The Reality, Contradiction and Space of the Commercialization of Xiaohongshu
Author | Lu Yue
Double 11, the most watched big promotion of the year, has kicked off.
In addition to several major e-commerce platforms that are in full swing, this year Xiaohongshu has chosen two directions to make efforts: First, it is deeply linked with Tmall, giving full play to its own advantages, and creating a "Xiaohongshu planting grass and drainage + Tmall venue conversion" The second is to release a fashion anchor growth plan to support and motivate anchors, so as to increase the turnover on the site.
This strategy of "draining traffic outwards and making deals inwards" seems a bit "contradictory". However, this does clearly show the current commercialization status of Xiaohongshu——
As a "grass planting" content community, Xiaohongshu has become an indispensable marketing medium, and many advertisers have invested in it. However, as a content platform that combines live e-commerce and shopping malls, Xiaohongshu does not want to be just a marketing medium, but expects to explore a business closed loop of content + e-commerce on the site.
This kind of "contradiction" is also the reason why Xiaohongshu often causes controversy in the industry: for example, it still faces the problem of how to balance community content and commercial content; Taobao has Li Jiaqi, Douyin has a benchmark like Dong Yuhui... Beyond the controversy, what is the current commercialization of Xiaohongshu? Is it a channel for planting grass or a platform for planting and pulling? Does its commercialization capability have potential and room for improvement?
reality and contradiction
The commercialization of Xiaohongshu will start in 2019. This year, the platform spread its arms to attract MCN to settle in, and also strengthened the management of KOL/KOC and MCN, laying the foundation for the formation of the B2K2C (brand-KOC-user) talent content marketing model.
Due to its early exploration of e-commerce business, Xiaohongshu tried to form a commercial model of "talent marketing + live broadcast e-commerce + self-operated e-commerce" on the site. According to 36kr, in 2020, the advertising revenue of Xiaohongshu has accounted for 80% of the total revenue, and the remaining 20% is e-commerce revenue.
From 2021, Xiaohongshu has significantly accelerated in advertising:
- At the beginning of 2021, the "Dandelion" platform was officially launched. It is an "upgraded version" of the brand cooperation platform launched in 2019. Various functions have been improved and upgraded.
- At the end of 2021, the Business Ecology Conference will be held. Xiaohongshu gave a mature "IDEA marketing methodology" and introduced several core business products of the platform in detail.
- This year, Xiaohongshu officially launched the platform "Spotlight", with the goal of meeting the needs of advertisers for one-stop advertising.
Judging from this development process, the commercialization of Xiaohongshu is actually not that special and complicated.
As a community-based product mainly based on UGC content, the commercialization of Xiaohongshu is centered on KOL/KOC marketing . At the same time, two categories of advertisements, brand and effect, are supplemented. The former includes cooperation with hard advertising such as opening screens and official marketing activities, and the latter includes information flow and search.
In fact, compared to Station B and Zhihu, the commercialization routes of content community platforms are similar.
The PUGV marketing proposed by Station B is talent marketing, and advertisers must also cooperate with UP owners through the cooperation platform "Hua Huo". In terms of effect advertising, station B mainly focuses on information flow advertising; in terms of brand advertising, it also includes regular banners, opening screens and other hard advertising. The same is true of Zhihu. Advertisers can use the product “Zhi+” to connect with creators to conduct business cooperation on Q&A content. In addition, there are also regular hard advertisements and information flow advertisements that can be placed.
In addition to the commonalities, the differences are determined by the differences in platform gene attributes and main content.
Although Xiaohongshu is currently compatible with short videos and live broadcasts, it still uses graphic notes as its main marketing content. The platform adopts a decentralized traffic distribution method, and most of the grass-growing notes come from KOCs and amateurs.
Compared with conventional talent marketing, there are bound to be some differences in cooperation with KOCs that are closer to amateurs, but there are also advantages. For example, it can be launched for market feedback tests at a lower cost, and a wide range of topic discussions and word-of-mouth can be formed faster. .
Dandelion official website shows blogger case
In addition, search advertising is also one of Xiaohongshu's competitive advantages. LatePost once said that at the beginning of this year, for every 10 users who entered Xiaohongshu, 6 users will use the search function, and this ratio is about 3 in Douyin and Kuaishou. Users are more willing to regard Xiaohongshu as a major search tool. Therefore, within the platform, the SEO + SEM method of traditional search engines will be quite applicable, that is, to increase exposure through keyword analysis and optimization.
Source: Xiaohongshu Search Word Layout Practical Manual
However, the focus of content marketing lies in material creation and search optimization, depending on the selection and setting of keywords. These are not marketing methods that can see the same effect with one click. The gap between individual advertisers' cognition and strategy will make Marketing effects vary widely. The platform can give cases, but it is difficult to directly give such a method of determining what must be done first. From a certain point of view, this is actually one of the reasons why the industry often says that Xiaohongshu lacks a clear marketing plan.
balance and space
The basic advertising and marketing combination of "content marketing + brand advertising + performance advertising" currently formed by Xiaohongshu is very clear and easy to understand in simple terms. However, in the implementation stage, advertisers still need clear guidance on what nodes to do and how to combine them.
From the several brand cases given by Xiaohongshu, the combination of content marketing + performance advertising is a basic combination of gameplay.
When Oreo promoted a new product, it first used user preferences and snack consumption trends on the site as a reference to guide the content output of cooperative bloggers. Afterwards, the brand conducted a content trial and horse race, and found a more powerful content type, which was superimposed on advertising products for further promotion.
A simple understanding, this kind of gameplay reflects: the brand can directly do content marketing in the short term to achieve the purpose of exposure and drainage; in the long term, it can use the platform to do user insights to guide the improvement of content planting power and match advertising products. Do a longer run.
In addition to the basic combination gameplay, brand advertising is actually more suitable for marketing events, such as making more exposure to create explosive products after the launch of new products, and amplifying the volume on special nodes like Double 11, etc.
Among them, opening the screen is a form with the strongest visual impact, and combining it with the information flow can also prolong the attention; the interaction in the comment area allows the brand to create a personal design in the first person and communicate with users. In addition, big brands with "strong financial resources" can also directly cooperate with Xiaohongshu to do IP activities, such as Feihe's joint platform IP "Captain Potato" for marketing events, OPPO and Xiaohongshu to customize the micro variety show "I want to live like this" And so on, it can help brands quickly increase their influence on the whole site.
Xiaohongshu marketing IP, micro variety show "I want to live like this"
If these gameplays are put on Douyin and Kuaishou, it is actually equivalent to focusing on the "content field" for marketing. For example, the FACT matrix proposed by Douyin e-commerce also proposes to combine marketing activities, top talent and talent matrix, short videos, etc. However, focusing on the "content field" marketing idea is relatively "outdated" for Doukuai. At the moment when it is moving towards content + shelves, Doukuai can provide a much larger field for merchants to do marketing.
This is a gap created by differences in platform infrastructure and business scope. But I have to admit that there are still limitations in the commercialization of Xiaohongshu at this stage.
The first is the age-old question of "how can content and commerce better coexist", making platforms always cautious.
"Xiaohongshu wants to be commercialized, but it doesn't want to be so commercialized." Kankan, the founder of MCN Zhaixingge, the head of Xiaohongshu, once told "", in her opinion, the commercialization of Xiaohongshu is not what the outside world sees. So radical, maintaining the tonality of the content community cannot be ignored.
The difficulty of maintaining "balance" at all times is also directly reflected on the platform. In order to ensure the distinction between commercial content and native content, the commercial notes on Xiaohongshu are marked with advertisements, sponsorships or other cooperation signs. But marking the advertisement out will inevitably directly affect the click-through rate. Narrowcast also mentioned that a person in charge of brand promotion said that the natural traffic of the reported notes is very different from the cooperation notes that bypass the platform, and some can differ by 30%-40%.
The brand's business notes and notes on cooperation with celebrities are clearly marked
Therefore, many brands tend to skip the platform and directly find bloggers for cooperation. But now Xiaohongshu is more strict about this monitoring, and it is not lenient in the punishment of brands and talents, and brands are also in a state of "entanglement".
Secondly, the commercialization infrastructure of Xiaohongshu is still being perfected.
For example, the two platforms of Xiaohongshu, Juguang and Dandelion, are still being gradually opened and linked. In the middle of this year, Juguang only began to support the function of mounting jump links when placing business notes, and truly established the “planting grass” on the site. The complete path of weeding integration". Previously, users could only see the grass content and then choose other platforms to search on their own. In fact, it was difficult for advertisers to clearly measure the conversion effect of this note.
It is precisely because Xiaohongshu is still in the stage of "complementing products" rather than "providing services", brands will be very sensitive to issues such as differences in traffic and platform fees. According to reports such as All Weather Technology, Xiaohongshu will take two-way commissions from brands and bloggers, and the commission ratio is higher than that of platforms such as Douyin. This is another important reason why brands choose to bypass the platform to cooperate "underwater".
From a marketing point of view, Xiaohongshu is essentially doing "marketing" rather than "operating".
You can see that there is no store opened in Xiaohongshu YSL, and the content of the notes is just a simple product. Estee Lauder has an official account in Xiaohongshu, which will update content and do topical activities, but its store is only a sample trial center, and the brand has not done live broadcasts. When the brand came to Xiaohongshu, it seems that it is more just holding the idea of "launching a channel", and its goal is to attract traffic.
Source: Xiaohongshu Estee Lauder, YSL official website account
This is actually contrary to industry trends. Now advertisers and service providers are emphasizing "integration" and "one-stop" business. Zhang Rouqi, founder and CEO of MCN Xianzi Culture, head of Xiaohongshu, also mentioned that under the background of tight budgets, most brands There is more and more demand for "integration of quality and efficiency", and the requirements for MCN have also increased significantly. In this context, almost all platforms are building their own complete commercial closed loops.
In summary, the unique advantages of Xiaohongshu are beyond doubt. And judging from the fact that all major factories are promoting grass-growing content community APPs at this stage, but there is still no product to replace Xiaohongshu, Xiaohongshu's dominant barriers will still be maintained for a long time in the future.
However, the tangle of "necessity and want" is also very likely to become a waste and consumption of advantages. At a time when big factories have come to "hunt" Xiaohongshu, Xiaohongshu should seize this time window to speed up.
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