What are the mainstream promotion methods of Xiaohongshu?

Recently, when my colleagues were working on Xiaohongshu plans, they often encountered a headache: because most of the friends who want to promote Xiaohongshu do not know much about the promotion methods or business of the Xiaohongshu platform, this will lead to some difficulties in communication.

After thinking about it carefully, it is true that the Xiaohongshu platform is still relatively new. Unlike Taobao, when people do Taobao promotion, at least they know what methods there are, such as through train, Taoke, Diamond Exhibition, live streaming, off-site delivery and other methods or businesses. However, when it comes to Xiaohongshu, no one even knows what methods to use, so it is indeed difficult to carry out efficient communication.

Simply asking how to promote Xiaohongshu is equivalent to asking how to do Taobao well, or how to make money, or how to marry a beautiful and rich woman. These questions are really difficult to answer.

To solve this problem, I think we need to provide everyone with some in-depth and easy-to-understand popular science, introduce Xiaohongshu’s common promotion methods and applicable groups, so that everyone can find the appropriate promotion method and make a marketing plan that suits them.

What are the promotion methods/businesses?

I divide the mainstream promotion methods into two major factions: unofficial and official .

Unofficial : Unofficial promotion methods mainly include posting notes and optimizing note rankings. Posting notes can also be divided into posting amateur notes/red KOL notes/celebrity notes

Official : Advertising placement, brand account marketing, brand partner placement

Why do we say the above is the mainstream? Because there are some other ways of promotion, such as sending private messages in batches, following or liking others in batches, etc. These have too many restrictions or high technical requirements, so few people do them. If you are a technical expert, you can also try this idea.

Amateur Notes

Instructions for playing : Bloggers without a fan base publish relevant tips. Generally speaking, amateur notes on the market can be divided into two types: real amateur reviews and ghostwritten and posted ones .

Applicable people : various brands, merchants with search hosting platforms

Another thing to note is that the choice of whether to use a real amateur or a ghostwriter or sender also needs to be based on the actual situation of the brand.

Because the cost of samples varies from brand to brand, if you are the general agent of a foreign brand, the material cost is very high. At this time, choosing a ghostwriter can greatly reduce the material cost. If you are a domestic cosmetics brand, according to my understanding from friends, a lipstick may cost only two or three yuan. At this time, it is better to send it to amateurs for real evaluation. On the other hand, it depends on the attributes of the product . For example, for cosmetics brands , it is obvious that simple still life photography cannot show the characteristics of the product. It is definitely better to use real-person evaluation. Or there may be some sexy lingerie or private parts-related products. There may be very few people willing to take photos. In that case, it is better to use ghostwriters. In short, it depends on the actual situation to choose which type of amateur notes to use.

Notes on Red People KOL

How to play : Bloggers with a fan base publish relevant tips

Applicable people : various brands, merchants with search hosting platforms

First of all, in terms of article quality , the quality of Kol’s notes, whether in terms of appearance or understanding of the platform, is much higher than that of ordinary people.

It should be known that a blogger's blog posts are mainly divided into browsing traffic by his own fans and system distribution traffic . Then the browsing traffic of KOL's fans will be more than that of ordinary people. On the other hand, those with more fans will get more initial test traffic, which is also a slight advantage.

Regarding the selection of KOLs, I personally think that in addition to choosing top brands such as Li Jiaqi, Pony, and Benny, it would be a better choice for new brands to mainly choose small and medium-sized bloggers . Because the platform's current mechanism of "one thousand faces for one thousand people" determines whether the quality of the content is the key to whether it will be recommended as popular . In recent years, many brands such as Perfect Diary, Touzhen, VNK, and Feiluer have taken the route of small and medium-sized bloggers. Even now, even though brands like Perfect Diary have become extremely popular, they have been investing in small and medium-sized bloggers. This is also related to the logic of the platform. If you are interested, you can pay attention to this phenomenon: Xiaohongshu has hundreds of thousands of bloggers. If the data is not falsified, the number of likes and collections of daily notes is mostly dozens to hundreds. In this case, the cost-effectiveness of small and medium-sized bloggers also has obvious advantages.

▲Perfect Diary’s advertising, small and medium-sized bloggers account for the majority

Star Notes

Gameplay Instructions : Notes posted by celebrities

Notes are suitable for people : Brands with financial strength and large merchants

Since 2017, more and more celebrities have been promoting products on Xiaohongshu. I vaguely remember the popular products such as Spanish Neck Cream, Jayjun Haze Mask, Yuanchen Mask, etc. In 2018, the search popularity of celebrity promotion notes can often rise to thousands of points in Taobao's market. Compared with the first two ways of posting notes, this method is really direct, simple and rough. It is highly recommended for brands with a budget to try this method.

Of course, there are some things to note when playing this way. Here are three main points.

First, regarding the price , hundreds of thousands are normal for most celebrities. Some of my classmates in college work as celebrity agents at Toyo Tenei. For example, Liu Yucui from their company charges more than 200,000 for each tweet. Let's talk about soft implants such as celebrity dressing tables. These usually cost 20,000 to 100,000 yuan. So, when a client wants a celebrity to send a note for 20,000 or 30,000 yuan, it's really impossible to do so. A good cook cannot cook without rice.

Another issue is schedules . Celebrities are a very limited resource, and for the sake of their own image, they cannot keep posting advertising tweets. After all, Xiaohongshu is a side job, and many celebrities’ schedules need to be booked for more than several months, which is also a small drawback.

The third is that celebrity promotion should be done as early as possible . In the past two or three years, it has been found that the effect of celebrity investment has been on a downward trend overall. The effect of 500,000 yuan before and 500,000 yuan now may not be the same. This result is not difficult to understand, because on the one hand, there are more and more celebrities, and on the other hand, consumers are not so interested in celebrities anymore. In the world, speed is the only way to achieve success.

▲The Spanish neck cream that Fan Bingbing made popular

Note keyword ranking optimization

How to play : Optimize your notes to the top of the search results for a certain word

Applicable people : individual WeChat merchants/Taobao personal stores/offline merchants/brand owners/platform merchants

Although the traffic of note ranking optimization is limited, the traffic is accurate. Those who search for keywords are basically users who have potential consumption intentions for this keyword.

Let me first explain why this method is the most recommended method for personal WeChat business, and the previous ones are not recommended. One important point is that personal WeChat business has no search support . As we all know, there are more and more restrictions on Xiaohongshu notes now, not to mention the suicidal behavior of leaving contact information in the notes. After consumers are attracted by the previous promotion methods, they can spontaneously search for the Xiaohongshu flagship store and stores on other platforms and place orders. However, there is no WeChat contact information in personal micro-business notes, so it is useless even if the notes become popular, so it is not suitable.

In addition, offline businesses also recommend keywords. For example, I own a gourmet restaurant in Dali and I am an expert with 100,000 fans. However, the number of fans or people who can see me is very limited. Moreover, even if I am attracted by the recommendation, it is not realistic for me, since I am from Hangzhou, to go to Dali for a meal just for a note. Users who directly take notes and optimize the rankings to search for "Dali food", "Dali guide", "Dali travel", etc. are the most accurate customers.

As for brands and platform merchants, ranking by attribute keywords is also a good choice. Although they will not become rich by selling tens of thousands of orders a day, there are many customers who place hundreds of orders a day directly through keywords in the Xiaohongshu flagship store or other platform stores of their own brands.

In general, note ranking optimization is suitable for most merchants, but note ranking also has disadvantages. Because note ranking is similar to Taobao ranking optimization, it is subject to changes in platform algorithms. Sometimes it is stable and sometimes it is unstable. You need to be mentally prepared for this before doing it.

Advertising

How to play : Mainly divided into Xiaohongshu search ads and information flow ads

Applicable people : Brands

This is similar to most off-site advertisements, except that the first charge is slightly higher. Recently it should be 20,000. I will briefly explain it here and attach the official description of Xiaohongshu advertisement for your convenience.

Compared with information flow , I personally recommend search advertising because it is relatively accurate and contains more content. However, just like through-train, you need to find a suitable bid. If a click costs several dollars and the gross profit is not high, then the placement is not so good. It is more suitable for brands because most individuals or self-employed businesses do not meet the relevant qualifications.

The official information is very detailed. Please refer to the official introduction for details: https://www.xiaohongshu.com/brand

Brand Marketing

How to play : Open a brand account and publish a seeding note

Applicable people : Brands, merchants

This gameplay also has two main purposes: endorsement and traffic.

What kind of products are suitable for endorsement on brand accounts? After working in various industries, I have summarized that those that are not so easy to highlight the effects are more suitable for endorsement , such as skin care products, health care products, etc. These brands that require long-term use or have effects that will not change much to the naked eye are more suitable for endorsement. For this category, it is a good choice to do background publicity of the brand, event information, product information, expert usage or other content.

Then what categories are suitable for getting traffic ? After reading the above content, you should be able to guess that it is the ones that can highlight the effect , such as cosmetics, clothing, decoration design, bags and accessories, or for example, there can be homework content, digital product evaluation and scoring, etc.

One advantage of brand accounts is that brand accounts are the official default accounts that can post advertising notes. As long as the article content is not too bad or is not in a special category, the notes can basically be displayed . Therefore, using the content of brand accounts to optimize the note rankings is also a good choice. I personally recommend it!

Here’s an example of a brand account driving sales, which is the brand account of Xiaoguli.

Her account is just as mentioned above. She has enough SKUs → chooses brand accounts and creates high-quality dressing content → after a hot post appears, since Taobao has taken over the store, there is no need to leave contact information, and others can directly search for the brand Xiaoguli to place an order. Brand accounts , off-site taking over platforms , high-quality content , and sufficient SKUs are all indispensable.

▲Xiaoguli’s operation of the brand account also drives the store

Brand Partner

How to play : Marketing through the official brand partner platform

Applicable people : Brands, merchants

Brand partnership is basically the same as the influencer marketing mentioned above, but there is a slight difference. Brand partnership is a promotion method that is 100% officially permitted . If the brand is worried about the exposure rate, it can probably choose this method for promotion.

In addition, brand partners have been upgraded this year, and many of the influencers who have worked with us before have been eliminated. Generally speaking, the requirements for brand partners are higher now, so the content of most brand partners now is super high-quality , and it is highly recommended if you have the conditions.

Just like celebrities, this type of brand partners have signed contracts with companies, so the number of advertisements they place is limited. So on the one hand, it’s expensive, and on the other hand, resources are limited . It’s obviously unrealistic to want to become a brand partner and post a large number of notes. In addition, the notes posted by brand partners will have the logo of cooperation with the brand , which slightly reduces the popularity of the article.

▲Put out the brand partner notes, and there will be a cooperation logo at the bottom

Summarize

To promote on Xiaohongshu, you need to first understand what businesses are available on the platform. You need to understand different types of merchants and different types of products, and choose different promotion businesses based on platform rules and product characteristics.

Author: Operational Documentation

Source: Jianshu