Xiaohongshu Nanny-level Delivery Manual

Many friends asked Lao Zhao if Xiaohongshu still has any opportunities and how to play it under the current circumstances. Lao Zhao would like to take this opportunity to sort out the gameplay of Xiaohongshu and share with everyone how to play Xiaohongshu now from the perspective of an operator. This should be the nanny-level gameplay that can be seen on Xiaohongshu.

The core purpose of brands using Xiaohongshu to promote products is to influence consumer decisions. To understand how Xiaohongshu influences consumer decisions, we must understand the consumer tasks of consumers using the Xiaohongshu platform, and then design effective methods based on consumer tasks to influence consumer decisions. Consumers use Xiaohongshu for two main tasks:

1) To meet their existing needs, consumers can obtain other consumers’ experience and feedback on a specific product. Consumers will search to get the results they want.

2) Just browse around and discover new and interesting things, triggering your unknown needs. The system will recommend relevant content to consumers based on their preferences;

For the two consumer tasks above, brands need to do two things:

1) Fully understand the keywords that consumers will search for, and work based on these keywords to help consumers search for as many positive results related to their brand as possible to influence their decision-making;

2) Use the system's recommendation rules to display relevant content to consumers as much as possible to arouse their interest;

It is not easy to do the above two things well. Brands need to face the following situations:

1) There are too many competitors, all targeting consumers’ searches, and too much information makes it difficult for consumers to decide where to start;

2) Competitors will also use the system recommendation rules to seize the display of content, which will also interfere with consumers' minds;

This requires brands to have clear strategies, tactics and evaluation systems when promoting products on Xiaohongshu, to ensure that their actions are effective and cost-effective, rather than blindly launching products without methods and evaluation.

In general, the core logic of Xiaohongshu is:

1) Help endorse brand credit, influence consumer decisions, and increase conversion rates;

2) Use system recommendations to gain more exposure, thereby arousing consumer interest and gaining more opportunities for consumer selection;

3) Intercept some consumer demand and reduce customer acquisition costs;

As Xiaohongshu advertising has become a standard for brands, many brands lament that it is difficult to do business on Xiaohongshu and that the benefits have disappeared. Let’s first look at the differences between now and in the past, and then see whether Xiaohongshu still has any benefits.

2.1 Comparison between Xiaohongshu’s past and present situation

The current situation of Xiaohongshu is very different from the past in terms of platform rules, competition level and consumer behavior.

Little Red Book in the past

1) Notes are easy to collect and advertising restrictions are not strict;

2) There is little competition and few brands, making it easy to occupy the minds of users;

3) The core logic is to seize the search, and there is no need for any complex delivery strategy, just win by quantity;

Today's Little Red Book

1) There are many brands and fierce competition, which dilutes consumers’ attention;

2) Notes are difficult to collect and there are many advertising restrictions;

3) Consumer behavior has changed. Search is still the key, but the proportion of browsing information flow is gradually increasing;

4) The core logic is not only to seize the search in the segmented track, but also to use the platform rules to obtain more content recommendations;

2.2 What are the current benefits of Xiaohongshu?

From the above comparison, we can see that it is not that Xiaohongshu is difficult to do business, but that the core logic of Xiaohongshu's investment has changed. Continuing to invest in Xiaohongshu in the traditional way will definitely be counterproductive. At present, Xiaohongshu should pay more attention to the segmented blue ocean market, and overtake others by overtaking in the curve and responding to the competition in the red ocean market through commercial domain traffic. In addition, whether a platform is worth investing in needs to be considered from the following aspects:

1) Whether the user's tone matches the brand;

2) Is the platform in a period of dividend or has a phased dividend? If so, the customer acquisition cost is low, so enter decisively;

3) Is there a clear ceiling for the platform’s user base? Can it meet the brand’s needs at a certain stage before reaching the ceiling?

4) Whether it can be accelerated through business domain traffic, if so, it can be accelerated decisively;

Therefore, we believe that Xiaohongshu is still a very worthwhile and necessary investment for brands. So how can brands deliver targeted advertising on the Xiaohongshu platform?

Some brands tend to only think about the placement on Xiaohongshu from the perspective of content delivery. The lack of e-commerce thinking and Xiaohongshu's refined operational capabilities makes it difficult for brands to achieve their expectations. The correct action should be:

1) Understand the current demand for products in the market?

2) Understand who the current product competitors are? How do competitors play?

3) Clarify product promotion strategy

4) Clarify the product content strategy

5) Data Feedback & Model Scale-up

If a brand wants to achieve the above five points, it must rely on data analysis. Here, Lao Zhao will first help you sort out an analysis framework, then see where the data comes from, and then see how to analyze it.

3.1 How to understand the market demand for products

1) From the perspective of consumer cognition, the drop-down words are sorted and recommended by the system based on the user's search volume, representing the user's demand level.

Look at the hot words, compare the hot words with their related popularity, know which word has good popularity, and then use the target to compare it

2) Look at the hot search terms on Chan Mama

Data source: Cicada Mom

3) Blue Ocean Keywords Blue Ocean Keywords are keywords that have high search popularity, but the number of notes published for these keywords is small, indicating that consumer demand is strong, but there are not many solutions in Xiaohongshu. If you create some content covering these keywords, it will be easily seen by consumers.

3.2 What is the competitor’s strategy?

Let’s take pmpm rose and black tea essential oil as an example and regard this product as a competitor. We want to see how this product performs? We first obtained the basic data of this product’s placement on Xiaohongshu from Chanmama, and then analyzed it from the following dimensions:

1) Is the competitor an old brand or a new brand? What is the purpose of their marketing? pmpm is a new domestic brand that has not been established for a long time. The purpose of using Xiaohongshu is to increase the search index on the site.

2) What is the overall note size of competing products? From September last year to April this year, I submitted nearly 400 notes for the product PMPM Rose Black Tea Essential Oil;

Data source: Cicada Mom

3) What is the ratio of commercial notes to non-commercial notes of competitors? PMPM rose black tea essential oil is mainly distributed in non-commercial notes, and commercial notes only account for 10% of the total distribution;

Data source: Cicada Mom

4) What is the proportion of the total number of placements by competitor influencers? Generally, the business notes reported are the expert notes. You can estimate the proportion of business notes.

5) What is the explosive rate of competitors’ articles? The explosive rate of pmpm Rose Black Tea Essence Oil is 13.6%. Currently, the explosive rate of commercial notes and non-commercial notes is not very high.

Data source: Cicada Mom

6) What are the main selling points and keywords of the competing products? You can judge the selling points and implanted keywords of this product by analyzing the content of the notes.

7) What is the approximate advertising budget of competing products? From the perspective of advertising costs, the monthly expenditure on the product pmpm Rose and Black Tea Essence Oil on Xiaohongshu is not particularly high. Except for the explosive investment in January 2021, the monthly investment is tens of thousands of yuan. However, this data is only for commercial notes. The specific cost data for non-commercial notes is not available, but we can make a rough estimate.

Data source: Cicada Mom

8) What is the frequency of competing products? The highest number of articles published for pmpm Rose Black Tea Essential Oil was 147 in one month, and the lowest was 20 in one month. There were two months with more than 60 articles published, which can give us a general idea of ​​the publishing rhythm of this product.

9) How are the notes being shared, commented, liked and collected? You can analyze 20 notes with good interaction data and 10 notes with relatively poor interaction data, and judge the reasons for good or poor performance based on pictures, content, comments, etc.

10) What is the experience of competing products? Buy a competitor's product, find the right person to experience the product, and write down your experience to find the difference in experience between your product and others'.

11) What is the data feedback of competitors? Analyze the specific situation of competitors through Business Advisor, including Tmall store level, product listing time, reasons for product sales pulse, etc.

3.3 Clarify your own delivery strategy and objectives

After understanding the competitor's strategy, we need to develop our own strategy.

1) New brand or old brand

If you are an old brand and your Tmall store is above level 4, the core strategy of using Xiaohongshu is to maintain traffic stability and deal with negative reviews. It is difficult for Xiaohongshu to help your store traffic reach a higher level. It is more about helping you stabilize your store traffic. At the same time, it uses a large number of notes to help endorse your credit and handle negative reviews in a timely manner. If you are a new brand and your Tmall store is below level 4, Xiaohongshu can help you increase store traffic. The overall approach should be to use amateurs or KOCs to spread the word and attract consumers' attention. Then use bloggers with tens of thousands to 100,000 followers to promote the product. Find very good bloggers on the Xiaohongshu platform to take notes, and then choose the information flow based on the data. Finally, after all the investments have been made, find some bloggers to do single product implantation.

2) Business notes or non-business notes

Let’s take pmpm rose and black tea essential oil as an example. From the above picture, we can see that the rate of popular articles is very low, whether it is business notes or non-business notes. The Xiaohongshu platform can no longer rely solely on popular articles to promote products. Moreover, there are many factors that affect popular articles, such as the content production ability of influencers, their understanding of commercial content, keyword determination, etc. The uncertainty is too great. But don’t give up on business notes. From the platform’s perspective, we don’t want to be fleeced all the time and we hope to achieve win-win results with brands. Therefore, brands with larger output (more than 100 articles per month) still need to have about 10% of the total number of business reporting notes per month, and they need to have them continuously. Otherwise, there is a high probability that they will be restricted by the platform.

Data source: Cicada Mom

Another problem is that non-commercial notes can only be used to invest in French fries, while commercial notes can be used to invest in information flow, so a portion of commercial notes must be used for the large-scale delivery of performance advertising. As for which notes to invest in, it is determined through analysis of the collected data, and it is necessary to look at the store and the conversion situation.

3) Video notes or graphic notes

At present, the data of Xiaohongshu’s video notes has traffic support compared to picture and text notes. The average interaction of video notes is about twice that of picture and text notes. It is recommended that brands can appropriately increase the proportion of video notes. However, although the video interaction data looks good, the actual effect still needs to be further judged through e-commerce data, otherwise it is just good-looking data.

4) Amateur or expert

When brands are promoting products on Xiaohongshu, they often have this dilemma: whether to promote ordinary people or experts. First of all, although amateurs are cheap, cheap products are not good. Trying to save money without any effect will waste money. The strategy should be based on the goal and the spending should be reasonable. Secondly, based on the current Xiaohongshu mechanism, simply relying on amateurs to increase sales is no longer very effective. There are several reasons for this:

1. The inclusion rate of amateurs will be very low, and there will be no advantages in both search and recommendation scenarios;

2. Users are becoming more and more sensitive to advertisements and are more likely to be disgusted with brands;

3. A large number of amateurs try to take advantage of the platform, but they are more likely to be "blacklisted" by the platform;

However, investing in some celebrities or experts in the field can continue to exert your influence, help endorse the brand, and continue to obtain some referral traffic.

5) What are the differences between you and your competitors?

It is also important to understand the marketing strategies of competitors, especially for new brands. Don’t compete head-on with competitors on a certain keyword. Although it is possible, it will be very expensive. You can use Chanmama to extract the delivery notes of competitors' products, reversely deduce their delivery strategies, and then carry out differentiated delivery. PMPM will invest in various types of influencers, covering beauty, food, travel, grass-roots promotion, health, etc.

Data source: Cicada Mom

An excellent delivery strategy must be deployed in multiple scenarios to overtake competitors on the same track:

1. Cover the audience in multiple scenarios and test more product promotion scenarios;

2. Avoid competing products on the same track. The cost of competing on the same track is too high, and latecomers have advantages and disadvantages;

3. Start broad and then refine, select more types of experts, and determine which model to amplify based on data performance. The judging criteria are whether there is an increase in searches on Tmall or other e-commerce platforms, and whether there is a change in store visits. Generally, for new brands, Xiaohongshu adds brand terms. An increase in searches for brand terms on traffic-carrying platforms indicates that the placement is effective.

4. Obtain the best target KOLs through testing and deeply bind with them;

6) Content Strategy

When making notes on Xiaohongshu, whether they are business notes or non-business notes, if you want good data, you must master one principle, which is [altruism]. Altruistic content will definitely be spread, and it can also help us judge whether a note is watery or not. In addition, advertisements that are too good will definitely be restricted by the platform.

In addition, there must be a clear logic when creating content. It is not just for the sake of publishing, but what content we want to convey to consumers and what memories we hope they will have. It is best to correspond the brand selling points with blue ocean keywords, and use user needs to make inclusion easier.

Friends who want to attract traffic to Taobao can pull keywords through Business Advisor, and then bury the keywords in notes. Through Xiaohongshu search + Xiaohongshu recommendation + Xiaohongshu information flow advertising, they can be reflected in Taobao mobile searches. If the blue ocean keywords are found through Business Advisor, store groups can be used to undertake these searches.

Image source: Nankaikou

In the content delivery phase, we need to clarify the number of posts to be delivered each month, the form and proportion of notes, the content direction and proportion, the angle of entry and presentation form, and give a standard brief to experts or amateurs (including: selling points, keywords, taboos, content direction and suggestions, first draft review time, delivery time, etc.)

7) Delivery rhythm In terms of delivery rhythm, Xiaohongshu promotion is a continuous behavior rather than explosive growth. Looking at the release rhythm of PMPM, a certain number of notes are released every day, and the number of notes released increases significantly as 618 approaches, in preparation for 618. We should also pay attention to this point when formulating the delivery strategy and decide the amount to deploy based on different nodes. Moreover, advertising on Xiaohongshu is like adding firewood to boiling water. It must not be interrupted. If it is interrupted, all the previous work will be in vain.

Data source: Cicada Mom

3.4 Find the right blogger

After deciding on the delivery strategy, we started to implement it. The most important step was to select suitable bloggers. Lao Zhao summarized several strategies and criteria for screening bloggers:

There are four strategies for blogger screening:

1) Choose bloggers with personality and in line with the product tone, such as Sha Xingyu or A Chun. Consumers have a very high sense of trust in bloggers, but it may be more difficult to cooperate with them, and the product selection requirements are relatively strict;

2) If conditions permit, choose some celebrity bloggers. Although the price may be high, it still has a certain effect on endorsement, and it is also easier to negotiate with other mid-level bloggers who have worked with celebrities;

3) Find more competitors, learn about the bloggers they have cooperated with (Cicada Mama can find out about the bloggers they have cooperated with), then look at their data and content, determine which ones can be cooperated with, and compile a list of potential cooperation;

4) Find bloggers who have grown rapidly recently and try to communicate and cooperate with them;

The blogger selection criteria are mainly the following 6:

1) Check whether the fan profile matches the target audience and in what scenarios will the fans buy the product;

2) Content is altruistic, which is the foundation;

3) Look at the basic data. If all the content data are in the same range, or the number of likes and favorites is the same, or the number of fans is more than the number of likes and favorites, or the fan activity is below 60%, then such bloggers do not need to be considered;

4) Read the comments. The comments section will definitely not always praise the product or say what you want. Be careful if you encounter this;

5) Look at the pictures. If it is a very commercial product picture, but the data is very good, you should pay attention to it;

6) Look at data changes and monitor the data performance of other brands that have cooperated. If the data of reposts, comments, likes and hiding is very good at the beginning, but the data does not change much later, this blogger should be careful;

Data source: Cicada Mom

3.5 Data Feedback & Model Scale-up

After the launch, it is necessary to monitor the post-launch data, record the changes in each blogger’s likes and favorites in a timely manner, and conduct comment analysis. On the one hand, we need to understand the real situation of each blogger, and on the other hand, we need to find the direction of subsequent iterations. The most important point is to determine which notes have the potential to be released in large quantities.

The process of increasing volume is generally divided into two situations, one is for non-commercial notes and the other is for commercial notes.

1) Non-commercial notes can be posted with French fries, but not with Xiaohongshu information flow. If you see a note with good likes and collections, you can consider posting some French fries to amplify this note;

2) Business notes can be put into information flow, which is now also a very important way for brands to increase their sales. If the brand has a corporate account, it can use this corporate account to put business notes. Xiaohongshu’s agency or official website is aware of the average CPC for a certain category, which can be used as a reference for placement to determine whether the cost is too high.

3) The click-through rate of the header image needs to be tested for Xiaohongshu information flow delivery to ensure delivery effect;

Summarize

To sum up, the current gameplay logic of Xiaohongshu is different from that of the previous Xiaohongshu. New brands should focus their strategies on blue ocean market segments + commercial domain traffic, and never compete head-on with old players.

Author: Lao Zhao Marketing Notes

Source: Marketing Lao Zhao