Invite celebrity KOLs, what is Xiaohongshu’s operation strategy?

I heard that after the Empress in "Story of Yanxi Palace" "died", she went to Xiaohongshu ... Currently, Xiaohongshu has been occupied by the crew of "Story of Yanxi Palace" . In addition to the Empress, Concubine Ling and Concubine Chun are also playing in it.

From left to right are the actresses who played the Empress, Concubine Ling, and Concubine Chun

As a result, a large number of fans of "Story of Yanxi Palace" were brought to Xiaohongshu, including me.

This is not the first time that Xiaohongshu has asked fans of celebrities to move their families to the site. For example, when "Produce 101" was popular some time ago, contestants such as Wang Ju and Yang Chaoyue all joined Xiaohongshu.

This operation has made Xiaohongshu's product data grow quite "stunning" , and its ranking in the Appstore China region has been rising steadily.

As of May this year, the number of Xiaohongshu users has exceeded 100 million, with monthly active users approaching 30 million, three times that of a year ago.

Facts have proved that Xiaohongshu's operational strategy of introducing star-level KOLs has been a huge success.

Seeing this, some people may think, what’s so great about Xiaohongshu inviting celebrities to earn traffic ? ! As long as you have money, you can invite any celebrity. If you have invited a celebrity, are you still worried about the lack of traffic?

If you think spending money equals traffic, you are totally wrong. Inviting celebrities is not something that can be accomplished simply by spending money.

You can look back at the Weibo-Sina war 6 years ago. Both Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo spent money without blinking an eye when introducing celebrity-level KOLs.

Tencent Weibo VS Sina Weibo

Although they spent the same amount of money to hire celebrities, the results they got were very different.

The stars invited by Sina Weibo "chatted nonsense" every day to help Sina Weibo survive, while the stars invited by Tencent Weibo only showed up during competitions , and the entire product was eventually shut down.

It’s been a while since we talked about Weibo. As for the invitation and operation of celebrity KOLs , I think we should look at the tactics of the new player Xiaohongshu!

01 How to choose a celebrity KOL?

Although Xiaohongshu has the money to invite celebrities, it does not invite anyone it wants on a whim.

It has to be said that Xiaohongshu does have a way of selecting KOLs. In addition to paying attention to the traffic of celebrities, it also considers the following angles.

1) Whether it is consistent with the platform's tone

If you have the budget to hire a KOL, make sure he or she is popular. But this is not enough, you also need to choose one that matches the tone of the platform.

The slogan of Xiaohongshu is "Mark my life", and the platform is positioned to provide fashion, beauty, and lifestyle guides for beauty-loving girls.

So we invited Fan Bingbing, Wang Ziwen and other stars, who are highly consistent with the platform's tone.

Fan Bingbing and Wang Ziwen's notes on Xiaohongshu

If you follow their Weibo, you can find that Fan Bingbing often posts beautiful photos on Weibo. Her good skin and beautiful looks are recognized by her fans; Wang Ziwen's updates on Weibo are mostly fitness-related, and her slim and beautiful figure are also recognized by her fans.

Fan Bingbing and Wang Ziwen's Weibo

What these stars present on Weibo are the results of a wonderful life , and the notes on Xiaohongshu record the process of this life.

Therefore, Fan Bingbing, Wang Ziwen and others are highly consistent with the tone of the platform.

What will happen if it doesn’t match the tone of the platform?

Either it will turn out to be a joke or the result may not be satisfactory.

Suppose Xiaohongshu invites Huang Bo, Xu Zheng and Wang Baoqiang to be its spokespersons, you can imagine the page of Xiaohongshu. The pictures are so beautiful that you would not dare to look at them (no disrespectful meaning).

Therefore, before inviting a big shot, you need to conduct in-depth research on fan preferences, make preliminary decisions, and clarify the positioning of the platform.

2) Is there a continuous topic?

Topics are crucial for a community platform, and Xiaohongshu is no exception. I found that the KOLs it introduced are quite topical.

The recent popular variety shows "Idol Producer" and "Produce 101" have been gaining more and more exposure and discussion. Xiaohongshu invited popular contestants from the shows to join and greatly increased its presence.

The same strategy is also adopted by the crew of the recently introduced "Story of Yanxi Palace". The more popular role players in the drama have also opened accounts on Xiaohongshu. Now when you open Xiaohongshu, you will feel that the "Story of Yanxi Palace" crew has taken over.

In addition to taking advantage of market trends to bring in celebrities, Xiaohongshu also invites celebrity-level KOLs who are good at creating topics themselves.

The stars who were invited to join at the beginning, such as Fan Bingbing, Zhang Yuqi, Wu Xin, etc., were all very impressive. You should know that they are the ruthless characters who can often make it to the hot searches on Weibo. (For example, the incident between Fan Bingbing and Mr. Cui some time ago also caused a lot of controversy)

Therefore, when choosing a KOL, you must choose one that is topical. Now let’s look back and understand why Tencent Weibo did a terrible job in inviting celebrities.

We invited Liu Xiang to be the spokesperson before and after the Olympics. At that time, Liu Xiang was very popular, no less than today's popular stars. However, user activity was very low. Why?

The picture comes from the Internet

One of the most important factors is that Liu Xiang does not actively "create" topics, but simply shares his own dynamics.

Weibo was more clever. It invited stars like Huang Jianxiang, who was very popular at the time, and allowed the stars to interact frequently with fans, with very good results.

Therefore, another dimension that the big guys should also refer to is whether they are willing to create topics on the platform and whether they have the energy to interact more with fans on the platform.

3) Whether it can create value for the platform

After seeing the great success of Xiaohongshu inviting celebrities, many community platforms also spent money to invite celebrities.

For example, Dianping, also based in Shanghai, spent a large sum of money to hire many popular stars in April this year, such as Guan Xiaotong, Jiang Shuying, Zhang Yixing, and Zhu Yawen.

However, it failed to replicate the success of Xiaohongshu!

I think a very important reason is that Dianping treats the invitation of celebrity KOLs to join as a marketing behavior, rather than treating celebrity invitations as an operational behavior like Xiaohongshu does.

This marketing behavior of inviting celebrities is more like an endorsement, giving the celebrity a very high-profile appearance, and then just popping out and that's it.

Guan Xiaotong and Zhang Yixing occasionally appear on Dianping.com

Xiaohongshu, which treats celebrity invitations as an operational behavior, asks them to use " dry goods " content to announce their entry into Xiaohongshu . It often guides celebrities to post content that is consistent with the platform's tone based on the community positioning itself.

Fan Bingbing has posted a total of 53 notes since she opened her account, basically updating one note every week. Lin Yun has 177 notes so far, and she is one of the stars who updates her notes most frequently.

Wu Jinyan (who plays Wei Yingluo) has updated a total of 25 pieces of content since opening her account, including personally demonstrating to netizens how to apply lip makeup for the concubines in "Story of Yanxi Palace".

Empress Fucha Qin Lan and Concubine Chun Wang Yuanke have also recently opened their own Xiaohongshu accounts, and the content is mainly about beauty.

Therefore, for operations , when inviting celebrity KOLs, you need to think clearly about what you need the celebrities to do for the platform and whether they can do it spontaneously and continuously.

02 How to squeeze out the value of KOL?

We have invited star-level KOLs, and we need to have certain operational means to match them so as to maximize the value of these big guys. How does Xiaohongshu do it?

1) Attract new users

KOL’s fans are very important resources. Therefore, in order to squeeze out the full value of KOLs, the first step is to attract the fans of these celebrities to join the team.

After inviting the seven members of Lehua Entertainment to join, Kuaikan Comics released a promotional video. The general content was as follows: it announced that it had hooked up with the seven members of Lehua Entertainment, and fans were urged to download it quickly.

So fans of Lehua Seven flocked to the Kuaikan Comics APP.

Xiaohongshu has also done a good job in this regard. In order to let the fans of Empress Fucha Rongyin know, the Empress has joined Xiaohongshu. Xiaohongshu has embedded a small theater into "Story of Yanxi Palace".

The short play was very interesting. The emperor said that he missed the queen very much, so the eunuch Li Yu offered a suggestion:

The emperor was very excited and said that he would not only download Xiaohongshu to read the queen's updates, but also post updates on it to interact with the queen.

This wave of skits cleverly directed the Queen's fans to the Xiaohongshu platform, and may even increase the amount of content produced by these users.

At the same time, Xiaohongshu will also reprocess the content produced by KOLs on its official public account , which also plays a role in attracting new users.

2) User retention

If you open Xiaohongshu now, there will be at least 2 posts from celebrities among the first 10 posts on the homepage. If you are a new user, there may be more than 4 posts.

Behind this phenomenon is that Xiaohongshu is using celebrities to retain users. When users enter the new platform, they are actually very confused.

Being able to see celebrities you are familiar with on it will not only make you feel that Xiaohongshu is awesome, but you will also involuntarily complete a series of key user retention behaviors such as reading notes, liking notes, commenting notes, and following bloggers .

For users with less self-control, they will be deeply immersed in the content posted by star-level KOLs and become loyal users of Xiaohongshu within one day.

For example, our operation baby was once addicted to Yoona and spent half an hour watching all her content.

03 How to retain KOL?

Whether they are celebrity KOLs or ordinary amateur KOLs, they have accumulated batches of fans because they are good at a certain field and like to share .

Therefore, KOLs care more about whether they can get feedback from fans, whether they can enhance their influence on this platform, and whether they can gain the love and recognition of fans. Of course, there are also people who come for cash rewards.

Taking these into consideration, you will have a clearer idea about retaining KOLs. Taking Xiaohongshu as an example, they have the following four strategies when operating KOLs:

1) Advertising resource exposure

When a KOL officially joins the platform/publishes high-quality content, he/she will be given a recommended position to make him/her feel the platform’s support.

2) Award exclusive medals/exclusive privileges

This makes KOLs different from ordinary users and gives them a greater sense of honor.

3) Fans benefits

Plan fan interaction activities for KOLs from time to time to let them know that the platform is helping them maintain fans.

4) Regularly initiate official interactions

Allow platform users to learn more about KOLs and build a bridge between users and KOLs.

I need to complain about Dianping again here. For a KOL of Zhang Yixing's status, how could he have only 67,000 fans?

04 Conclusion

Inviting KOLs to join the platform is a good operational idea both in terms of traffic acquisition and user retention, but even if your boss gives you a budget, you can't just invite whoever you want.

I hope that this article can help you think clearly about the following questions about KOL invitations by combining the case of Xiaohongshu:

1) Is the KOL’s social image consistent with the platform’s tone?

2) Is the KOL’s social topic hot and sustainable?

3) Is it possible for KOL to become a real user?

4) Besides marketing, what can I do with KOL?

5) How to create enough differentiation and scarcity for celebrities