Xiaohongshu’s methodology for building a brand

A friend asked me: I have several brands operating on Xiaohongshu, including corporate accounts and KOL cooperation. I mainly want to solve how to promote brands and products on Xiaohongshu and build brand awareness.

I replied: So, let’s talk about the thinking level of Xiaohongshu’s content marketing, all the way to methodology, and then to techniques. What do you think of this?

1. Xiaohongshu’s content strategy (Part 1): Mindset

Building Xiaohongshu's content moat will determine the future of the next three years

1. Xiaohongshu Marketing: Mind Occupation

I won’t give old examples like Melatonin and Wong Lo Kat. Turning to Xiaohongshu content marketing, let’s talk about the relationship between new products and KOLs.

Although the KOL blogger’s persona provides us with trust endorsement, the blogger is only the point that pushes the traffic ripples. Ultimately, it is our brand, products, packaging and selling points that allow the target audience to reach their destination. So, when we spread, what exactly are we spreading?

Only when the arrow of information is polished to be sharp enough and hits the center of the bull's eye, will it remain firmly on the target. What needs to be polished? Polish differentiation, polish value proposition, and polish the uniqueness of product selling points.

1) Is your packaging really good looking?

In the content of Xiaohongshu notes, in addition to the blogger's appearance at first glance, we also see the product packaging.

First, I said, beauty products, ancient style, green, gold, lipstick, what brand do you think of?

Second, I said, lipstick, black, bullet-shaped, affordable, what brand do you think of?

The first brand is Huaxizi, which can be regarded as a brand that emerged from the content marketing of Xiaohongshu. The second brand is MAC. The lipstick packaging looks like a bullet and is black.

Among these packages, successful brands are pursuing unique packaging, hoping to be placed on a crowded shelf or in a collection of Xiaohongshu notes so that people can tell what brand the product is from a distance. Xiaohongshu has played an indispensable role in the spread of Huaxizi and MAC.

2) Is your product keyword easy to remember?

Little brown bottle, little black bottle, little aluminum tube, little black pen, bullet-shaped calcium, blue bottle of calcium, delicious calcium; what do you think of these words?

Yes, Estee Lauder’s Advanced Night Repair Serum, many girls know about it, and it has even become hard currency. The calcium in the blue bottle is delicious calcium and is an oral liquid of the Sanjing brand. People born in the 1990s are brainwashed by this advertisement every day. After so many years, when people mention the calcium in the blue bottle, the product packaging will come to their mind.

At this point, we understand that the core of marketing communication has never changed. What makes us think is whether our product has a unique product word yet? Others have xxx essence, and you also have xxx essence, but we have not occupied the mindset of product words.

3) What is your differentiated selling point?

A new selling point for shampoo; when others are saying that shampoo can remove dandruff and make hair smooth, last year a shampoo brand said that hair loss and baldness are also related to the quality of tap water, so you need to use shampoo that removes residual chlorine. What is residual chlorine?

The simple explanation is that tap water is disinfected, and after disinfection there will be disinfectant powder left, which is called residual chlorine. This causes water sensitivity, so it is necessary to remove residual chlorine, which will make your scalp much healthier.

Hair loss = disinfectant powder residue (residual chlorine) in water = XX brand. This is also a differentiation among many homogeneous selling points.

4) Are there scenario-based tags?

The life scenes photographed by each blogger are embodied in food, clothing, housing and transportation, which can be subdivided into 7 aspects: bedroom, kitchen, office, party, bathroom, gym and travel. Among these scenes, if a blogger is photographing a bedroom, will your product appear in it?

Among the 7 scenarios, how many scenarios does your product integrate into and in which scenarios does it appear? What brand products are associated with it? For example: toothpaste brands will be associated with electric toothbrushes, toothbrush sterilizers, which are all supplies for a better life that appear in the bathroom. In a scene, continuously strengthen the product and present a beautiful feeling in the scene.

5) What is the resulting screen of the product?

Continuing from the above content; why, didn’t you mention the product’s efficacy? Because "I love you not only for who you are, but also for who I am when I am with you."

Because of the relationship with the platform, when soft-implanting grass-roots content, try to mention component words and efficacy words as little as possible, unless you report it. However, if every article needs to be reported, the cost will be much higher. Therefore, you only need to present the final result so that users can see the final result and reduce sensitivity, which is also what users need.

6) What is the brand value proposition?

When doing marketing on Xiaohongshu, the first thing people see is the blogger’s notes and appearance, and the second thing they see is the product packaging. After remembering the product, they remember the brand.

After the target group experiences the product, if your brand proposition is good, they will be loyal to the brand. Of course, many times it is because the brand's tone attracts them, or it may be social vanity, or because the service provider is interesting and warm. Your brand only serves this group of people and makes them feel a sense of belonging.

7) Brand personification

Jiang Xiaobai Bar, Xiao Wanzi Bar, Three Squirrels Bar, and there are also Perfect Diary’s personified characters on Xiaohongshu, Perfect Diary’s Little Follower and Wanzi’s Selection.

We all know that Jiang Xiaobai became popular in the Weibo era, and Perfect Diary's Xiao Wanzi is more outstanding in maintaining customer relationships on WeChat, the private domain traffic terminal. This part is also the key point that we can consider when advertising on Xiaohongshu.

Why is there no mention of the product’s effectiveness? No mention of gourmet food products tasting good? Because this is the foundation, the basics, which any brand must do well. It is not the key to success. Although "good wine needs no bush", you are not the only one with good wine.

Because in China, copying a product is too fast. However, it is not so easy to erase memories by occupying the mind. Any techniques and methods serve the core idea and occupy the mind.

Let's think about it first. If we don't think it through clearly, it doesn't matter. After all, many things and many selling points are constantly adjusted and upgraded. For this part, friends who operate the brand can compare and see what we have done well. After all, Xiaohongshu content community is the beginning of social marketing and one of the important places for building brand awareness.

2. Xiaohongshu Marketing: Content Strategy

When it comes to building brand awareness, we should look more at the market three years later. Content marketing and content accumulation can establish competitive barriers, which are the so-called moats. Moat: In ancient times, the general practice of protecting a city was to dig a deep river at the foot of the city wall, mainly to increase the difficulty for the opponent to attack the city.

When it comes to content marketing on Xiaohongshu, the competition between brands is also the same. From the target audience of the brand to the brand packaging and selling points, they are spread through the content of notes. After they are deposited, they are basically pervasive.

Content can bring about a long-tail effect. After several years, when people search for brand or content keywords, they can still find relevant content about our brand. In addition to being searched on Xiaohongshu, Baidu can also crawl the note content of Xiaohongshu.

When there is more content to support your thinking, it is relatively easy to close deals and break through potential consumers’ psychological defenses of purchasing. Therefore, the moat of content marketing and content strategy needs to be continuously strengthened and consolidated.

3. Xiaohongshu Marketing: Matrix Approach

A student was mentioned in my circle of friends. He ranked ninth in a certain category on Tmall on Double Eleven in 2020. He started to work on Xiaohongshu in 2018. As of this year, he has 100 Xiaohongshu accounts, of which about 40 are actually in operation. The cost of sending out posts is now around 80,000 to 100,000 yuan per month. He had never tried to cooperate with bloggers before, but started to consider cooperating with bloggers this year.

Let me extend this a little bit here. The 100 accounts mentioned above are all personal accounts, and they mainly publish popular articles. If they are upgraded now, they will be matched with corporate accounts, as well as Xiaohongshu blogger accounts with their own personal settings. They seem to have nothing to do with the official brand, but they are interconnected. That is, after the personal blogger account posts a note, the official can leave a message in the comment column, for example, thanking xx blogger for recognizing us, and we are actually on the list.

The main thing about self-operated Xiaohongshu account matrix is ​​that the content output must be streamlined. Where to collect content? Xiaohongshu, Douyin, WeChat public accounts, Weibo, Zhihu, Baidu, etc. Collect more useful content, and then process it again and make these processes into manuals. Xiaohongshu has four types of accounts: personal account, corporate account, employee account, and traffic account.

It doesn’t mean that every brand will set up 100 accounts right away. It must be a small-scale test. For example, 5 accounts copy peers or similar brands, excellent brands in different categories, and imitate their popular articles. The fastest way is to build on other people’s ideas and improve them to make them your own. Working in isolation and thinking hard will only waste a lot of useless energy.

4. Circle marketing, get feedback from bloggers

First, you need to contact the first batch of seed bloggers and KOLs, and then collect feedback from these bloggers, for example 30 bloggers to 100 bloggers, and then register them, continuously collect information, and continuously improve, so that you can sculpt a product that the target audience likes.

Of course, there are also some brand marketers who have a keen sense of smell. They know that what they like is also what the target audience likes. This person is called Steve Jobs. For most of the rest, feedback from the market is still needed.

Another source of feedback is through the platform’s recommendation mechanism. Anyone who does marketing must understand themselves better than their users do, and obtain platform feedback from the content they produce, so they can know what kind of content users like. Look at the comments, especially the comment section. As long as the notes and comments are not fake, you can still feel it even if it is fake.

5. Be kind to the Xiaohongshu platform and Xiaohongshu bloggers

Why do I encounter the situation that my notes are frequently not included or even blocked recently? Putting aside the Woodpecker Project (false propaganda, strong commercialization and exaggerated propaganda), including the strict platform review during the 315 period, the core point is that no real content was created that users like. The content they like is the long-term solution. Otherwise, the spread of notes will be affected over time.

What is creating content that users like?

For example: I write a decoration guide and also embed lighting, murals, etc.; or, if you write a lot of useful content, or let bloggers write a lot of useful content, when you embed it, users will not hate it and will collect it. This is the core of the platform - to record a beautiful life and mark my life.

Only this kind of content can be retained on Xiaohongshu for a long time. In comparison, the exposure of single product notes will not be high. It is only suitable for being used as a "customer testimony" on Tmall or a user testimony on Xiaohongshu. The notes are so memorable that you can't help but collect them.

Even if you print out the notes and post them in your room or put them in the office, why would the platform limit your traffic? You can find out the specific range of the gray lines on Xiaohongshu by doing more tests.

2. Xiaohongshu Content Strategy (Part 2): Methods

1. The underlying logic behind Xiaohongshu’s rapid spread

1) The core of creating popular articles on Xiaohongshu

Don’t think too much. Collect all the excellent notes of your peers, analyze their titles, analyze their copywriting content, why they became popular articles, create an Excel spreadsheet file, collect 100 articles, and write the analysis of the reasons for the popular articles at the back.

Are there any title sentence patterns that can be copied directly and made into fill-in-the-blank questions? When you want to use them yourself, just fill in some keywords. To put it simply, it is just a template. It still needs some improvements, after all, blatant plagiarism is not good, but the overall picture remains unchanged.

For example: Recently we have seen a lot of popular articles about beauty and makeup, as well as notes related to contact lenses, eyelashes, eye shadow, and eyebrow pencils. The content of these notes should have close-ups on the cover picture, with charming eyes appearing in the upper picture and a picture of the entire makeup in the lower picture. This form is worth copying.

For example: Title, Li Jiaqi didn’t lie to me! XXXX. XXX didn’t lie to me! The cake made in this way is so delicious! Sentence patterns can be listed out and filled in the blanks. When you have collected 100 popular article titles, you can analyze the common points of these titles and finally imitate them.

2) The underlying logic of popular articles

• Content selection: tutorials, guides, collections;
• Method: Use celebrities to promote; target audience, e.g. female college students, fans of Korean dramas, age groups; scenarios, e.g. confinement, when the child has a cold, what to wear for dancing; time period, e.g. New Year gift packages;
• Emotion: bring in contradictions, e.g. show it to my mother-in-law; arouse resonance or a sense of revelation, e.g. the hot mom on Xiaohongshu is a liar; keep it for private use, please don’t raise the price;
• The icing on the cake: Details, such as a makeup tutorial with large eye makeup comparison photos; tempting pictures, such as food.

Summarize:

1. If you have 1 of the above four points, it may explode; if you have 2-3 of them, it can explode; if you have all 4 of them, it’s awesome, it will definitely explode!
2. It is better to write one hit article than to publish 100 mediocre notes.
3. Read more, think more, and copy more!

2. Xiaohongshu Marketing: “T+H Chain” Strategy

Xiaohongshu content < Xiaohongshu exposure < reading volume < interaction volume < Tmall visitor volume < Tmall transaction volume. In the above marketing pipeline, we can record the data of every link, continuously analyze and compare, whether the data is good or bad, and know what exactly affects them.

This horizontal assembly line is also a cause-and-effect cycle, forming a closed loop. The vertical influences include platform factors, competitor factors, blogger account factors, blogger note content factors, and own brand factors. Before Xiaohongshu was launched, we first recorded the data on Tmall, and then after the launch, we looked at the number of visitors on Tmall. Especially when a hot article is produced,

Generally, when a popular article appears, the data on our Tmall platform will change. If there is no change, then we need to pay attention to the direction of the note content and the messages in the comment section.

After watching the important festivals of e-commerce, Xiaohongshu needs to cooperate with Tmall's activities and gradually warm up two months in advance. Xiaohongshu platform will recommend content related to the festivals. This is one of the reasons why we assist the Tmall platform and do warm-up in advance.

Festival warm-up is a must. If you want to know the hot keywords and trends of Xiaohongshu in detail, you should pay attention to Shu Guanjia, Shu Captain, related Shu (such as Beauty Shu, Mother and Baby Shu, etc.), Xiaohongshu Creator Academy, etc., as well as check third-party data platforms such as Rocket Big Data and Qiangua Data. With the awareness of preparing for a rainy day, you can seize the opportunity. However, you still need to think deeply about the details.

3. Xiaohongshu blogger placement

1) Amateurs - free replacement

The general cost-saving approach is to do a free replacement. You can go to the WeChat search box and search for "notification platform", and you will see a lot of notification platforms for contacting bloggers and posting recruitment requirements. If you don’t know how to write recruitment content, just watch how others write it and imitate them. In addition, let amateur bloggers recommend amateur bloggers. Bloggers also have their own circles.

But don’t expect that the quality of the bloggers who are replaced for free is high.

The reason why we can exchange it for free is that our brand and products are well-known. If it is a new brand and new product, many bloggers may not be willing to do so. If the category is sensitive and the blogger wants to compile a collection or do soft implantation, agree to her request.

It is great if sensitive categories can be included. If brand words are not included, then you can consider creating new product words. For details on creating new product words, please refer to the first part of this article: Xiaohongshu Content Strategy (Part 1) Mind, the second point of the first paragraph, are product words easy to remember?

2) Experts - Move towards hot articles

Not all expert bloggers can produce hit articles. Relatively speaking, collections, useful information, strategies, and tutorials are more likely to produce hit articles. Many brand partners may worry that their brand advertising is not well reinforced, so they can just mention the brand words in the comment section.

The most important thing is to be able to spread it. Only by crossing the fixed traffic pool can it be seen by more people and then see our brand.

3) Note Type

Single product notes: There is only one product, which introduces the experience of using the product and the content expresses the selling points of the product. A collection of multiple products; multiple products are combined in one note, which can also be understood as sharing of multiple good things.

Insertion of useful information; sharing a lot of useful information or solutions at the beginning, and then adding this product at the end will have a better effect. The vertical collection is an upgraded version of the multi-product collection, such as the 10 must-have products for a travel backpack and the 5 magic weapons for waterproof makeup when swimming. Basically, there are five types.

4) Ratio of bloggers and note types

This part needs to be decided by the brand itself. In the early stage, the budget should be considered and the proportion should be adjusted according to the budget. The second thing is to see at which stage the brand is launched. Finally, it also depends on how strict the platform's review is. If it is strict, there will be more collections, soft articles, and evaluation notes.

5) Brand registration

If you see a good-looking blogger who wants to present his/her works in the form of single product notes, then report it. For 100 notes per month, it is recommended to report 10-15 notes. After all, when doing marketing and commercial content on Xiaohongshu, it is safer to report it.

6) Performance advertising support: information flow, search advertising

The search advertising column is mainly used to enable our notes to rank high when users search for certain keywords. This is a paid ranking. As the entry interception of demand words, as long as the keywords are selected correctly, the traffic is relatively accurate. This is part of the Xiaohongshu delivery, and it needs to be used in combination. The money that should be spent must be spent...

7) French fries

When you see signs of a hit article in a blogger's notes, for example, after the article is published, the natural data increases by more than 200, and then you slowly watch the data change, there are two opinions here. Some say that as soon as you see signs of a hit article, you should immediately make some posts, while others say that you should wait until the natural traffic has almost gone before making some posts.

My personal suggestion is to take the middle value and test them separately at this time, and you will know which one is the more suitable operation method.

3. Xiaohongshu’s content strategy (Part 2): Illusion

1. Practical skills in attracting traffic from Xiaohongshu

1) Xiaohongshu attracts traffic from Tmall

All note contents are basically directed to Tmall (e-commerce platform), with a focus on the comment section. Whether you operate your own Xiaohongshu account or post blogger notes, guiding messages in the comment area are crucial. When you find a hot article, don’t forget to let the blogger interact, such as 🍑宝🔍 and Jingdong.

2) WeChat traffic diversion

To attract traffic through WeChat, you need to tell them what they can get after adding WeChat, such as XX guide PDF, or XX product (mug, festival gifts, etc.).

3) Xiaohongshu notes ranking optimization

What is note optimization ranking?

Ranking: When you search for a keyword on Xiaohongshu, your notes will be ranked first. Although some Xiaohongshu practitioners say that there is basically no chance of ranking notes, optimized notes can still achieve a good ranking position, but it is not as violent and arbitrary as before.

After Xiaohongshu officially launched the "Thousand Faces for Thousands of People" mode, each user sees a different page position, but after optimization, it can still be ranked at the front. You can find out by testing it on a small scale, but don’t choose big words because the competition is fierce and you won’t have much chance.

Choose long-tail keywords, for example, embed sunscreen; optimize: a must-have for summer travel, or, what should you pay attention to when traveling in summer (if you only choose sunscreen as the keyword, the competition will be fierce)?

What is the use of note optimization ranking?

The underlying logic of Xiaohongshu note ranking is no different from that of Baidu search engine and WeChat search engine. The main function is that the notes we put out or the notes operated by the account itself will be displayed first and obtain higher traffic. The principle is very simple, so I won't elaborate on it.

How to rank notes on Xiaohongshu?

Before making ranking optimization notes, we use four methods to determine whether the keywords are hot:

1. The search bar of Xiaohongshu
2. Xiaohongshu note content or comments
3. Rocket Big Data Red Book Edition Keyword Popularity Query
4. Qiangua data keyword popularity query

Ranking Tips: Keyword Insertion

1. The title contains relevant long-tail keywords;
2. The first three lines of the note appear 1-3 times, depending on the content;
3. Include relevant words at the end, but don’t stuff keywords;
4. Comments section appears appropriately;
5. Then the amount of manual likes and collections should be based on the reading volume of the notes, 10:1, or 20:1. For manual likes and collections, you still need to simulate the normal browsing method of searching keywords before taking action. If you still have questions about this, you can ask me privately. Don’t be violent when liking and collecting posts, as the final result will be a ban. Don’t be violent.

Search entry keyword page layout 5-10, for example:

• Summer travel essentials
• Summer travel
• Summer travel essentials
• Summer XX Travel Guide
• …

When we judge that the traffic of relevant long-tail keywords is good, we should make a good keyword layout and select some notes from the KOL notes for optimization. Zhuang Jun has opened a public account, which contains a lot of useful articles, and also provides a Xiaohongshu marketing materials package.

Regarding Xiaohongshu Enterprise Account, an official staff of Xiaohongshu said during a live broadcast that Xiaohongshu has no such thing as weight or traffic limit. You can feel it. Xiaohongshu Enterprise Account has more permissions and its weight is indeed higher than that of ordinary personal accounts.

4. Ending

The above-mentioned magic, methods and thinking of Xiaohongshu's content strategy can be regarded as the framework for Xiaohongshu's marketing. When the thinking and ideas are very clear, we can concentrate our firepower and break the competitive deadlock when making the Xiaohongshu content strategy layout.

Methods change with time and platform adjustments. Many people like techniques because they are easy to learn but also easy to become outdated. Therefore, we must continue to consolidate our Xiaohongshu brand marketing system and constantly update and iterate it. Content marketing will be a topic that needs to be studied from now on and for the next ten years.

Author: Zhuang Jun

Source: Zhuang Jun Xiaohongshu Marketing