As Double Eleven is getting closer, many businesses and brands have started a new round of brand marketing wars. As a brand marketing front that has emerged in recent years, many brands have set their sights on Xiaohongshu . However, due to a lack of understanding of the nature of the platform and a lack of resources from expert bloggers, many misunderstandings in brand placement have occurred, leading to the failure of marketing strategies. Not to mention actual conversions, it is very likely that even the basic amount of notes will not be achieved.

So, today I’m going to talk to you about some possible misunderstandings when placing brand ads on Xiaohongshu, and you can also make adjustments in advance during the upcoming Double Eleven campaign.

1. Is it suitable to be placed on Xiaohongshu?

First of all, before launching the campaign, you should figure out whether the nature of your brand is suitable for Xiaohongshu. Blindly following the trend does not apply to Xiaohongshu, and the plans implemented on Douyin, Kuaishou, and Weibo may not necessarily be effective.

For example, in the automobile industry, which is more popular among men, when SAIC Volkswagen posted the same number of notes on Xiaohongshu, its total exposure and fan coverage were far less than those of Dior and Tiffany, luxury brands that are more popular among women. Moreover, in the same automobile industry, the exposure and fan coverage of models that sound "more expensive", such as Audi, Porsche, and BMW, would also be greater.

It is precisely because of the different platform nature of Xiaohongshu that these huge differences in the effects of brand placements occur (because Xiaohongshu users are mostly female users with strong consumption power in first- and second-tier cities).

So how do you determine whether a brand is suitable for brand placement on Xiaohongshu? First of all, we have to look at the platform background and user groups of Xiaohongshu .

When Xiaohongshu users are matched with brand groups, that is, when marketing is targeted at a precise group of people, it is theoretically easier to succeed. Just like it is difficult to sell underwear to men, but it is easier to succeed with women because women have this potential demand, but men don't wear underwear at all.

Xiaohongshu is a lifestyle "community", key point, community. According to official data, Xiaohongshu currently has more than 100 million monthly active users, with more than 3 billion notes exposed every day. Most of these users are women, who are relatively young. They are mainly concentrated in 1st and 2nd tier cities, and most of them are coastal cities. From this, we can analyze that the consumption capacity of this user group should be strong .

(Current regional distribution of Xiaohongshu users: Source: Analysys Qianfan)

(Current regional distribution of Xiaohongshu users: Source: Analysys Qianfan)

Young people under the age of 24 have reached 50% and have become the real main user base of Xiaohongshu.

Secondly, you can also go to Xiaohongshu to find kols with relatively more fans. Based on the status of the kols, you can also get the lifestyle that most typical users of Xiaohongshu aspire to.

For example, if the conclusion is that everyone uses Apple phones and has strong purchasing power, then how can you possibly sell copycat phones?

The market is quite blank, but the conversion rate is so low that it can starve investors to death.

Therefore, it is necessary to determine whether the user profile of your product and the user profile of the community are roughly matched. This is the prerequisite for launch. If the two groups of people are indeed similar, then a more detailed brand strategy can be developed.

2. What is the purpose of Xiaohongshu?

After determining that your product is suitable for placement on Xiaohongshu, you should first think about why you want to place your product on Xiaohongshu? Is it a new brand or new product that needs pre-launch promotion, or is it an emerging brand that needs conversion to increase sales?

The purpose of brand placement is different, and the corresponding brand placement strategies and plans will be different , as well as the final statistical conclusions will also be different. If you don’t know why you are investing before the placement, then there is basically no point in investing. You may get good results, but you will not feel satisfied because you don’t know what your goal is.

(The current mainstream Xiaohongshu brand launch process)

Especially for brand products that are in urgent need of conversion, it is impossible to achieve rapid sales conversion by doing brand placement on Xiaohongshu . From the initial note distribution and word-of-mouth promotion to the subsequent sales conversion, it may take several rounds of note placement process. Moreover, it takes some time for a Xiaohongshu note to become a hit after being published. If you are looking for faster brand conversion, you might as well go directly to other platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou or Taobao to do live streaming and selling products.

Because Xiaohongshu is a content-seeking community and a platform that helps people make consumption decisions, it plays a decisive role before people consume. It’s like when we want to buy a pair of shoes, but what about the quality? How is it made? Do others think it looks good? Or, I want to buy a piece of clothing, which brands are better? Can you recommend them to me? We can find answers to all these questions on Xiaohongshu. If the result is positive, we will place an order, but the place of placing the order may not be Xiaohongshu, it may also be Tmall or JD.com, etc.

(Internet community consumption decision-making diagram)

Although brand placement on Xiaohongshu does not directly bring sales conversions to the brand, the grass-planting notes placed on Xiaohongshu can always exist. When someone searches for related keywords, they can see these notes, leaving an impression in the minds of consumers and bringing indirect consumption conversions.

3. Is it appropriate to advertise on Xiaohongshu in this way?

Although more and more brands are now making efforts through Xiaohongshu, many people do not understand the platform mechanism of Xiaohongshu. Every platform has its own content rules, and Xiaohongshu is no exception, and may even be stricter .

Take the example of promoting a new product. If the brand is just a niche brand and there were not many notes on Xiaohongshu before, and the daily increase in the number of notes for the brand is also very low or even non-existent, then when the brand suddenly starts to post notes on Xiaohongshu and increases the number of notes, and the daily increase in notes reaches dozens, then the notes related to this brand will easily be identified as promotional notes, and the subsequent note collection will become very difficult.

Moreover, once the notes are not included in Xiaohongshu, users will never be able to see or search for related brand-sponsored notes on Xiaohongshu. The money spent on hiring bloggers to promote the notes is spent, but the effect of the promotion is not achieved at all.

In particular, some time ago, news came out that the Xiaohongshu platform has increased its review efforts. Any notes and blogger accounts that violate the platform rules will be dealt with. Friends who have just been involved in Xiaohongshu or are not very clear about the rules will easily receive penalties.

Therefore, if you want to do brand placement on Xiaohongshu, not to mention finding a professional company, at the very least you must have a good understanding of Xiaohongshu and be clear about the platform rules to make a brand placement plan.

4. Is it over after the release of the notes?

As mentioned above, brand placement on Xiaohongshu is a long-term plan, because the notes placed can be retained as long as they do not violate the platform rules, and will have an impact on users who search later.

But how can we know whether the published notes are effective and can have an impact on potential consumers? We also need to do these things after dropping the notes:

1. Review of the launch

Because it is inevitable that some bloggers’ time will be delayed, or the brand’s notes will be delayed or advanced for some reasons, which may not be consistent with the actual plan, so what we have to do at this time is to reorganize the review of the actual delivery, which will help us compare with the original plan, see where the problem lies, and what can be optimized next time.

2. Statistics

1) Volume data

A big part of the reason we advertise is to increase the volume of our advertising, so this data must be counted. The statistical method is to find the number of notes that appear when searching for the brand word in Xiaohongshu. Compared with before the launch, how much has the data increased?

2) Read the data

We encourage Xiaohongshu bloggers to proactively provide the actual reading data of their notes. If they are unwilling to do so, you can also request this before choosing a blogger. If the blogger disagrees, we recommend choosing another blogger. The cost of a single reading is calculated by dividing the delivery fee by the total number of readings.

3) User interaction data

As we said before, user interaction data is used to assist in judging the effectiveness of note delivery. Here we need to not only count the absolute value data of user interaction, but also calculate the user interaction cost through the delivery cost/user interaction data.

But the content of the reviews is also an important focus for us, which is the current attitude of users towards the product.

4) Note ranking

Statistics on the note rankings under different keywords, and what changes have been observed compared to before the release.

5) Community Effect

After posting the note, if it has a high search popularity, a search drop-down box will appear. When you search for your brand word, you may only type the first two words and your brand candidate words will appear. We need to count whether this effect occurs.

If a product is listed on Xiaohongshu, you can also check whether the product’s ranking on Xiaohongshu has increased.

6) Conversion effect

Although our delivery goal may not be direct conversion, it may also have a positive impact on conversion. So compare Tmall or Taobao stores to see if there is a certain increase in traffic during the delivery period compared to other times.

Author: Mr. Elk Sky

Source: Mr. Elk Sky (milusir94)

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