Little Red Book, Going Out to Sea Overnight

As TikTok faces the storm of being removed from the US market, RedNote, the international version of Xiaohongshu, unexpectedly becomes popular in the US, with a large number of TikTok users viewing it as a new social "safe haven". This phenomenon not only brings opportunities for Xiaohongshu to expand its overseas user base and enhance its international brand influence, but also brings issues such as content review, compliance, and coping with US regulatory challenges. Whether Xiaohongshu's "going global" will be successful and how it will cope with these new challenges are attracting much attention.

There is less than a week left until the ban requiring TikTok to divest takes effect on January 19.

If TikTok is really completely removed from the US, where will users go?

Now we have the answer - Xiaohongshu.

On January 14, the Chinese social app RedNote (Xiaohongshu International Edition) quickly became popular on the American Internet. Opening Xiaohongshu, you can see content posted in English by American users everywhere, and they also added the label "TikTok refugee" to themselves.

As of 1:30 p.m. on January 14, there were 84,000 notes under the tag "#TikTok Refugee", with a total of more than 44 million views and more than 1.3 million discussions.

1. A huge amount of traffic goes to Xiaohongshu

Xiaohongshu’s popularity in the United States is largely due to the fact that TikTok is about to be removed from the US market.

According to a previous report by Bloomberg, TikTok's oral defense in the U.S. Supreme Court ended last Friday. Although the Supreme Court did not make a ruling at the time, it now seems very likely that the ban will be upheld.

TikTok attorney Noel Francisco said during arguments Friday that unless the justices overturn the congressional bill or issue a temporary restraining order, the platform will essentially be shut down on January 19.

Although the next President Trump has expressed his willingness to save TikTok, his inauguration date is January 20, the day after the ban takes effect, which is obviously "too late."

In this context, a large number of TikTok users were forced to find a new "refuge", and Xiaohongshu became their first choice.

US App Store download ranking

According to Qimai data, in the US, on January 12, Xiaohongshu App was ranked 209th on the app list, but on January 13, it quickly rose to the second place on the app list and topped the list on January 14.

Judging from the social application rankings in the United States, Xiaohongshu has been fluctuating within the top 100 in the past year, previously reaching as high as 24th place until it rose to first place in the past two days.

Seeing this, Zhu Xiaohu, managing partner of GSR Ventures and one of the earliest investors in Xiaohongshu, excitedly posted a message on Xiaohongshu to congratulate Xiaohongshu on topping the US App Store.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

In fact, for a long time, many creators have copied or borrowed fashion and beauty content from Xiaohongshu and posted it on TikTok, which has accumulated a certain degree of popularity for Xiaohongshu. Currently, there are more than 130,000 short videos with the #xiaohongshu (Xiaohongshu) tag on TikTok, most of which are copied by users.

Overall, Xiaohongshu combines the visual presentation of Instagram with the community interaction function of Reddit, and is positioned as a lifestyle sharing platform. For overseas users, the migration, learning, and usage costs are relatively low, which may also be an important reason for Xiaohongshu's popularity.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

For Xiaohongshu, this "out-of-circle" move due to user migration from the US market will not only help expand its overseas user base, but may also significantly enhance its brand influence in the international market, bringing greater commercialization potential to the platform.

However, the continued influx of American users may also pose more severe challenges to Xiaohongshu.

On the one hand, the massive amount of content generated by foreign users will undoubtedly greatly increase Xiaohongshu's burden in terms of review and compliance. The platform must not only ensure that diverse cultures are fully expressed in content, but also strictly comply with various regulatory requirements.

On the other hand, given that US regulators have previously raised many questions about TikTok, Xiaohongshu is also unlikely to stay out of it. Issues such as user data security and data compliance are likely to become the focus of US regulators on Xiaohongshu.

Ideally, Xiaohongshu can learn from the dual-version operation model of Douyin and TikTok and provide independent product architecture for domestic and overseas markets. This will not only help avoid regulatory risks, but also more flexibly meet the needs of users in different markets and accelerate the internationalization process.

2. Why is it a substitute for TikTok?

Although Xiaohongshu has attracted some American users, the platform's content format and positioning are still quite different from TikTok.

For example, in terms of functional positioning, TikTok focuses on creating entertainment attributes. With its two major weapons, short videos and live broadcasts, it has attracted many young users to join in, satisfying their strong desire for novel ideas and shocking visual experiences. Xiaohongshu, on the other hand, focuses on social interaction and content sharing, especially on the all-round sharing of lifestyles, providing guidance for users' consumption decisions. Its main audience is young women.

In terms of content format, TikTok takes short videos as its absolute core and spares no effort to enhance entertainment and visual appeal. Xiaohongshu uses graphic notes as its main content carrier and appropriately incorporates short video elements, which makes its content richer and more diverse, focusing on sharing daily life and shopping recommendations, and has a stronger "grass-planting" attribute.

Although the two have significant differences in market positioning, functional architecture, user portraits, and content formats, they are highly similar in the underlying logic design of recommendation algorithms and the use of UGC (user-generated content) models. Diverse authors and diverse content formats have become the main ways for the two to attract users.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

Then why is it Xiaohongshu that receives this wave of traffic, rather than Facebook, Instagram or X?

Objectively speaking, the underlying factor behind the migration of a large number of American Internet users is "emotional rebound."

As the deadline for TikTok's ban draws near, there has been an overwhelming backlash, specifically in the form of resistance to the US government's arbitrary ban on a platform and restrictions on speech, regardless of user wishes, on the grounds of security. Most users have a "rebellious mentality", and some creators even said on Xiaohongshu that "the further you keep me away from China, the more I want to go to a place where I can mingle with Chinese people."

On Reddit, after TikTok's Supreme Court defense last week, many users launched a campaign to boycott Meta and Google, and even the US government's ban on TikTok. They are angry about the ban and are also angry about Meta and Google's instigation behind the ban.

This is also one of the reasons why they did not choose mainstream European and American social software such as Facebook, Instagram, and X.

Why didn’t this overwhelming amount of traffic go to TikTok (Chinese version)? The reason is even simpler, because Xiaohongshu can be registered with any global mobile phone number, while TikTok (Chinese version) requires a Chinese mobile phone number to register. In addition, TikTok (Chinese version) cannot be downloaded in the US, while Xiaohongshu can be downloaded directly from the US App Store with one click. All of this has contributed to the great migration of TikTok refugees.

In fact, Lemon 8, which is known as a "pornographic book" by the outside world, also has the opportunity to catch this wave of traffic, but due to its inseparable relationship with TikTok, many users are deterred. According to an interview with Caixin, the reason why some overseas users did not choose Lemon8 is because it is also from ByteDance. They are also afraid that it will be banned by the US government and fall into the wolf's den just after escaping from the tiger's mouth.

In order to avoid a similar dilemma to TikTok, ByteDance changed the developer of Lemon8 in the app store information to Heliophili, a company located in Singapore, in an attempt to distinguish it from the "foreign adversary" in the US forced sale order. But in fact, according to public information, Heliophili shares its headquarters with ByteDance's Singapore office.

Currently, the U.S. federal law restricts ByteDance's management rights over its applications, which allows Heliophili to temporarily escape the restrictions on Lemon8, but this does not mean that it can sit back and relax. Once the U.S. government turns its attention to Lemon8 and determines that it is still controlled by ByteDance, the fate of Lemon8 will also change.

3. How long can the heat last?

For Xiaohongshu, perhaps the most wanted post this morning would be "I unexpectedly succeeded in going overseas"?

In fact, Xiaohongshu has been full of "Western style" since its birth. It became popular all over the Internet with a PDF of "Xiaohongshu's Overseas Shopping Guide", which received over 500,000 downloads as soon as it was released.

On today's Xiaohongshu App, we can still see a large amount of content sharing about overseas shopping, overseas travel, overseas work, studying abroad, etc. The amount of "going overseas" content has always been ahead of other apps.

However, Xiaohongshu's overseas journey has been full of twists and turns.

In the past three years, Xiaohongshu has launched a number of independent overseas apps in an attempt to replicate the success of domestic lifestyle communities, but none of them have achieved good results, such as the fashion community Uniik launched in Japan, the camping enthusiasts community Takib, and the beauty community habU; Spark, which is aimed at the Southeast Asian market and is highly similar to Xiaohongshu in China; and Catalog, a home sharing community for the European and American markets.

But as of now, Uniik and Catalog have ceased operations, and other apps have not achieved the same huge impact as TikTok.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

In 2023, many overseas users held white papers with the words "listen to advice" written on them, attached their own photos, and sought "explosive reform" advice from Chinese netizens, which briefly became popular. But after the explosion, everything returned to silence.

This influx of "TikTok refugees" may really be the closest Xiaohongshu has ever been to large-scale "going overseas".

Benefiting from the surge in traffic of Xiaohongshu, on the morning of January 14, A-share Xiaohongshu concept stocks collectively opened higher. Yaowang Technology, Yinli Media, Yiwang Yichuang, Aimu Shares, Golisi, and Piano all hit the daily limit in the bidding, while Diansheng Shares, Tianxiaxiu, Huayang Lianzhong, and Yaoji Technology were among the top gainers. As of press time in the afternoon, Fushi Holdings and Yiwang Yichuang hit the daily limit of 20%, and Yaowang Technology, Tianxiaxiu, Huayang Lianzhong, Aimu Shares, Yinli Media, Laiyifen, Yaoji Technology and other 10 stocks hit the daily limit. In addition, Jiayun Technology and XuanYa International also rose by more than 10%.

However, hot topics on the Internet are always fleeting. Xiaohongshu has created a buzz with topics related to TikTok, which seems to be a bit like making "disaster money." As for how long this "disaster money" can last, we can only wait until the trial ends on January 19.

The new story may have just begun.