How to write a qualified brief for Xiaohongshu

In the process of working with KOLs, a detailed brief is crucial to ensure that the cooperation goes smoothly. It not only helps to clarify the brand's advertising demands, but also guides the influencer to create content and ensure the effective delivery of information.

When working with KOL influencers for a long time, various problems will arise. For example, some brands will discuss the details of the cooperation only after sending the products. Some influencers accept the cooperation without thinking it through. Once the communication during the content shooting is not in place, the product will be returned, which is a loss for both the brand and the influencer.

When we look back and summarize, we find that the brief for cooperation with experts is very important. A well-written brief can often achieve twice the result with half the effort.

1. What exactly is a brief?

A brief is also called a creative brief or a work brief. During the Xiaohongshu delivery process, the brand first outputs its requirements, which are then integrated into a brief and passed on to influencers. After the influencers understand the brand's demands, they start creating based on the brief and convey the brand concept, product information, etc. to users.

Simply put, the brief is the bridge connecting the brand, influencers, and users. A good brief should be able to clearly express the brand's appeal, facilitate influencers' understanding and creation, and have brand information that can be clearly conveyed to users.

2. First clarify the demand for delivery

When it comes to influencer advertising, we must first clarify the theme of the advertising, determine who we want to advertise to, and what kind of effect we expect to achieve. Based on these two points, the brand brief will be more specific and more conducive to influencer creation.

1) Object of appeal

The target audience is actually our user group. We need to clarify our user portraits, conduct precise user insights, and allow experts to create works in a targeted manner so that the works can ultimately be accurately delivered to our target audience.

2) Appeal points

The appeal point is what effect the brand hopes to achieve through this campaign. The brand appeal here can be to build brand voice and increase product awareness; it can also be to promote brand tone and establish brand image; or it can be to promote product selling points and promote sales conversion, etc.

Different brand appeals require different marketing strategies, and the creative focus of influencers will also be different. This requires brands to design briefs in a differentiated manner based on their own marketing needs.

3. How to write a Brief?

A mature brief needs to comprehensively and clearly present the information that the brand wants consumers to know. The specific content includes but is not limited to: brand information, product introduction, content requirements, and other cooperation requirements, etc.

1) Brand information

Brand information mainly includes brand history, brand story, brand status, founder and spokesperson, etc.

The introduction of brand-related information is mainly to allow influencers or users to form a first impression of the brand background, increase users' favorability towards the brand, and establish a sense of trust between the brand and users.

However, this part should not be overemphasized. Just give a brief introduction, be concise and highlight the key points. It mainly serves to provide a background for the entire creation.

2) Product Introduction

The product is the core of the entire brief. Here, you should not only introduce the product in detail, but also describe as much information related to the product as possible. You can mainly analyze it from the following aspects:

Product information: Here you can display product-related information with pictures, and give a detailed introduction to the product's appearance, performance, parameters, how to use, etc.

Product advantages: Product advantages can start from the product's patents and supply chain, or you can introduce the product's industry endorsement or celebrity endorsement, such as "the same style as XX", "recommended by XX", etc.

User pain points/itch points: Here we emphasize what kind of problems the brand can solve for users, or how it can achieve a certain direction in an innovative way. Solving user pain points and itch points is the key point we need to highlight when placing ads.

3) Content requirements

The relevant requirements for the content of the notes are directly related to the final presentation of the notes. Communicating the requirements for the content of the notes in advance can save the work efficiency of both parties and avoid the loss of time and opportunity costs due to discovering inappropriateness after cooperation.

The contents of the notes mainly cover the following points:

Note form: There are two main forms of posting on Xiaohongshu: pictures and text/video

Content length: Content length mainly includes the number of pictures, copy length, video length, etc.

Note style: Here you can choose to focus on evaluation, popular science, experience, etc. The specific style is selected based on the appeal of the brand.

Keywords: Do you need to add relevant keywords in the graphic notes? Which keywords should be added? How many keywords should be added? The brand can be specified in detail here.

Topics: In addition to keywords, topics are also something that needs to be considered when posting Xiaohongshu notes. If the brand has its own topics to add, it can selectively add topics that are highly relevant to the brand or product, such as #YSL416, #小鹏p7, etc.

4) Other cooperation requirements

In addition to the above-mentioned issues that require the brand to pay attention to, other matters that need to be noted can also be noted, such as:

Time: publishing time, note retention time, etc.

Interaction requirements: reply and maintenance in the comment area

Template: If you want to unify the note-taking style, you can also use templates or reference cases directly.

Final Thoughts

The writing framework of the above brief is a summary in a broader sense, but the specific implementation still needs to be determined according to the overall idea of ​​brand operation and delivery. However, no matter how the form changes, the central idea is still to convey the brand appeal.

The content in the brief should be as concise and popular as possible, without listing too many professional terms, so that experts can understand it directly at a glance.

Regarding the content requirements for influencers' creations, they can be further refined for bloggers, but for high-quality influencers with higher creative abilities, the constraints of the framework should be reduced as much as possible, and brand co-creation should be achieved through communication.

Finally, one thing to note is that the creation of a brief is not a one-time thing. Remember to constantly review and summarize based on market feedback and optimize it in a timely manner.