What is Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) and why are global brands jumping on it?

“Little Red Book brings Chinese KOLs closer to their fans. Actress Fan Bingbing has apparently joked that she should stop reviewing products on the app because they get sold out and she can never find them herself”

xiaohongshu.png

What is Little Red Book

Little Red Book is a consumption-oriented and lifestyle social platform where Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) and Key Opinion Consumers (KOC) advertise products/services in the form of try-ons and reviews, which are important references for other consumers.

With the accelerating digital revolution, brands are gradually shifting towards social media as their mainstream marketing communications channel, where there are also users to create their own content about the brand, or comments, shares, and likes on brand posts. Such User Generated Content (UGC) differs from brand-generated content in that while the former reflects the “e-Word-of-mouth”, having a positive effect on purchase intention via its high credibility and trustworthiness, the latter is part of “social advertising” about the brand.

As a platform with a 76% product trust rating, the commercial value of Little Red Book is becoming increasingly significant.

Who is using Little Red Book

Little Red Book has reached 2 million monthly active users by the end of 2021. There are three main characteristics of users on Little Red Book - high income, highly influential and highly active. The majority of their users have a strong willingness to spend money. They are the dominant customers in the market with huge commercial potential.

Little Red Book user demographic

Female-oriented: 70% of the users on LRB are female, but that gap is closing in recent years. The trend of diversity has led to the rapid development of neutral content such as movies and travel, as well as male-oriented content such as technology and sports events, bringing in more male users.

Youthfulness: A majority of LRB users are Gen Z and Millenials, with 72% of the age bracket aged under 30.

Developed cities and overseas: More than half of all Instagram users are from more developed cities in China. With 16.5% of the users located abroad, it also has a high amount of usage among overseas Chinese, especially in the USA, UK, Australia and Canada.

kol-campaign-1024x594.png
 

Little Red Book user interests

Brands related to luxury shopping have the best bet of being successful on RED. High-end jewelry, shoes, clothing, purses, cosmetics and perfume are all hot topics on the app. Luxury travel is also a growing area of interest.

▪ The top 6 interests on LRB are beauty (7%), food and drink (9%), baby care, home, fashion, pets and fitness.

▪ Beauty: Being the very top interest on LRB, skincare is slightly more focused than makeup under the beauty category. Skincare is the most discussed topic on LRB, and there are more and more customers who care about the ingredients used in skincare products. 

▪ Baby care: Sophisticated mothers, as most active users of this category, are choosing baby products with high standards. Brands with high quality and good reputation are their first choice. The rise of feminism has led to a greater focus on postnatal recovery and pregnancy fashion.

▪ Food and drink: The top 2 tags for food category are cheap eats (13.3%) and fine food (10%). The most popular topic is food tutorials and recipes (8.93%), as well as bakery and food guides.

Business implications of Little Red book

The current stage of the internet has evolved into Web 3.0, when customer demand has been increasingly segmented and personalized. Through the credibility of customer recommendations, LRB has led to an incredible amount of traffic to the brand and direct sales. With the platform tilting towards brands and giving brands more favourable policies, content marketing and influencer marketing is now the future. 

Because brand posts and advertisements are not permitted, hence the success on this channel really relies on having people posting about your product. That’s why many top brands like Channel, Gucci, and Dior pay big money to have Chinese Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) endorse their product on the site. However, as more and more influencers are used on the site to promote products, more complaints come in from users who feel the site is losing credibility. It’s a fine line to walk and one that RED will need to be mindful of as it continues its growth trajectory.

If you want to read more about Little Red Book

 

https://www.latmultilingual.com/understanding-red-the-chinese-shopping-app/

https://www.linkfluence.com/blog/little-red-book-xiaohongshu