"Listen to the advice" of foreigners and dig into Xiaohongshu

Recently, many foreigners have flocked to Xiaohongshu and gained a large amount of platform traffic. Let’s take a look at what’s going on.

"Live foreigners write all the English homework in the comments section."

French blogger @Sahil星辰 wrote this passage on Xiaohongshu, with the emoji "sad to steal mom's head". Xiaohongshu users below did not hesitate to take out their own practice exercises and ask whether to choose A or B. In another of his notes, the roles of both parties were reversed, with the user who had the advantage of speaking his native language marking his test paper, "目 stands for eyes, and there are two eyes, so there are two horizontal lines", so he affectionately called Xiaohongshu "homework helper for foreigners".

Since last year, more and more foreigners have appeared on Xiaohongshu’s homepage, such as @titi’s China trip, where she shows her messy Chinese every day, “Chinese food makes me run” and “Monday is a good reason to go to work”, which makes users exclaim “such a strange Chinese”; @英老妹儿Amy introduces herself as a British girl who speaks Northeastern dialect, using comics to show cultural differences. At the beginning of the year, a large number of foreigners also flocked to Xiaohongshu holding signs saying “listen to advice” to seek fashion transformation advice.

When foreigners flock to Xiaohongshu, the question that follows is, can they grasp the platform's traffic code?

1. Foreigners “flood” Xiaohongshu

Foreigners flock to Xiaohongshu, and this is largely due to the fact that it wants to retain more children.

"Liuzi" is the self-proclaimed name of Chinese students studying abroad. On Xiaohongshu, content about students studying abroad accounts for a considerable proportion, and from time to time you can see notes from various IP addresses abroad on the homepage. The mental state of students studying abroad on the Internet is surprisingly consistent: they go crazy when rushing to finish essays, and their mental state jumps back and forth between "I want foreigners to die", "foreigners are very powerful", and "foreigners are not that great"; they are fed up with "white people's food" and eat a lot of delicious snacks after returning home. A cup of Luckin Coffee at 9.9 yuan can also make students studying abroad collectively break down.

On Xiaohongshu, overseas students complain about their own bizarre experiences, show various pictures of their life and study abroad, and also provide experience and strategies for "newbies". From recording and checking in at food stores, to giving advice on how to buy cooking ingredients that are more suitable for Chinese stomachs, to planning travel routes, one blogger described that "after having Xiaohongshu, the whole of Europe is like a dungeon that has been played before."

The huge number of overseas students has helped boost Xiaohongshu's popularity in overseas Chinese circles, which has then spread to foreigners . According to statistics, in 2022, about 550,000 people in Singapore used Xiaohongshu, about 1.5 million in Malaysia, and more than 100,000 in Thailand and Indonesia. In order to expand the Chinese market, some foreign merchants have also opened Xiaohongshu accounts and invited Chinese people to check in and write reviews.

In order to "stay in China", Xiaohongshu has also begun to focus on expanding its overseas users . Since 2021, in more than two years, Xiaohongshu has launched more than 17,000 advertising materials, including clothing, food, beauty, home furnishings, etc., mainly in popular study abroad destinations such as Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, as well as places where Chinese people gather.

However, from the perspective of ordinary users, the first obvious perception of foreigners "invading" the platform ecosystem may be at the beginning of this year. During the New Year, a large number of foreigners holding "listen to advice" signs flocked to Xiaohongshu to solicit suggestions from domestic users on dressing and makeup.

At that time, the official topic of "listening to advice" was listed as one of the life trends for 2023. But what's interesting is that the promoter of this trend may not be Xiaohongshu officials, but a Tiktok blogger @candiselin86. After integrating some "listening to advice" transformation cases, the blogger told viewers that they could get advice from Chinese netizens by uploading selfies with the words "listen to advice" on Xiaohongshu, and attached various label options, suggesting that users use Google Translate to read the comments to quickly get started with an unfamiliar APP.

As a result, a large number of foreigners' help notes with serious machine-translated feeling and similar templates began to appear on the homepages of Xiaohongshu users. Even now, "listening to advice" can still be regarded as the first step for foreign bloggers to open Xiaohongshu.

As for the foreign blogger ecosystem, Xiaohongshu is still in its infancy. In comparison, Douyin and Bilibili appear to be more powerful.

On TikTok, the first foreign internet celebrity Volav shouted "I love China", which immediately started the assembly line production of foreign bloggers who were looking for gold in the domestic market. To date, TikTok has many foreign bloggers with over 10 million fans, such as @吃货老外铁蛋儿, @老外克里斯, etc.; Bilibili also had a period of introducing a large number of foreign bloggers, mainly musicians and celebrities. In April, Buffett's granddaughter Nicole Buffett announced her entry into Bilibili and was placed on the homepage recommendation position by the platform.

According to Kas statistics, foreign bloggers currently active on Xiaohongshu can be divided into three categories:

One category is celebrities and Internet celebrities , such as Kim Kardashian, Pamela, and @女王厨房, which has more than 520,000 followers; one category is bloggers who migrated from other platforms, such as informal meeting guest @钟逸伦Dylan and Douyin blogger @Jason中国, who has 2.47 million followers; and one category is amateur bloggers who share their daily lives and will introduce in their profiles that they are learning Chinese.

The problem is that the times have changed: foreign bloggers are entering a "disenchantment period", and the disappearance of traffic dividends has forced them to roll up content; the mentality of spectators has also changed, and the same type of content has distracted the audience's attention and also worn away a lot of novelty . When the wind direction of the times changes, how can foreign bloggers "grasp" the traffic code of Xiaohongshu?

2. When the traffic password of "Love China" fails

The change in wind direction is mainly reflected in the semi-failure of the "Love China" traffic password.

@尼奥, a 188-year-old foreign blogger who has practiced martial arts in Shaolin Temple for 5 years, performed a set of boxing techniques in Beijing wearing a flying fish suit. In the text, he expressed that he "hopes to be reborn as a Chinese in the next life." As a result, the comments section taught him that "each of us should love our motherland and nation." This may be a strong example of why the audience is no longer willing to buy this.

However, this also means that the more accounts that can provide viewers with freshness beyond the original topics, the more likely they are to break the growth ceiling. For example, @Victoria Couple, who have nearly 10 million followers on Douyin, originally had high-profile personalities, and their early content focused on family comedy jokes. They had already entered a bottleneck period of increasing followers, until their son raised his arms and shouted "I want foreigners to die", and users discovered that the father who speaks five languages ​​and works for Xinhua News Agency and the mother who was born in St. Petersburg raised a child, one of whom scored 28 points in English and had to wear a language translator when scolded by his parents, and the other who loves to eat dog food and can't learn to flick his tongue in Russian.

When a highly educated foreign family suddenly found themselves in the same dilemma of raising children that is common among Chinese people, users came up with memes such as "Dragon and Phoenix make a flying bird" and "Son: Boxer Rebellion; Daughter: Shennong". Victoria and her husband quickly created content with this as the core topic, and their followers increased by over 2 million in 90 days.

Similarly, the situation of foreign bloggers on Xiaohongshu is very different from before. Most of the foreign bloggers who have just arrived regard Xiaohongshu as the Chinese version of Instagram. Their first priority after entering is to take photos with their faces close to the screen and show off their good-looking photos. However, what they receive now is likely not gentle and friendly compliments, but the emoticons of Daju in a famous palace drama, "Which palace are you from? Why haven't I seen you before?" or a large amount of Internet jargon and earthy love words, each of which tries to break through their language defenses.

When the audience is disenchanted with foreigners, the more open bloggers are to being deconstructed, the easier it is to gain traffic. For example, @大不列英国王德华, who is backed by MCN, has already learned to tag himself as a "gentleman scum". Behind every foreign blogger there may be a Chinese expert, otherwise it is hard to imagine that a foreign friend would tag his selfie with "hot mom's parenting experience".

Since Xiaohongshu has not prepared special overseas sections and divisional operations for foreign bloggers, foreign bloggers who are well versed in "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" mostly use simplified Chinese . The strong sense of machine translation has become another feature and highlight of their creations.

In his notes about his trip to China, foreign blogger @titi said that he encountered a car that was donating blood. The comments section was full of jokes, "Thank you, love comes from porcelain." One user reminded him to replenish his nutrition after donating blood, "If you come to Harbin, you can treat me to barbecue to replenish my nutrition." Titi responded, "Thank you, I like barbecue very much." Under this reply, more than 2,000 Chinese people gathered together to laugh "Hahahaha."

Some people made jokes to him, asking him to remember that "there is a space station in space, but there is no space station because it is too crowded"; others invited him to visit Laojun Mountain in Luoyang, saying, "The scenery there is beautiful, and foreigners are not allowed to enter." This type of jokes from users also contributed to the increase in traffic.

On the other hand, foreign bloggers are also trying to use memes in order to quickly integrate into the community atmosphere. @大不列英国王德华 asked netizens to photoshop a photo of him in Hollywood into a Chinese background. Users showed off their skills in the comments section, and this note received 20,000 likes;

@张大A from the UK started his road to fame by asking netizens to transform him into a Xinjiang person. Looking through his posts, although he used harmonious but irrational words, he was already proficient in using popular phrases such as "imported double-door refrigerator" and "a man's good figure is his wife's great honor". Earlier this year, @张大A also sent job application letters to the Coconut Tree Group, saying that he had a "generous chest" and hoped to join the Coconut Tree's hot dance male group.

In the comment section, users also tried their best to "make things happen": "Let me test you, can you eat luncheon meat at night?" "If you eat out, just mention my name and you can pay the original price."

Of course, discussing the cultural differences between China and the West is still the most familiar topic for foreign bloggers . For example, cartoonist @英国老妹儿Amy uses the theme of "China VS Britain" and comics to tell the cultural differences between the two countries, such as "Popular TV series in Britain and China in the past few decades" and "What changes have there been in skirts in China VS Britain over the past century". Her unique painting style and clear perspective have helped her accumulate 80,000 fans, with the highest note receiving 39,000 likes.

It is worth noting that although there are celebrities, MCN contracted experts, and foreign Internet celebrities among them, amateurism is a feature that foreign bloggers on Xiaohongshu cannot ignore.

As for the current content distribution mechanism of Xiaohongshu, bloggers with overseas IP may not benefit from traffic, but will be on the same starting line as other content. This also means that content with community native attributes and that can be smoothly integrated into the original atmosphere is more likely to be favored by users.

3. Xiaohongshu has many paths to take when going global

On the one hand, more and more foreign bloggers are flocking to Xiaohongshu’s domestic base, but on the other hand, Xiaohongshu’s path to “going global” seems less smooth.

A brief review of Xiaohongshu’s overseas expansion history:

In 2021, Xiaohongshu launched Uniik, a fashion community in Japan. This application stopped updating in October 2022. At that time, Xiaohongshu quickly launched Takib, an outdoor app, but the number of downloads was very small.

Also in 2022, Xiaohongshu "attacked" the Southeast Asian, North American and European markets, launching the overseas shopping app Spark and the home furnishing app Catolog, but they also ended in failure;

In April this year, another product of Xiaohongshu, S'more, was also taken off the shelves after only a few months of operation.

It is not difficult to see that Xiaohongshu's overseas expansion strategy does not seem to be intended to replicate the complex content system of the original APP, but to take a vertical route and make a small and beautiful specialized APP, similar to a vertical version of ins.

To this end, Xiaohongshu split several of its most popular content sections, including outdoor, fashion and beauty, home furnishing, etc. But the problem is that after the split, the traffic of the vertical sections will decline, and the first problem faced by domestic applications "going overseas" is traffic problems, including how to "conquer" the natives, how to accumulate content, and how to expand popularity.

Although backed by Xiaohongshu, the split APP did not gain any advantages from the original body. Its operation was often criticized by users for its inaccurate translation and disappointing search system. As a result, it was difficult for users to associate the APP with Xiaohongshu after it went overseas. On the contrary, overseas bloggers preferred to surf the domestic community using Google Translate.

It is worth mentioning that despite repeated setbacks in overseas expansion, the “Little Red Book model” may not be ineffective abroad. For example, the situation of ByteDance product lemon8, which also first landed in Japan, was very different.

In 2020, ByteDance launched lemon8, which is similar to Xiaohongshu in terms of double-column information flow, picture and text recommendation, and positioning of beauty, fashion, and food sharing. In early 2023, after achieving great success in Southeast Asia, lemon8 also entered the UK and US markets.

Of course, Lemon8's success in the overseas market also stems from ByteDance's consistent "deep pockets" and the internal connectivity between its overseas products. When Tiktok was banned in the United States, a large number of users flocked to Lemon8, making the app quickly popular. In contrast, Xiaohongshu has neither the determination to invest firmly nor the ambition to recreate its glory. Its overseas expansion is more like a test than a goal.

However, it is difficult for content communities to go overseas, which is another level of "it is difficult to build an empire, and it is also difficult to defend an empire". Xiaohongshu still has a long way to go in its overseas expansion.

Author: Chu Cheng, source public account: Kasi Data (ID: 736105)