Xiaohongshu KOL promotion: the secret of note flow limitation!

After writing "Little Red Book KOL Promotion (1): The Secret of Note Traffic Limitation", it was reposted by multiple accounts in the operation circle and received a lot of praise. At the same time, I also got to know many friends who work on Little Red Book. This is also the motivation for me to continue to write the second article in the Little Red Book KOL Quick Guide series.

The theme of the second article comes from a question many friends who use Xiaohongshu asked me: "Why is my note traffic limited?" Because there are too many people asking this question, it is difficult to reply one by one, so I will write a separate article to talk about the secret of Xiaohongshu note traffic limit;

1. Account Violations

But before talking about the flow limit of Xiaohongshu's "Notes", let's first talk about the problem with your account itself, because when we do account diagnosis, we must do it from top to bottom, from large to small. This means that if there is a problem with your account, it has nothing to do with your notes. No matter how good the notes are, they will be limited .

Under what circumstances will the account be restricted?

1. Multiple accounts are logged in on one mobile phone; this is too obvious. This feature is typically recognized by the system. Basically, accounts that increase fans operate in this way. Therefore, if one phone has multiple accounts, it is easy for the system to identify it as "possibly a water army", and it is basically inevitable that you will receive special attention; then how many accounts are considered to be multiple accounts on one phone? I personally feel that 2 is a more acceptable range, and if it exceeds 2, the risk will be greater. Of course, it is best to have one phone and one account, but in daily life, it is rare for a KOL like us to have multiple accounts on one phone.

2. Nicknames involving violations and advertisements; the previous article wrote about how to write a good nickname, but did not say what nicknames are absolutely not allowed to be used. Now I would like to emphasize it clearly: For example, nicknames involving politics, promotion, mobile phone numbers, WeChat accounts and other contact information are completely unacceptable. Some systems will directly restrict their use, but you should not be lucky. For example, if you hide your WeChat account in your nickname and the system rule library is updated later, it happens to be hit and you will be restricted to death;

3. The avatar violates the rules; some students are very smart, and they are not allowed to use nicknames, so I will just make a marketing avatar. Machine recognition is so powerful nowadays, if it is a normal selfie with a logo or something, it may not be easy to recognize, but common QR codes and the like can be easily recognized by machines, and the result is that the flow is restricted to death.

4. Personal signature is against the rules; similarly, bloggers usually leave their email addresses, Weibo and other information to promote themselves in their personal signatures. In fact, it is not absolute whether they can leave such information. It depends on the period. It was OK for KOLs to leave such information in the past, because Xiaohongshu did not have so many restrictions at that time. But now it is becoming more and more strict. If you leave some exaggerated contact information, it is easier to be restricted. So my personal suggestion is to leave as little as possible and do not list a bunch of contact information. As an ordinary account, doing so will give you very limited backflow to other platforms, and you will also be restricted, which is not worth the loss. At present, leaving an email address is basically the best way, and it will have the least blocking effect.

(Image screenshot source: Xiaohongshu expert ID: KK)

If some old accounts see this and wonder whether they should change the contact information they left before, I think they shouldn’t change it. Xiaohongshu’s mechanism is to re-check if there are changes. If you don’t change it, it’s fine. But if you change it, you’ll be caught. This is a bigger problem.

5. Re -login with the old account. There is a high chance that the old account will be restricted if you log in again. If you have not logged in for a long time, the system will think it is a zombie account, so it will be restricted. If you suddenly start to post notes, you will be paid special attention. Therefore, the old account is not suitable for expansion. But what if you have to use this account? I suggest that you maintain the account for a period of time, at least 1-2 weeks, before you can start posting notes again.

So what does it mean to maintain an account? To put it simply, it is to restore some real-life actions and make the system think you are a real person . For example, searching and browsing some notes, liking and interacting are all good ways, but be careful to be moderate. Doing it too frequently will make you more likely to be considered a robot. In addition, let me explain what interaction is. Interaction does not mean that you leave a perfunctory comment under other people's notes, such as "Wow, that looks good." Who will reply you like this? There is only movement but no interaction, so you need to ask some questions so that the blogger will reply to you and create "interaction".

2. Note-taking Violations

Now that we have talked about account violations, under what circumstances will note violations occur?

Let me make it clear to you that Xiaohongshu’s official purpose is to promote and share content; so if you don’t conform to this purpose or share excessively (i.e. advertising), you will be on the road to possible violations.

Below I will explain in detail some issues that may violate the rules, but because I am not an internal staff of the platform, the rules are explored by myself, and there may be some omissions. I also hope that you can add to it later:

1. Advertising and sales notes: You cannot directly post advertisements and promote products on Xiaohongshu. Although many people believe that Xiaohongshu has a strong ability to bring products, Xiaohongshu actually does not want you to directly post advertisements and sell products. It only wants you to share products that you think are good. For example, if I want to share a facial mask, how does Xiaohongshu determine whether it is an advertisement? Let me tell you, Xiaohongshu cannot make 100% judgments, but Xiaohongshu is a platform and it would rather kill 1,000 people by mistake than let one go. But under such strict rules, what other ways can be used to avoid it?

a. Post multiple products for comparison, not just one product;

b. Don’t inflate the volume;

C. Do not maliciously disparage other products;

d. Notes reported by brand partners;

If all of the above methods are used, most misjudgment incidents caused by normal note posting can be avoided.

2. Leaving contact information in an illegal manner; to put it simply, this is the basic strike point for most social and short video platforms. If you direct all the traffic to the outside, do you think the platform will be happy? Specific content of this type includes: QR code, WeChat ID, store name, QQ, mobile phone number, link, etc. There is a "high" possibility that they will be blocked; because their vocabulary rules may be like this: "V:" "wechat:" "+13" "+~1.3" and so on. In fact, all the rules you can think of to bypass the rules are shared in the industry. They are all automatically captured and judged by the system. Unless there is a newer method, you basically can't escape.

3. Non-original content; what is original? Simply put, if the same content exists on Xiaohongshu, it is called plagiarism, and if not, it is called original. Also, if there are watermarks and other information on pictures, the content will also be considered non-original content, but some brand logos may not count.

4. Forge false numbers of fans, readings, likes, favorites and other abnormal data. This is easier to understand. We will focus on cracking down on fake traffic, no explanation needed. And if you are a brand partner, then if you fake traffic, the deposit of the MCN you signed will also be deducted.

5. Unfriendly behavior, such as swearing, cursing, slander, rumor-mongering, discrimination, threats, etc. Even if it is a serious violation, there is no need for too much explanation.

6. Induce sharing, such as forwarding messages to enter a lottery, etc., with interest-driven content. This is easy to understand, for example, what should we forward? Reposting lucky draws and so on is normal on Weibo, but in a sharing community, doing so will destroy the community atmosphere and will definitely be prohibited;

7. Infringement, piracy, false, and worthless content; for example: high-quality counterfeit goods, A-order, three-no products, repeated posting of similar notes, and posting of text that is difficult to identify and affects the reading experience;

For example, if you posted a note exposing a certain store for selling counterfeit goods, that would not be allowed. From Xiaohongshu's perspective, who knows if you are promoting it?

8. Post pornographic, vulgar, violent, terrorist, or gambling content. This not only violates Xiaohongshu's rules, but also violates national laws and regulations;

All of the above may cause exceptions ( exceptions do not mean violations ). There are generally two situations for exceptions and violations:

A. Xiaohongshu took silent action, which means limiting the traffic directly (not necessarily a violation);

B. They send you a violation handling message and ask you to make corrections. This means you have really violated the rules, so limiting traffic is reasonable.

If you are sent a message about violations, you can appeal, but generally the appeal is invalid;

So here comes the focus of our article today. Why are notes restricted if there is no accurate conclusion on the account and note violations?

3. The Secret of Note Limitation

We all say that Xiaohongshu limits traffic, limits traffic to death. Although they are all limiting traffic, in fact, the flow limit of notes is different. There are many reasons, but before analyzing the reasons, we should first review what exactly is flow limit;

Limiting traffic: After a note is published, only a few people read it or the average reading volume is significantly different from that of previous notes.

Let’s look at a case:

(This is unlimited, source ID see the picture)

Compare

(This is the one that has been restricted recently, source ID see the picture)

These two pictures are from accounts I randomly searched. The first screenshot shows the performance before the flow limit, and the second picture shows the performance after the flow limit. The contrast is very obvious, but after careful analysis, it is found that the current flow limit should be relatively lightweight. The most likely reason for the flow limit is that the content conversion, likes and collection rate is not high enough, and the exposure has been gradually reduced. This will recover if the content is improved. These two pictures are just to compare the performance of the flow limit. Okay, let's get back to the topic.

If you judge that you are limiting the flow, then let's find the reason for the flow limitation. First, let's classify the flow limitation:

A. Single article flow limit

1) Non-original content: plagiarism and plagiarism. Some paragraphs are excerpted from other Xiaohongshu content, or pictures are directly downloaded or screenshots of other Xiaohongshu authors' pictures;

2) Advertising promotion content: suspected unregistered commercial notes, promotion of certain products or content with certain commercial interests. Please note that it is suspected. If it is accurate, Xiaohongshu will directly send you a notification of illegal information;

Solution to limiting the flow of a single note: Do not modify your previous note. If you must post such a note, the content needs to be completely original, otherwise it will be judged as publishing duplicate content, which will be more likely to be an advertisement. So the single note limit can be said to be, there is no way, keep working on the next one;

B. Multiple-article flow limit

1) Business note overload; if you are a brand partner, check whether you have posted too many notes. If you are not a brand partner, it means that you push too many advertisements every day, or there is too much content in the business notes; (Don’t think that I share good things but don’t charge money. Why should I say that I am a business note? I can’t do anything about this. This is the platform’s regulation.)

2) You have a record of violating regulations and have been locked up in a black room. My friends and I have tested it many times. Xiaohongshu has a black room mechanism. If you violate regulations, in addition to sending you a notice, they will also directly throw you into the black room. During this period, you will basically have no traffic. It is unclear when you will be released. It depends on the severity of the violation. Generally, it takes about two weeks.

Solution to the violation of multiple notes: If the business notes are overloaded, then reduce the ratio of business notes. The widely adopted practice in the market is 5:1, that is, 5 normal notes with 1 business note, but from my personal point of view, if the market operates in this way, then you should do 6:1, so that the quality of the account will stand out; if it is a violation and you are put in a small black room, there is basically no solution. The best way is to search and browse some notes every day like a normal blogger, interact more with some big accounts, and don’t post notes for the time being; but the specific recovery time is unknown. If the account has not yet become very large, you can actually consider opening a new account.

In addition, some friends came to me to diagnose why I don’t have any of the above problems, but my page views are always very low: because your content is too bad! Content is the foundation of the community. Only content that is meaningful and valuable to users is truly good content. Many friends have fallen into self-satisfaction, thinking that the content they have written for several hours is good content. But in my opinion, this is completely wrong. Time is not necessarily proportional to the quality of content. If this happens, no matter how hard you try, you will gain nothing. The best solution at this time is to learn more about how others do it, rather than blindly working hard on your own.

C. Notes cannot be searched

The most stringent flow control is that the notes cannot be searched, because if they cannot be searched, there is no need to talk about the number of visits;

1) Violations ; any illegal content items on the Xiaohongshu notes mentioned above, such as leaving contact information, leaving a store, and leaving various return flow methods will be blocked. If it is weak, it will limit the flow of a single note, and if it is serious, it will be completely blocked;

2) System cache: For a product of the size of Xiaohongshu, if all the notes were indexed in real time, the server would have exploded long ago. Therefore, Xiaohongshu's system has a certain delay, and you need to wait patiently for about an hour at most. Also, don't search by popularity, as you will definitely not find anything. You have to sort by time to display it. If you can't find anything for more than an hour, it may be due to illegal search.

If the notes cannot be searched due to a violation, please refer to the solution of the small black room mechanism. If it is a real violation, how to solve it?

Generally, if you are confirmed to have violated the rules, you will receive a reminder about the violation, right? It will definitely tell you that you should modify your notes, right? At this time, I advise you not to modify it , because you may not know where the problem lies. Blind modification will only lead to secondary violations. Continuous violations will affect the weight of the account. What is the use of weight? This is the key measurement system that determines how much exposure is allocated to you, and increasing the weight is complicated. Once the weight decreases, it is difficult to recover. My suggested solution here is to delete the offending content directly.

And an additional reminder: if good content has a good number of visits, try not to modify the content, which will only lead to secondary detection and easy traffic restriction;

That’s all for the second part of my Little Red Book KOL Quick Guide series.

I hope this article can help you avoid these problems as much as possible before taking notes, rather than how to solve them when you encounter traffic restrictions. You can also see that according to my description above, Xiaohongshu's mechanism is a black box. You can't try to modify it here and there to try to detect its rules. Once you touch the red line, you need to republish most of the time. Multiple republishing will lead to a decrease in weight, which means that the cost of outputting low-quality content is higher, but it means that originality will have greater competitiveness. This is also a necessary guarantee for amateur bloggers to stand out without the support of MCN. If all things can be solved by buying volume, then we can't buy more than the agency with our personal strength, so we have no chance to achieve results, so we will benefit from correctly looking at Xiaohongshu's strict rules and practices;

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Author: Skycitys

Source public account: Mr. Elk Sky (milusir94)