Xiaohongshu product operation analysis report

This article is a product analysis report of Xiaohongshu, which mainly includes these 6 points: user portrait, product scenario, product structure, product iteration, competitive product analysis and operation strategy.

Experience environment:

1. What is the product?

Xiaohongshu is a social e-commerce product based on UGC. Users can share their shopping information and usage experience on the platform and complete online shopping.

What needs are met?

Maslow's needs model divides human needs into five main levels, from low to high: physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, respect needs and self-actualization needs. The community part of Xiaohongshu mainly meets high-level user needs: for content producers, publishing content and receiving responses and praise from others meets their needs for respect and self-actualization; for content consumers, reading high-quality content and content that interests them in the community, and gaining a sense of belonging and emotional resonance through likes, comments, and follows, meets their social needs; at the same time, based on the useful content obtained on the platform, pursuing the cultural values ​​and lifestyles conveyed by publishers also meets their self-actualization needs.

In general, for all users, it mainly meets people's social needs, respect needs and self-actualization needs, which belong to the upper-middle level of user needs in Maslow's pyramid of needs. This also shows that Xiaohongshu, as a product of consumerism, solves more "first world problems", that is, meeting the needs of higher-level users who already have a certain economic foundation and pursue a higher quality of life. This pre-screens the users to a certain extent. The main users of the product and future potential users meet the above conditions to a certain extent, and also provides customer support for the commercialization of its e-commerce part.

2. Target Users and Typical Scenarios

From the user portrait data of iResearch Consulting, we can see that among Xiaohongshu users, there are more female users, accounting for 77.44% of the total users. This shows that female users are the main purchasing power of the mall, and the community sharing model is more in line with the characteristics and usage habits of female users.

User gender distribution data source: iResearch

Judging from the user age distribution chart, Xiaohongshu's users basically cover all age groups. Among them, those under 30 years old are the main users. This is because younger groups have higher social needs and respect needs, are willing to spend time interacting on community platforms, and expect to receive more social responses. They are also more interested in new things, have a stronger desire and certain purchasing power for online shopping, and are the backbone of Internet communities and e-commerce.

User age distribution data source: iResearch

Based on the regional popularity of Xiaohongshu users, we can easily find that Xiaohongshu users are mainly active in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan and other places. In general, they are mainly distributed in coastal areas, mainly because transportation is inconvenient and logistics are underdeveloped in remote areas, there are fewer users who shop online, and consumer life is relatively scarce.

User geographical distribution data source: iResearch

To sum up, Xiaohongshu's target users are mainly young women in developed areas.

Let’s imagine some typical user scenarios of Xiaohongshu:

Case A:

Target users: White-collar workers, born in the 1990s, located in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. I have a certain pursuit for beauty products and skin care products, but I rarely have time to go out and choose and purchase them.

Typical usage scenario: You are running out of skin care products and want to try new products but are afraid that they are not suitable for you. While chatting with a colleague, I learned that there are many reliable reviews and sharing on Xiaohongshu, so I downloaded it and registered an account. Search for relevant notes in your spare time and compare different products. After making your selection, click the link at the bottom of the note to enter the product interface and make your purchase. After shopping, we will also share our experience of using the products.

Case B:

Target users: high school and college students, those born after 1995 and 2000. I usually have a lot of free time, love trendy culture, am easily attracted by new things, and am happy to share my life.

Typical usage scenarios: With the recommendation of classmates, I found that there are many fashion trendsetters sharing their outfits on Xiaohongshu, and many store explorers checking in and reviewing popular stores. After using it for a period of time, I started to try to share my life on Xiaohongshu, and received likes and comments from other community users. During the interaction, I met many people of the same age who shared the same interests, and thus became a loyal user of Xiaohongshu.

Case C:

Target users: Internet celebrities, KOLs and stars with a large number of fans and high traffic, who want to increase their visibility on the Xiaohongshu platform, expand their number of fans, and gain revenue through advertising promotion.

Typical usage scenarios: Post daily updates on the Xiaohongshu platform to attract and consolidate fans, recommend beauty products and skin care products through videos and notes, and connect with brands to promote products and gain revenue.

Case D:

Target users: Operators of leisure and entertainment venues such as cafes, restaurants, and bars, who hope to seize the young group’s strong desire for exploration and attract more consumers to shop in their stores.

Typical usage scenarios: I heard that Xiaohongshu platform not only has shopping and clothing sharing, but also has many store exploration records of eating, drinking and having fun. So after downloading Xiaohongshu, I started posting carefully taken photos and attractive text descriptions on the platform, along with my coordinates. In addition to seeing notes on the "Discover" page, platform users can also discover the store on the "Nearby" page and visit the store directly. After gaining a certain popularity, we also tried to ask some bloggers with a fan base on the platform to promote it.

3. Key Function Experience and Description

3.1 Xiaohongshu functional structure diagram

Xiaohongshu functional structure diagram

3.2 E-commerce Function

3.2.1 Purchase process

Xiaohongshu Mall Purchase Flowchart

Overall, the purchase process is very simple, similar to the purchase interface of most e-commerce companies. There are not many other options to choose from. After placing an order, you will be redirected directly to the payment interface to complete the purchase.

3.2.2 Functional details description

Detail 1: Little Red Card Member Service

The Little Red Card is a membership service provided by Xiaohongshu for its own stores. After becoming a Little Red Card member, you can enjoy services such as limited-time advance purchase, tax and shipping included, exclusive customer service, seven-day price guarantee, etc., and member-exclusive coupon packages are issued every month.

After entering the product details page, the Little Red Card membership price is displayed under the price column, ranging from ten yuan to 200 yuan. Through intuitive price comparison, users are encouraged to open Little Red Card membership, especially those with high spending power and frequent shopping on Little Red Book. This membership mechanism improves user stickiness and attracts users to continue purchasing products.

Detail 2: The carousel displays the message that the user has successfully placed an order.

When entering the product details page, the upper left corner of the screen displays messages about other users' successful orders, such as: The latest order is for sweet potatoes from XX province, X seconds ago. By displaying other users’ purchasing behavior, you can endorse brands and products, enhance product appeal, and stimulate users’ desire to buy. This makes users feel that they are always connected with other users. When browsing the interface, users will feel that they are not shopping alone, but will feel that a large number of Xiaohongshu users are also browsing the products at the same time. In addition, the scrolling of messages is time-limited. The information bar disappears a few seconds after entering the product details interface, reducing the impact on users' browsing of images.

Detail 3: Carry out various preferential activities

The homepage provides purchasing activities such as limited-time purchases and welfare clubs. At the same time, some products have cross-store discounts, which caters to the price-sensitive characteristics of consumers and meets users' demand for low prices. For brand flagship stores, the platform cooperates directly with manufacturers and regularly issues "potato coupons" to users to reduce sales prices. This low price attracts more users to buy products, thus forming a positive cycle.

Detail 4: Concise and warm product description

Unlike other e-commerce platforms, the product names that appear on the homepage of Xiaohongshu Mall are not traditional cumbersome product descriptions, but the product's origin plus concise and vivid product features, a total of about ten words. For example, the name of a facial cleanser product is: "USA·It doesn't hurt when it washes into your eyes", and the name of a melatonin product is: "USA·Fight stress and say goodbye to counting sheep". Such descriptions can be closer to users, reduce the sense of distance between the product and users, and allow users to understand the highlights of the product at a glance, attracting users' attention.

At the same time, most of the pictures of cosmetics and skin care products have a white background or a solid color background, which makes the product information flow very simple and clean. At the same time, compared with the product pictures taken by Taobao Mall sellers themselves, such official pictures will not make the product details page appear messy and cheap, and will increase users' trust in the quality and source of the goods.

Detail 5: Real user reviews

For traditional e-commerce platforms, in addition to understanding the products sold through product details, users also need to refer to buyers' reviews of the products. However, the number of buyer reviews on most platforms is limited, and the phenomenon of "brushing reviews" exists. The product reviews on Xiaohongshu are all provided by community users. Through the avatar, one can enter the buyer’s homepage, which increases the credibility of the reviews. For products with fewer reviews, it is recommended to add a community entrance to display relevant notes about the product in the community for users to refer to, and use the advantages of the platform community model to increase the richness of information for users.

3.3 Community Function

3.3.1 Community Usage Process

Flowchart of using Xiaohongshu community

Xiaohongshu community note publishing flow chart

3.3.2 Detailed description of community functions

Detail 1: Pay attention to the waterfall display of pictures and video content

In the three community tabs of Follow, Discover, and Nearby, the Discover page and Nearby page use a waterfall flow display method. Using a higher density of content display can encourage users to discover more content of interest and facilitate users' screening in content recommendations. At the same time, large-size picture content can more intuitively attract users' attention and stimulate users to click. There is no fixed ratio limit for image content, but it is displayed in a fixed width on the details display page. Therefore, vertical image content can get a larger display area on the details page. Users are encouraged to post vertical images, which can also achieve a better display effect in the waterfall flow. In addition, the number of likes for the content is displayed in the Discover and Follow tabs to highlight high-quality content, while the publishing distance is displayed in the Nearby tab to reflect the geographical connection between the content and the user, which is more in line with the psychological needs of users who view nearby content.

Detail 2: Content recommendation based on intelligent algorithms

For users who do not have clear browsing needs, the platform provides personalized recommendations to users through intelligent algorithms. By tracking users’ likes, favorites, searches, and even just returning after entering the note details page, we can intelligently analyze the content topics that users are interested in, and recommend the content that users are interested in to them again through recommendation algorithms. In addition to recommending content of interest to users, some of the pushed content also includes recent hot topics, as well as notes from popular celebrities who have settled in Xiaohongshu, which increases the richness of content that users browse. Finally, when users browse content that they are not interested in or do not like, they can block it based on the content, author, and topic, and they can also report to the platform if they encounter any illegal content.

Detail 3: Content display combining video notes and graphic notes

Xiaohongshu's notes are divided into two types: picture notes and video notes.

Click on a picture and text note, and the picture will take up about 1/4 of the note details page, and sliding down will reveal the product link (part), text description, and comments. The interactive style is similar to that of Weibo. Click on a video note and a video playback window will appear, and sliding up will display the next related video. The interactive style is similar to that of Tik Tok and Kuaishou. Different forms of notes meet the needs of users. For strategy notes, users prefer picture and text notes, while for makeup tutorial content, users prefer video notes because they can see the operation details clearly.

With the popularity of short video applications such as Tik Tok and Kuaishou, the content format of short videos and their inherent immersive experience have been welcomed by a large number of Internet users. In Xiaohongshu, video notes are displayed in the waterfall flow using frame-stripped GIF format, which can capture user attention faster than other static content and provide better content exposure opportunities. According to the data released by Xiaohongshu, the interaction volume of video notes is 1.2 times that of picture and text notes, the number of fans increased is 2.3 times that of picture and text notes, and the exposure is 2.4 times that of picture and text notes. Currently, the ratio of video notes to picture and text notes is about 5:2. In the future, Xiaohongshu will increase the weight of short videos, which is also in line with the trend.

However, the display format of video notes and picture and text notes on the details page is quite different from that of picture and text notes, which creates a certain sense of disconnection in the user experience. It is recommended to add video notes to picture and text notes, and mix video content with picture and text content. For example, the main picture of Taobao product details page can play short videos.

Detail 4: Efficient community interaction

Open the note details page. There is a fixed interactive bar at the bottom of both picture and video notes, including a comment input box, a like button, a favorite button, and a complete comment area channel button. Considering that the main user group is women, even when using large-screen electronic devices, users can easily reach the interactive buttons at the bottom and interact easily. At the same time, when users are watching videos or sliding pictures, they can double-click the video screen or the picture to click the like button. This design shortens the interaction path and effectively increases the interaction rate of the community. A large amount of feedback also gives note authors greater creative enthusiasm and increases user stickiness.

Detail 5: Encourage users to actively share

There is a sharing function on both the note details page and the product information details page. At the same time, in the WeChat mini program, there is a striking "Share to Moments" function in the lower right corner after opening the tab. This is consistent with its positioning as a social e-commerce platform, and it gains a lot of dissemination through user sharing and brings in new users.

Detail 6: The community guides the mall

Xiaohongshu is positioned as a social e-commerce platform, so it naturally needs to realize user monetization through UGC content sharing. First of all, in addition to providing graphic content, the graphic note details page can also associate products in Xiaohongshu. Click on the product link to directly enter the corresponding product details page in Xiaohong Mall. This product function link realizes the function of directing traffic from the community to e-commerce, while also shortening the user's operation path for purchasing products. Secondly, when users search in the search bar, three titles appear on the search results interface: Notes, Mall, and Users. When users have clear demands for products, they can go directly to the mall, which also achieves the purpose of directing traffic to the mall.

4. Advantages and Disadvantages Analysis

This section will use the SWOT model to analyze Xiaohongshu's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges.

4.1 Strength

1. Algorithm empowerment: Xiaohongshu uses machine learning algorithms to draw user portraits based on users’ basic information and browsing history, and makes personalized recommendations, thereby increasing daily activity and user usage time.
2. Highly active sharing community: deeply explore user needs and fully satisfy user psychology. It has comprehensive functions and rich content types, is closely related to the interests of the target user groups, and has high user stickiness and loyalty. In addition, with the support of celebrities and internet influencers KOLs, Xiaohongshu invited a large number of female celebrities to join its target group, which not only increased its own exposure but also increased traffic.
3. Wide content coverage: In addition to the current main beauty products and toiletries, based on the diversified content sharing of the community platform, in the future, products in local life, tourism, sports and fitness, and home decoration can also be used as a means of commercialization. There is also a large overlap between the products in the mall and the content shared in the community, realizing a closed loop of community promotion, mall purchase, and community sharing.
4. Low customer acquisition cost: Through social fission and word-of-mouth transmission among users, the customer acquisition cost can be effectively reduced and the platform activity can be increased.

4.2 Weakness

1. Unbalanced platform users: According to survey data, women account for about 70% of Xiaohongshu's users, and the gender ratio is unbalanced. This is related to the platform's UGC model. Although women's consumption frequency and shopping desire are higher than men, the average customer unit price of male users is higher. Currently, there are relatively few products on Xiaohongshu that can attract male users (such as electronic digital products).
2. Single profit model: Xiaohongshu’s main source of income currently comes from advertising, including information flow advertising, content interaction, and part of it comes from self-operated e-commerce. The profit model is relatively single, and more business models need to be found in the future.
3. Supply chain and logistics construction: Xiaohongshu mainly adopts the supply method of direct purchase from overseas + self-operated bonded warehouses. In terms of supply chain, logistics and product richness, Xiaohongshu still has a certain gap compared with rivals such as Kaola Global Shopping and JD International that have stronger brands.

4.3 Opportunity

1. The domestic and international environment is favorable: the scale of domestic import trade will maintain relatively stable growth, and the cross-border e-commerce market environment will also be relatively stable. In terms of policy, the cross-border e-commerce retail import tax policy was officially implemented in 2016 and the regulatory transition period was extended twice. The upper level has guided and supported the development of cross-border e-commerce. In general, the current industry environment is good and is in a stage of stable development.
2. Broad market prospects: As young users become more and more accepting of overseas culture, they are more and more aware of overseas brands and information. The increase in average income has also increased users' purchasing power, and there is a large demand for the overseas shopping market. At present, the user penetration rate of overseas shopping is still relatively low, and there is a lot of room for development.
3. Increased demand for promotion: Currently, the promotion of offline stores is increasingly dependent on online publicity. With the diversification of the consumer market, in the future there will be more distinctive online celebrity stores, specialty stores, etc. that need to be exposed and promoted through online platforms to attract customers. Physical store merchants invite influencers and KOLs whose styles and positioning match theirs to visit the store and post notes on the platform, thereby driving some fans to shop in the store. The influencers and KOLs thus earn income, thus completing the closed loop of "physical store owner-internet celebrity KOL-user". Similarly, companies invite bloggers to review products and then publish recommendations on the platform for promotion, ultimately better realizing the "company-internet celebrity KOL-user" closed loop. In the future, the platform can also charge advertising commissions and live broadcast commissions from businesses and bloggers, providing possibilities for greater monetization.

4.4 Threat

1. Fierce competition: In recent years, there will be more and more competitors in the social e-commerce track, more innovative models will emerge, and there will be more and more similar competitors. The market expansion space is limited. Compared with e-commerce giants such as Taobao, JD.com and Pinduoduo, Xiaohongshu's e-commerce channel is still relatively small. At the end of last year, Xiaohongshu launched a live streaming platform, and Taobao Live exploded. Douyin, Kuaishou, and Pinduoduo have successively entered the e-commerce live streaming industry. How to find differentiation in the e-commerce industry where giants abound is also a test for Xiaohongshu.
2. Commercial realization: User experience, ecological construction, and commercial realization are a dynamic balance. Currently, Xiaohongshu’s ranking is user experience and ecological construction first, and commercial realization later. Excessive commercial content may dilute effective and high-quality content within the community. How to strike a balance between content quality and commercialization is the challenge facing Xiaohongshu, which determines whether Xiaohongshu can retain users and continue to grow.
3. Review of illegal content: As a lifestyle sharing community, Xiaohongshu has repeatedly been hit by various problems, including ghostwriting of grass-roots notes, data falsification, illegal and irregular activities, and even contraband, such as the sensational tobacco incident. These problems once caused Xiaohongshu to be taken off the shelves for rectification. Most users said that Xiaohongshu is filled with a lot of advertising content, and what should have been conscientious recommendations have become disguised advertisements due to the money invested by brand owners. Xiaohongshu has gradually moved from a niche vertical to the public eye through content production, content dissemination and customer acquisition, but content governance has always been a challenge faced by Xiaohongshu.

5. Product Iteration Analysis

In order to deeply analyze the version iteration rhythm of Xiaohongshu and explore the product iteration logic, the core version iterations of Xiaohongshu from V1.0 to V6.4.3 are sorted out and divided into the following three stages.

Phase 1: Creation of UGC community and improvement of basic functions (October 1, 2013 - July 25, 2014)

In October 2013, the first product of the Xiaohongshu team was a text file called "Xiaohongshu Overseas Shopping Guide". The team asked shopping experts to write shopping guides for eight countries and regions. Users can download and read them offline on PC or iOS platform. In less than a month, it was downloaded 500,000 times, proving users' demand for overseas shopping and accumulating the first batch of original users for the launch of the app.

On December 1, 2013, the V1.0 version of the Xiaohongshu team app was officially launched, featuring a shopping sharing community called "Hong Kong Shopping Guide".

From version V1.0 on December 1, 2013 to version V1.12 on August 7, 2014, Xiaohongshu focused on the establishment of a UGC community and the improvement of its functions, such as optimizing the note publishing page, optimizing the image editing page, simplifying the publishing process, adding new brand introductions, etc., all of which are to allow users to share their overseas shopping experiences in the community quickly and easily, and to increase user enthusiasm by simplifying the process.

At this stage, Xiaohongshu has developed into a fully functional UGC sharing platform. The purpose of the iteration is mainly to present a relatively mature community to users and prepare for large-scale new user acquisition and monetization in the future.

Phase 2: Creation of Xiaohongshu Mall (August 8, 2014-August 3, 2017)

The second phase begins with the launch of the Welfare Club in version V2.0, which means that users can shop on the Xiaohongshu platform.

In August 2014, the country recognized the cross-border e-commerce business model through policies, and the Xiaohongshu team realized that they were now standing at the forefront of overseas shopping. After accumulating a large number of users in the Xiaohongshu community, it chose to seize the national policies and start e-commerce operations.

From version V2.0 on August 8, 2014 to version V4.22 on August 3, 2017, Xiaohongshu's functional iteration has not only built basic e-commerce functions, but also optimized community functions to promote the integration and transformation of community and e-commerce.

The construction of e-commerce includes:

• Create and optimize the "welfare club".
• Optimize customer experience, such as adding automatic replies to customer service queues to make problem solving more efficient.
• The community directs traffic to the mall, such as adding relevant product recommendations to note details.

The optimization of community functions includes:

• Enhance the social attributes of the community, such as optimizing the function of adding friends, adding address book and Weibo friends;
• Increase the diversity of note content, such as allowing some users to try publishing video notes first.

During this stage, Xiaohongshu began to transform and strive to achieve a closed business loop from community to e-commerce. At the same time, we also focus on optimizing community functions. The page has been revised many times, and the recommendation algorithm has also been updated to provide users with personalized recommendations in order to retain more users who do not have a clear browsing purpose.

The third stage: Optimization and improvement of the platform (August 4, 2017 to present)

From V5.0 on August 4, 2017 to the current V6.43.1, Xiaohongshu has been continuously optimized and improved on the basis of its original community and e-commerce, and the content presentation forms have become more and more diversified.

The popularity of short video applications such as Douyin and Kuaishou has caused a large-scale shift in users' attention. Short videos have also become a new way for young people to express themselves. Xiaohongshu has also begun to increase its investment in short video functions.

Version V5.1 released on September 14, 2017 added short video and flash shot functions, allowing users to share their own short videos in the community. Version V5.14 on April 25, 2018 extended the video length to 1 minute. At the same time, it also adds functions such as adding background music, changing video speed, and video segment editing.

In addition to the video function, V5.23 also adds the function of image language tagging, which allows images to speak; in version V5.13, published notes can also be tagged with film and television types. At the same time, the image processing function has also been updated, and a number of new filters and optimizations of the beauty function have been added to make the content display of the community richer, the user experience smoother, and encourage users to share more on the platform.

At this stage, Xiaohongshu is not only positioning its platform as one for overseas shopping, but also involves all aspects of life. The notes not only share experiences on using beauty products, toiletries, etc., but also include content about travel, sports, learning, etc., truly forming a diverse community. The entry of celebrities and internet celebrities KOLs has also attracted traffic to Xiaohongshu and brought in a large number of new users.

In terms of e-commerce, Xiaohongshu's supply chain and logistics are constantly improving, and the variety of brands is becoming increasingly rich. However, its scale and size still cannot be compared with e-commerce giants. How to promote the integration and transformation of community and e-commerce and use the advantages of the community to realize user monetization is the challenge that Xiaohongshu is facing at this stage.

6. Competitive product analysis

Xiaohongshu and NetEase Kaola are both community-based shopping apps that integrate sharing and shopping. Xiaohongshu focuses on community social networking, while Kaola Overseas Shopping started with pure overseas shopping and gradually added community functions to transform into a community-based e-commerce platform. Therefore, we selected NetEase Kaola Overseas Shopping as a competitor to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of Xiaohongshu in the industry.

Compared with Kaola, Xiaohongshu has the following main advantages:

1. Through UGC community sharing, we have achieved high user stickiness and cultivated a stable user base.
2. By leveraging popular celebrities, KOLs and internet celebrities who are closer to ordinary users, operational strategies are formulated to bring in a large amount of traffic to the platform.
3. The positioning is clear, and the main user group is older, namely young people who are just entering the workplace or highly educated people who are studying, and users have higher consumption power.
4. The product closed loop of "planting grass - pulling grass - sharing and recommending" has been completed.

Compared with Kaola, Xiaohongshu has the following main disadvantages:

1. NetEase Kaola relies on the strong strength of the NetEase system and adopts a direct sales and self-purchase model. Its biggest advantage lies in the guarantee of authenticity and rich product categories, but its hard power in supply chain, logistics, etc. is obviously behind that of traditional e-commerce. Xiaohongshu has sold counterfeit goods and it is often unable to search for products. This causes users to go to other power plant platforms to pull out the weeds after planting the weeds.
2. In terms of attracting new users, NetEase Kaola Overseas Shopping promoted its products through other NetEase products with similar target groups, such as NetEase Cloud Music and LOFTER, leveraging the huge size of these platforms to attract traffic to NetEase Kaola Overseas Shopping, quickly shortening the "cold start" cycle, and continuously attracting new users for NetEase Kaola Overseas Shopping.

7. Operational Strategy

7.1 New Customer Attraction Strategy

Xiaohongshu's large number of users is due to its unique community + e-commerce model. By accurately positioning user needs, Xiaohongshu was able to achieve rapid growth in its early stages. Through sharing and recommendations among friends, the platform is endorsed by the accumulation of social relationships. The recommender recommends this content-rich community platform and overseas shopping e-commerce to their relatives and friends. In the several typical user scenarios described earlier, we can see the impact of social relationships on product usage.

At the same time, Xiaohongshu also achieves stable user growth through conventional means of attracting new users, such as placing advertisements in subways, media, TV dramas, variety shows, etc.

Xiaohongshu also takes advantage of the characteristics of its own platform to invite celebrities who are in line with the platform's positioning, such as Ouyang Nana, Fan Bingbing, etc. It also invites internet celebrities (KOLs) to join the platform. Through the huge traffic brought by the celebrities themselves, it attracts some fans to the Xiaohongshu platform and converts them into users, thereby achieving rapid user growth. Xiaohongshu also increases brand exposure by sponsoring some reality shows, and accurately targets the pan-entertainment group. For example, in 2018, Xiaohongshu placed advertisements in the variety show "Idol Producer". Since the show started, the number of independent devices in January increased by 4% month-on-month, increased to 20% in February, and increased to 38.4% in March. It can be seen that the diversion effect is obvious and the user growth is significant.

In addition, as an e-commerce platform that mainly operates its own business, Xiaohongshu has specially designed red boxes as express boxes, printed with eye-catching slogans and the product's slogan - "Mark my life", reflecting the temperament and positioning of the platform. On the one hand, this approach deepened consumers' impression of Xiaohongshu. On the other hand, the eye-catching and recognizable red color quickly caught other people's attention and played a role in brand communication.

7.2 Activation and Retention

While Xiaohongshu obtains traffic through variety shows, popular stars and internet celebrities, it also uses product iteration to improve user retention, achieving healthy growth in the scale of active users and increasing user stickiness.

Xiaohongshu's method of promoting activation and retention of target users is mainly implemented through its community platform, which takes advantage of the rich content and strong interactivity of the community platform to provide users with an immersive experience.

We divide its activation and retention strategies into the following categories:

• Rapid product iteration: According to data, Xiaohongshu has carried out 60 product iterations in the past year, an average of one iteration every 6 days. Even WeChat, a national hit product, has only been updated seven times in the past year. This shows that the Xiaohongshu team attaches great importance to user experience and user needs, and achieves user retention by constantly updating products. For example, the new feature of V5.13, "Posted notes can also be tagged with film and television genres", allows users who are attracted to the platform by variety shows or films to share relevant content in a targeted manner, thereby improving the retention rate of this part.
• User growth incentive system: To ensure longer-term user retention, the platform sets community tasks for users, provides user level sections, and provides growth paths.
• Shopping incentives: Provide "limited time purchases" and the self-created "Red Friday" shopping festival, where users can receive "potato coupons" and small red cards and other preferential purchase services to satisfy users' desire to buy goods at low prices.
• Refined operation: Since the display space of mobile phones is limited, displaying content that users will be interested in on the mobile phone screen as much as possible is the key to increasing user activity and retention rate. Based on machine algorithms, Xiaohongshu will make personalized recommendations based on users' interests and user portraits, successfully realizing "content finding people" and achieving refined operations.
• Accurate content push: Choose different times to push content based on the usage habits of different users. Generally, it is around 9:30 in the morning, 12:00-13:00 in the afternoon, around 18:30 in the evening and around 21:30 at night, which are all leisure time for users. The pushed content is generally divided into two categories: one is the community content that users are interested in and the newly released notes of the bloggers they follow, and the other is the mall’s promotional information. Leverage user characteristics to increase the opening rate of content recommendations and achieve platform activation and retention.

8. Conclusion

As one of the earliest community + e-commerce products, Xiaohongshu identified its target users at the very beginning, fully met users' needs, and successfully integrated two modules that seemed to have weak correlation, achieving logical consistency of the product and a closed loop of user behavior within the product. The product has excellent user experience, good implementation in community and e-commerce, strong product competitiveness, and high user stickiness and loyalty. The current content and e-commerce SKUs are relatively vertical, and the user group is relatively limited. In the future, we can further expand the product coverage, expand the target user group, become a more universal lifestyle sharing platform, and establish a boutique e-commerce platform that focuses on quality and reputation.

Author: PilotGina

Source: PilotGina