Advertising Platform.
For those who are interested, you can learn more about the ad platform here (in Chinese).
eCommerce Store on XHS
Like TikTok Shop, Xiaohongshu offers e-commerce store capabilities. Businesses can apply for a merchant store through its platform, known as ‘小红书商家入驻平台‘ in Chinese.
While individuals can apply to operate their independent stores, 4 types of merchant stores are available for business entities:
- Small Business Store
- Standard Store
- Brand Store
- Flagship Store
At the time of writing, businesses and brands located outside of China are only eligible to apply for either Brand Stores or Flagship Stores.
However, merchants and small businesses can explore using a third-party service to set up an XHS eCommerce Store with annual and transaction fees chargeable.
Do take note that it is not that straightforward to start an XHS eCommerce Store so you can first check the store application workflow, learn more from the store application manual and education center, or dive into the details from the terms & conditions.
Once you are ready, you can submit your store application here and good luck selling on Xiaohongshu!
