Bloggers must mark! A complete guide to hot topics on Xiaohongshu!

Last week, I updated a tweet about how bloggers on Xiaohongshu are “taking advantage” of the Spring Festival hot spots, and many bloggers were shocked.

So, I decided to talk about this issue of chasing hot topics in detail. But don’t underestimate the effect that chasing hot topics can bring!

We previously had a blogger who published more than 200 works, but they were never very popular. After successfully catching a hot topic and producing a hit product, it became a turning point in her blogger journey. One hit article after another boosted the data of several previous and recently published notes, with more than 50,000 followers added in a week! Therefore, bloggers must not only persevere, but also keep up with hot trends!

1. What does it mean to chase hot spots?

We always say "chasing hot spots" or "riding on the wave of popularity", but in fact some people still don’t know what chasing hot spots is. Don’t you believe it? You know what, someone actually asked me this question a while ago!

Hot topics are actually things or topics that attract more attention and interest from the general public, and they spread very quickly and may explode at any time.

What about chasing hot spots? In fact, it means that we should learn to take advantage of the situation! Just like a traffic ball, when everyone's attention is focused on this traffic ball, it becomes a hot spot, and what we need to do is to establish a relationship with this traffic ball and share its traffic.

That is to say, we publish the content of Xiaohongshu notes based on hot topics, take advantage of hot topics, transfer some of the traffic and attention of hot topics to us, increase the chance of being searched, so as to achieve our goal of producing hot products or increasing fans.

2. What are the hot spots?

Hotspots can generally be divided into two types:

1. Predictable hot spots

It is foreseeable that it will be a fixed hotspot. It happens every year and at roughly the same time.

①Holidays and anniversaries.

Like the current Spring Festival, and then the later Valentine's Day, Lantern Festival, Girls' Day, Women's Day, Arbor Day, April Fools' Day, Labor Day and so on. Legal holidays and traditional festivals are hot spots that we can predict in advance.

②Big promotion hotspot.

Big sales are related to our e-commerce platforms, such as the New Year’s Goods Festival related to the Spring Festival, Queen’s Day after the resumption of work, and then the 618 mid-year sale, Double Eleven, Double Twelve, etc. These are also hot spots that occur at fixed times every year.

③ Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter Cycle

This is also easy to understand. It is to prepare content according to our seasonal changes. For example, it is winter now, so skiing, making snowmen, layering and other content are hot spots. Now that spring is almost here, many early spring outfits have already started appearing on the platform! Therefore, it also reminds us to prepare content in advance for known fixed hotspots, so that we can be the first tier of content and get the most traffic!

④Winter and summer vacations, postgraduate entrance examination

For example, after the end of summer vacation every year, the Xiaohongshu platform will definitely be popular with a wave of topics such as makeup for beginners, recommendations for dormitory items, how college students should be self-disciplined, sun protection during military training, etc., because every year there are new students and new college students entering the school.

Every time this happens, relevant demands will definitely arise, and society is in a state of constant updating and iteration, and so is the content. Everyone certainly likes to see new content, so as long as you prepare in advance, you will definitely be seen. So the winter vacation is all about how to make use of it to make a comeback. At the end of every year, it’s all about failing the postgraduate entrance examination, strategies for the re-examination, etc.

⑤Brand promotion or discount

Many fast fashion brands, like Apple, offer discounts on educational resources. It happens at basically the same time every year, and the demand is always there, so we can prepare the guide in advance, send it out well and quickly when the time comes, and slowly enjoy the joy of being loved by fans!

There are many fixed hotspots. Over time, we will discover those fixed hotspots that are related to our own fields and positioning. You can also create your own schedule and record the fixed hot spots each year, so that you can produce content in an orderly manner according to the sequence.

But there is also a drawback. The content of fixed hot spots is highly homogenized. If we want to stand out, how to differentiate ourselves is something we should think about.

2. Sudden hotspots

The sudden type refers to an event that occurs suddenly, starts at any time, and may end at any time.

①Social events, entertainment gossip

Like Song Ji-ah's "Singling is Hell", the Liu Xuezhou incident, the Winter Olympics, or the previous entertainment gossip events like the "Wu signature" and so on, there are many angles to approach this. If you find the right access point, you can immediately keep up with the trend and get a piece of the pie.

② Popular movies, TV series, music, and books

The song "Mohe Ballroom" has suddenly become popular and is now the beginning of a hit. We can extend this to share the music style or analyze why it suddenly became popular, or extend the outfit of the TV series, discover the same styles as celebrities, etc., whatever you can think of!

③Platform hot memes, popular background music, popular content, and popular products

The first two are easy to understand, so I won’t explain them in detail. The third one is like Luo Wangyu’s previous method of removing blackheads. Many bloggers followed suit and it became popular. This is hot content. Watch more of what others are doing and follow the popular ones. While following them, find your own innovation.

Sudden hot spots leave us very little time to prepare, which tests our response and content production speed, and the periodicity is also unstable, so we must be fast!

Is there nothing else besides this? besides! Then read on~

3. Official Hotspots

Those who often read my tweets will find these methods of getting free traffic. I have shared them before, but there are still many bloggers who don’t know about them, so I will share them here again to supplement them.

①Note inspiration [Hot spots this week]

Click on the homepage [Me] - [≡] - [Professional Account Center] and scroll down to find [Note Inspiration] and click for more inspiration. There are official hot spots of the week summarized based on user interaction data, including all content types. If you don’t want to analyze and search, this is the ready-made treasure provided by the official. Be sure to use it!

Click > to see sample notes on hot topics, which are official remakes of user notes that are considered representative. If you are not sure how to shoot them, you can refer to them, but don't copy them! You have to rethink new angles and entry points.

In addition, it is recommended that after you have completed your creation based on the hot topic, you should come back to the inspiration note page and click to publish it, so that you can get more stable traffic and exposure!

②Note Inspiration【Official Event】

There is also an official event next to [Hotspot of the Week]! This is an official activity where you can enjoy traffic and popularity as long as you participate, and the official will provide rewards and traffic support. However, you must carefully check the time and method of participating in the event to avoid unnecessary trouble.

Secondly, you can also @the official potato in your field when posting your notes. If your notes from the event are excellent, they will be reposted by the official so that more people can see them! Great opportunity to advertise for free!

③Xiaohongshu search box

When you enter the general direction of your content in the search box on Xiaohongshu, the drop-down words that appear are all the sub-directions with relatively high search popularity on the platform. You can choose the direction you came up with and then refer to other people's content to innovate.

The above are the places where the official gives us free traffic and guides us, so don’t work in isolation anymore! Follow the platform! Finally, I would like to mention that you should pay attention to the official websites in your field! They will also update the platform's hot topics as soon as possible.

4. Things to note when following hot spots

1. Selectively follow hot spots

For negative news, hot topics involving national politics and non-positive energy, try not to pursue them unless necessary. If you must, choose your entry point carefully.

You can also choose to give up hot spots that are not closely related to your own field and positioning, and focus on the hot spots that best suit your positioning and core users, combine the hot spots with your own IP attributes, and refuse to chase hot spots ineffectively.

2. Timeliness

When chasing hot spots, the most important thing is speed. The faster you are, the more you can enjoy the first-tier traffic.

3. Improvement and innovation

In fact, for fixed hot spots, the content is almost the same every year, and it is just optimized and improved on the original basis. Whoever is faster, more complete, newer and more beautiful will be the winner.

Finally, you can take a look at how excellent bloggers chase hot spots, what methods they use to become popular, and how they resonate with you. Record and analyze more, and you will definitely master the traffic password. If you have better methods or techniques, you are welcome to leave a message in the comment area to share~

Author: Bobo

Source: Bobo's Kitchen