Xiaohongshu’s global “invasion”: How do TikTok “refugees” stir up traffic?

A large number of "TikTok refugees" have flooded into Xiaohongshu, triggering huge changes in the platform's content and user ecology. This article will explore in depth the reasons and impacts behind the influx of "TT refugees" into Xiaohongshu, as well as how Xiaohongshu copes with this change and opens a new chapter of development.

As the day when the mandatory decree to divest Tik Tok comes into effect on January 19 draws closer, the number of “Tik Tok refugees” pouring into Xiaohongshu continues to increase.

As of 12:00 on January 16, the total number of discussions on the topic #tiktokrefugee on Xiaohongshu has reached 13.851 million, and the total number of readings has reached 740 million.

In just three days, countless "refugees" called on their friends, brought their cats and dogs, and brought their talents, and launched a "cyber migration" across the Pacific Ocean, occupying the homepages of countless Chinese people's Xiaohongshu overnight.

Many Chinese people have worked hard for more than half a year with various routine methodologies, but it is not as good as a "mud howl" from a foreign face. In just two days, a large number of "TT refugees" appeared on Xiaohongshu. Generally speaking, there are at least the following types of foreigners who are most likely to increase their fans:

First of all, netizens with good looks are most likely to gain followers. There is no doubt that appearance equals justice, which is an eternal truth throughout the ages, both in China and abroad.

For example, these two bloggers named "Kato" and "Richard" updated several pieces of content in two days. Although the content was extremely similar and they were all chatting on their phones, they were able to gain tens of thousands of followers in just two days.

There is also this amateur American student named "zinnia", who received hundreds of thousands of interactions with just one video and her followers quickly increased to over 100,000 within two days.

After browsing the "new Xiaohongshu" for two days, many people found that the homepage of their Xiaohongshu has been occupied by foreign handsome men and beautiful women, but isn't this a fun thing?

Second, having a few small animals in the house, or a whole farm of them, tends to attract more attention.

Since when, cats have become the social currency of Xiaohongshu, where netizens share photos of cats or pets with each other. "Refugees" first pay a "cat tax", which is quite similar to the "posting photos" in the early days of the Internet. The topic #cattax has been viewed more than 30 million times.

From the homepage of blogger "Pache Caixia", we can clearly see the whole process of how he went from being naive and showing off cats when he just "escaped" to gradually becoming familiar with cat emojis and even perfectly integrating into the army of abstract ideas.

‍‍‍‍There are also those who show off their talents, whether it is cosplay, music, or cool niche hobbies, which can all become a tool for quickly increasing followers. For example, this blogger named "Hyperrzzz" has won many like-minded people with his exquisite armor making.

Of course, if you have both good looks and talent, you are more likely to be favored. For example, these two bloggers named "Ellysse Mason" and "Aiden Kroll" quickly gained more than 10,000 followers with just a few videos. Although the traffic brought by this wave of "refugees" cannot be ignored, it can also be seen from the details of the video shooting, such as sound recording and lighting, that better content is the key.

There are also some netizens who are born to be pranksters. For example, the blogger "Dana:)" was originally a nursing assistant in a private hospital in the UK, but she started with a very abstract prank video. The comments section was full of people saying that there must be a "demon" behind the scenes directing her.

Faced with such a craze, Chinese netizens who are born to love to make fun of things have not been idle. In the past 24 hours, Chinese netizens on Xiaohongshu were mainly divided into several factions: one category was those who took English test papers to foreign teachers to "copy answers", but there were also many contestants who used English test questions to make fun of things, and of course there were also many live broadcast rooms for learning English together.

Duolingo, which always loves to make fun of things, said: So this is how you started learning Chinese?

Clearly, language learning bloggers were hit.

‍‍‍‍

But in fact, more people have realized the importance of language in communication through this incident, and English learning bloggers may be able to achieve a wave of performance after this.

‍‍‍‍

There is another group of people who are busy teasing foreigners, including but not limited to flipping the cards for foreigners who are showing off their talents, sending them comments in Martian languages ​​that cannot be translated by translators, or disrupting the Chinese language with comments that are out of order, making their already precarious Chinese comprehension ability even worse.

There are also kind-hearted Chinese people who use their own advantages to teach their foreign friends how to pronounce names, speak Mandarin, and solve math problems at the low price of "two knife music", as well as make all kinds of memes and send emoticons around them.

‍‍‍‍

When a foreign netizen mentioned that he was from Kentucky, the birthplace of KFC, “V me 50” appeared in the comment section as expected.

‍‍‍‍

Some companies’ new media accounts have joined the meme craze, allowing foreign netizens to see many other commonly used apps in China.

Tmall official account recommends Hangzhou classic delicacy West Lake Vinegar Fish

01 Why Xiaohongshu?

In short, after the influx of a large number of "refugees", the communication atmosphere between netizens on both sides showed great goodwill, except for some people.

The Xiaohongshu account of Musk's mother Maye Musk, who was originally updating content on Xiaohongshu, was found by foreign netizens, who asked: Why is she here? The Chinese and English comments showed a polarized situation, and the account had to close comments for a time.

Apparently, many “TT refugees” vented their anger over the Tik Tok ban on Musk and Trump, viewing “fleeing to Xiaohongshu” as an act of protest against the Tik Tok ban.

But in fact, this kind of "immigration wave" caused by platform changes is not the first time.

When Facebook was exposed for privacy breaches, many users turned to Signal and Telegram. Every time the platform changes, users are looking for new digital "refuges".

However, the reason why Xiaohongshu became so popular during this wave of "refuge" is not only because "heroes are made by the times."

Justine Moore, partner of a16z, summarized more reasons for Xiaohongshu's explosion in popularity on the X.com platform: Reels, which competes with Tik Tok, lacks content related to ordinary people's lives, and YouTube does not attach importance to short videos.

In a word: there is no substitute product.

From the traffic recommendation mechanism of Xiaohongshu, why so many new foreigners appear on the homepage is inseparable from the following factors:

1. Xiaohongshu focuses on equal distribution and will give more than 50% of the traffic to ordinary users with less than 1,000 followers, helping niche interest content to "cold start", which enables more TT refugees to quickly accumulate attention;

2. Xiaohongshu recommends focusing on collecting, commenting, liking and following these highly interactive user tags, so it is actually these Chinese netizens who love to play memes that send huge traffic to foreigners;

3. The timeliness of Xiaohongshu’s recommendations. Xiaohongshu’s homepage recommends content that was published within three or four days, and will not recommend content that was published more than 30 days ago. Therefore, foreigners who appear very densely in a short period of time will have a higher probability of appearing on the homepage. This can rapidly increase the discussion of a topic in a short period of time, making it easier to lead the trend of new topics.

In a word, the algorithm mechanism of the Xiaohongshu platform provides a natural amplification advantage for the content of ordinary overseas users in terms of equal distribution, community interaction and timely recommendation. This mechanism helps them to be pushed to the front page more easily, thus quickly gaining attention and even driving topic dissemination and traffic surge.

02 How many opportunities are there?

In fact, if you observe carefully, it is not difficult to find that the reason why Xiaohongshu became popular in this wave of migration is that the mechanism played an important role, but not all. The goodwill atmosphere from the stronger community environment and the ability of individual users to solve practical problems are also the key to attracting users. I don’t know if everyone still remembers that there was a wave of "listening to the advice of foreigners" from January 25 to 26, 2024.

‍‍‍‍

A blogger posted photos of herself before and after the "explosive transformation" to TikTok, explaining that "Chinese netizens are helping girls become more beautiful." He also gave a detailed tutorial of the entire process.

In just two days, users from different IP addresses posted pictures on Xiaohongshu holding white papers with the words "listen to advice" written on them, begging Chinese netizens to "make a big change."

‍‍‍‍

Of course, this "refugee wave" is also inseparable from the "fueling" of some foreign Internet celebrities, such as "whattheish" who has 400,000 followers on the TikTok platform. She not only posted a lot of information herself to tell foreign netizens that they can download Xiaohongshu, but also encouraged other Internet celebrities to recommend Xiaohongshu.

‍‍‍‍It is not difficult to see that there are a lot of business opportunities here. In addition to serving as a medium for cross-cultural communication like the two bloggers mentioned above, there are also many opportunities hidden in the more related demands generated after this wave of traffic.

After the traffic fever subsides, Xiaohongshu may see hundreds of new Internet celebrities like Youli, Volaf, and Lao Wang in China. More overseas creators may focus on China, and domestic MCN agencies will have more signed foreign bloggers who are suitable for making money in China.

There have been recent reports that Xiaohongshu has begun urgently recruiting English operations and review talents. In addition, Xiaohongshu has also reached a cooperation with the Spring Festival Gala this year. It is obviously expected to take advantage of this wave of traffic to make its popularity "soar" again, and its commercial value will reach a new level.

Obviously, if we can take this opportunity to properly handle issues such as cross-border payment and logistics, we may be able to sit at the cross-border e-commerce table overnight.

In fact, Xiaohongshu has already started doing this a long time ago, trying to further expand its cross-border e-commerce territory through the advantages of its content community, but the actual effect has not been very good.

Since 2014, Xiaohongshu has launched a large number of regional Xiaohongshu apps in Japan, South Korea, the United States, Germany, Singapore, France, Thailand and other countries on the App Store, such as Uniik for the Japanese market and Spark for the Southeast Asian market, but all of them have encountered various problems.

This wave of traffic will probably not last long. First of all, it remains to be seen whether this door will be closed. According to the Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter, Trump is considering an executive order that may suspend the implementation of TikTok sales or ban laws for 60 to 90 days; many foreign netizens said that Xiaohongshu is also gradually starting to open personal real-name authentication.

The reason why "TT refugees" were attracted so quickly this time is largely because a huge platform for civil exchanges has emerged between China and the West, and both sides are curious about each other's actual lives.

When the two parties are separated again, the platform's attractiveness to users will inevitably be discounted to a certain extent.

As time goes by, the "TT refugees" will also find that Xiaohongshu is not a pure land either. Coupled with language and cultural barriers, some creators with weak content innovation may gradually lose their popularity and eventually become dim.

It is easy for netizens to share the chaos they have encountered and create temporary popularity by playing with memes, but it will become a new challenge to create content with lasting vitality under different cultural environments, algorithm mechanisms, community attributes and review mechanisms, and to find a new and effective path.

But in any case, the exchanges between the two countries in their daily lives are the deepest exchanges, which will bring immeasurable cultural creativity and more business opportunities.

Isn’t it a pleasure to have friends coming from afar?

Author | Wang Meng Editor | Truffle