A practical guide to KOL marketing丨Winning strategies for brand marketing on Xiaohongshu

As media becomes increasingly fragmented and diversified, if a brand wants to build a certain voice, it must participate in social media that has attributes of multiple circles of people. How can brands make precise placements on Xiaohongshu and use the decentralized nature of KOL marketing to cater to the needs of their potential user groups? This practical guide to KOL placement can help brands achieve high ROI.

01 Xiaohongshu’s advertising logic and the link between consumer decision-making and impact

Since its development, Xiaohongshu community has subtly formed a complete chain of brand planting, decision-making and pulling out, namely AISAS marketing theory, from Attention to Interest, Search, Action and Share.

Picture｜Xiaohongshu

A "pyramid-style" delivery model has been formed around the fan groups covered by KOLs at each level, and the delivery rhythm is formulated according to the corresponding delivery objectives. This is Xiaohongshu's most classic and effective delivery strategy. Through multi-level pyramid-style delivery, the KOL’s own value can be used for efficient layered traffic diversion, fully utilizing the long-tail traffic of Xiaohongshu to promote product-effect conversion in a step-by-step manner.

Figure｜Qiangua Data

During the 618 period, taking Estee Lauder, the top brand on Xiaohongshu's commercial advertising list from April to June, as an example, the advertising type analysis showed that Estee Lauder's related advertising influencers were mainly concentrated in the junior influencers (5,000-50,000 fans) and mid-level influencers (50,000-500,000 fans) with a fan range of 10,000-100,000. The junior influencers and mid-level influencers accounted for a total of 36.2%.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-Brand Analysis

Judging from the distribution of interaction volume in influencer planting notes, the total amount of interaction contributed by influencer planting notes with 100,000-500,000 fans (mid-level influencers) is about 2.21 million, and 7.66% of the delivery volume contributes to 36.44% of the interaction volume. Following Xiaohongshu’s classic pyramid marketing model, mid-level influencers have become the core of Estee Lauder’s marketing.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-Brand Analysis

PMPM, a new domestic brand that broke through the siege during the 618 event, also performed well and ranked TOP3 on Xiaohongshu's commercial investment list. Different from Estee Lauder, PMPM's main influencers are amateurs and junior influencers, who contribute 34.14% of the delivery volume and 63.12% of the interaction volume. The proportion of mid-level influencers is relatively small compared to other brands. It can be seen that the decentralization of the pyramid delivery model to KOC delivery has become an important measure for emerging brands to enter Xiaohongshu.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-Brand Analysis

From scientific delivery layout to precise user reach, under the highly decentralized mechanism of the Xiaohongshu platform, KOL marketing has gradually become privatized, creating strong stickiness with fans. Mid-level and junior influencers have brought more and more voice to the brand, helped increase brand traffic, and driven more influencers to join the ranks of product promotion.

02 Insights from experts with high reinvestment rates, and tips for high ROI

As one of the most popular UGC platforms, Xiaohongshu influencers reach user groups in multiple fields with their high-quality content, from which many high-quality bloggers have emerged. They have accelerated differentiation, making professionalism the core competitiveness of KOLs. It is favored by many brands for its professional and specialized identity, and even has a high reinvestment phenomenon.

Commonalities of Brand High Reinvestment Experts

Taking the example of PMPM’s high-reinvestment junior expert milkshake that turned into milkshake sauce during the 618 period, both of the reinvestment notes showed relatively good data. Compared with the average interaction volume of the expert, the two business notes achieved the phenomenon of explosive articles.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-Brand Analysis

PMPM focuses on junior and mid-level influencers, and when selecting KOLs, it pays attention to the influencer's verticality. Looking at the notes of the junior expert Milkshake Became Milkshake Sauce in the past 30 days, skin care and personal care accounted for 52.17%, and makeup accounted for 4.35%, which is an expert with a high verticality.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-Expert Analysis

As a junior expert, Milkshake Became Milkshake Sauce has a high frequency of explosive posts while ensuring stable daily traffic. Her notes are clear, and the pictures all highlight the usage scenarios of the product. She carefully shares her actual experience, reaching out to fans through vision, smell, and touch, establishing a strong connection with them and promoting the product from the perspective of user experience. Selecting junior or mid-level influencers whose notes are of high quality and who have the potential to create explosive articles has become a way for many emerging brands to quickly gain popularity and establish a foothold.

Picture｜Xiaohongshu

Different from the scene-based picture display of a milkshake falling into milkshake sauce, after waist expert Candice-z maintained a stable interaction volume in the first note, Estee Lauder re-invested in the second note. This time, Candice-z used the improvement of the new and old versions of Estee Lauder eye cream packaging as an entry point, highlighting the improved effect of the new version of eye cream, as well as a detailed tutorial on how to use the eye cream, to gain a wave of traffic growth from a small explosive post.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-Expert Analysis

"Bandage", "liquid" and "little brown bottle" are among the top 10 hot words in the comments. This wave of sincere sharing of experiences has effectively achieved the goal of planting grass.

Figure｜Xiaohongshu's native note style

The creative abilities of junior and mid-level influencers increasingly highlight their quality and professionalism in brand investment. When selecting suitable influencers, brands should pay more attention to the influencer's ability to create content. For KOCs, it is more important to explore their potential for explosive articles and achieve high-quality content creation while maintaining stable traffic.

Unlock the master attribute

When brands select KOLs, they are also selecting suitable content creators for promotion and distribution. Understand the personal personality of KOLs and the strength of fans' stickiness to KOLs. Use Qiangua (Xiaohongshu data) to get a clearer understanding of the characteristics of KOLs. Top beauty influencer Cheng Shian has gained a lot of attention from fans with her professional beauty and skin care skills. Hot comments all affectionately call her "Sister Cheng" and "Sister", which shows that a strong connection has been formed between fans and KOL.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-Expert Analysis

KOL cooperation and co-creation

Whether it is a new brand or a brand that has been rooted in Xiaohongshu for a long time, achieving high ROI is the consensus of all brands and KOLs. In the past, large-scale blind advertising has been unable to achieve high conversion results. Refined operations are the key for brands to currently advertise on Xiaohongshu.

For brands with rich marketing experience, the number of KOL fans is not the only criterion for selecting influencers. KOLs can perfectly integrate personal characteristics with products, making it easier to achieve product promotion. Top talent Wu Xiafan became famous for a short sweet love drama. The talent implanted the product into the theater as an important turning point in the plot, thereby exporting the product's selling points.

Figure｜Qiangua Data-Expert Analysis

Brands leverage the uniqueness of KOLs to co-create products, lead potential user groups to an immersive experience, and strongly attract users to deepen their impression of the brand and products, thereby influencing user minds and achieving high ROI conversions.

03 Conclusion

As a UGC platform with super grass-planting attributes, Xiaohongshu understands the grass-planting links of users on the entire platform, optimizes the delivery layout, and jointly strengthens brand voice with KOLs.

Understand the logic of platform promotion, use the pyramid model to optimize KOL placement, accumulate voice and popularity, and effectively achieve high ROI.

Brands should adjust their delivery strategies at different stages and clarify delivery objectives at different times in order to adjust the number of KOL-level deliveries and achieve effective conversion.

Accurately select KOLs suitable for high reinvestment to achieve secondary or even multiple content creation and create greater brand influence.