A quick guide to becoming a KOL on Xiaohongshu!

It has been two months since Xiaohongshu was removed from the shelves, and the time for it to be put back on the shelves is still unknown. The impact of this period on Xiaohongshu is undoubtedly huge, but in the long run, this impact is a blessing in disguise for Xiaohongshu. The fast-running Xiaohongshu has become a virtual lifestyle city, but the interior of a beautiful city that is built quickly must have many loopholes. Therefore, this removal from the shelves is a good opportunity for Xiaohongshu to stop and sort out.

According to a recent Phoenix Technology media report on Xiaohongshu:

Explain the new review process:

It means that the notes you posted are hit by the machine's rules, which means that they will be manually reviewed again. After the review, it will be decided whether to recommend or delete them (but I personally guess that Xiaohongshu has such a large number of notes every day, the correct approach should be proportional. If the machine determines that 80%-100% of them are problematic, the machine will directly process them. It cannot be guaranteed that more than 80% of them may be suspected of being problematic and will be manually processed again. Therefore, not all notes must be processed manually. Of course, will the machine accidentally damage them? The answer is definitely, because the machine cannot understand complex language);

(New version of Xiaohongshu review flow chart)

This also means that manual review will become subjective in determining whether the content of a note violates regulations. Since a reviewer is reviewing a large amount of duplicate content and there is no clear judgment standard, it is inevitable that someone will make a mistake. Many friends in my group also said that the recent review has been particularly "abnormal."

(Statement within the group)

In addition, this removal was not so easy for some KOLs. Typically, due to the removal, the growth of new users of Xiaohongshu slowed down. Coupled with the inconvenience of downloading, user loss has not been replaced by new users, resulting in a decline in traffic on the overall platform. This has made the average reading number of many KOLs much lower than before. Of course, with the decline in traffic, advertisers have also begun to reduce their budgets, and some advertisers have suspended advertising on Xiaohongshu due to the removal of Xiaohongshu. The profits of KOLs have fallen off a cliff.

Of course, the operation of Xiaohongshu must continue, and on the basis of the previous foundation, it must be done more meticulously, so that it can continue to gain traffic now when traffic is shrinking.

Even the time when the note is posted should be taken into consideration.

Why should you pay attention to the time when your notes are published?

Before explaining why we should pay attention to the time of note publishing, let us first review the product logic of Xiaohongshu.

Xiaohongshu’s note traffic comes from two major sources:

1. Recommended

2. Search

We have already talked about search rankings in our previous article Xiaohongshu KOL Quick Guide (3): The Secret of Note Ranking and Weight Algorithm, so we will not repeat it here. The data in the "recommendation" will become the basis for search rankings. Secondly, the recommendation itself will also receive a portion of traffic, so we must get this part of the recommended traffic, and we must also ensure that the traffic is as accurate as possible, so that there will be a higher conversion rate. In addition to more exposure, this will also have a greater impact on the note ranking.

We have also mentioned in previous articles that when you publish a note, it will be recommended to similar users based on factors such as your "vertical field", "note tag", "note audience", etc. After the recommendation, we will decide whether to recommend it to a higher traffic pool based on data such as "reading", "likes", "reposts", and "comments". If the audience is precise, the conversion data of the note may also be better. But if we want the audience to be more precise, in addition to our content, can we only rely on Xiaohongshu to make decisions for us? At this time, there is a hidden point that has been overlooked by us.

Although we can only rely on Xiaohongshu's machines to make decisions, we can also optimize the results through manual intervention. For example, we can match the publishing time of the notes with the active time of the corresponding group of people, so that the notes are pushed to the precise typical group of people.

The current known conditions are: Xiaohongshu’s review method is: after passing the review, the machine automatically makes recommendations. So what should we do?

For example:

Skin care notes are best posted between 8-11pm.

The reason is that according to the characteristics of Xiaohongshu, which is mainly composed of female urban white-collar workers, this time point is the typical time for women to take care of their skin. This data is certainly not guessed, but is based on my research on some typical Xiaohongshu users around me. Secondly, most skin care products are "learn now and sell now" which is easier to replicate. You can try it after reading it, so there will not be too much delay at this time point, unless you need to buy certain specific skin care products, but this will also lead to a higher order rate during this period.

Therefore, if we publish a skin care note, it is best to submit it around 7:45. After 30-60 minutes of review by Xiaohongshu, we can start recommending it. Since it is a "real" typical group of people, the notes will be more likely to obtain data conversion.

If you do not publish at this time point, it will be viewed by "non-typical" people and the data conversion rate will be much lower. For example, if I post a skin care note at 12 noon, in many cases it will be viewed by people who are casually browsing during their lunch break or newly registered users. This part can be regarded as a group of people who are suspected of matching your notes. Xiaohongshu's machine did nothing wrong, but due to time reasons, this is not a typical group of people. Xiaohongshu cannot receive your review at noon and recommend your notes in the evening.

This is why we need to optimize the time of note publishing.

How to determine the release time of a note

Based on the above cases, we can infer that because the note types are different, they target different groups of people, which means that when we change to a different field, the release time of our notes will begin to change. In this case, how can we infer the correct release time of our notes?

Follow the order below and I guarantee you will be able to deduce your own time quickly;

1. Determine the note type and target audience

In this step, you must clearly know what your notes are for and who they are intended for.

For example, suppose a city travel note

The content I have compiled should be as follows:

Note type (use keywords, concise introduction): Shanghai, park, couple;

Target group (larger group): newcomers or students, females, and those living in Shanghai;

2. Crowd analysis

Based on the matching of the above target groups and the content of the notes, it is found that due to their profession, most people go on weekends, and most of the decisions are made by women. In theory, where to go should be decided in advance, so most people should make decisions the night before or in the morning of the same day. Of course, sending notes in the morning may be passive. The best way is the night before, such as Friday or Saturday night. This time must be after women get off work. According to the general rules of the city, it is usually around 7 or 8 o'clock when people get home from get off work to have dinner, so 8-11 o'clock on Friday or Saturday night is the best time to push. In order to verify whether it is reliable, it is best to do a simple survey based on this group of people, such as asking your friends around you whether they make decisions about going out at this time. It doesn't need to be particularly complicated. Although the data may not be the most accurate, you can get a relatively accurate release time at a lower cost. It is more suitable for personal bloggers, but if it is a company that requires every note to be refined, then more in-depth analysis and research will be required, but the logic of the analysis is still the same.

In this way, the push time is determined, but not all notes have the best push time so easy to analyze. For example, some tutorials are mostly exposed by search, so it is difficult to have an optimal time for this type of content. Of course, there is no need to worry too much about it. We can use the ultimate method below.

3. Test optimization

After making a relative decision, it is very likely that both times are good. No one can guarantee which time is the best, or as mentioned above, some types are difficult to analyze the best time. In that case, we should base it on the release time, for example, release it between 1-3 o'clock, record the data about 1 hour after the release, and change it to 7-9 o'clock the next time, and record the data about 1 hour after the release. Repeat the test 2-3 times, and we can draw a relatively correct conclusion.

As the rules of Xiaohongshu continue to change, our operating methods will also change accordingly. Constantly optimizing the next operating method based on the results is the biggest killer move in operations.

Author: Mr. Elk Sky

Source public account: Mr. Elk Sky (ID: milusir94)