Xiaohongshu search: a must-have for brand marketing in 2024

From user insights to content creation, we analyze how brands can find their position in Xiaohongshu search and use its unique characteristics and advantages to increase brand exposure and influence. This article will explore this trend in depth and reveal the new opportunities and challenges of Xiaohongshu search in the field of brand marketing.

Human understanding, or insight, has three levels: seeing mountains as mountains and water as water; seeing mountains as not mountains and water as not water; and finally, going back to seeing mountains as mountains again and water as water again.

Although both are "mountains and waters", the first and third levels are completely different realms. The twists and turns and developments in between make people's understanding closer to the essence of things.

Search marketing is in the same situation.

If we understand search marketing as a traffic entrance, this is the first level;

If you simply add in marketing methods such as subscriptions and information flow, this is still only the second layer;

It must be realized that users' "search" needs will not change. What needs to change is the brand's "search marketing" logic in the face of new scenarios. Turning search into a window to connect with users and obtain users' active behavior is the third level.

In the "2024 Xiaohongshu Search Promotion White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper") recently released by the Xiaohongshu commercialization team, we see that the value of "search" is being reshaped. This time, the search is still the same search, but the marketing logic inside it has quietly changed .

Jinjibo interviewed Christine Wang, President of Song Business Unit in Greater China at Accenture, Shengxiang, Head of Marketing Lab at Xiaohongshu, Yousi, Head of Commercial Market at Xiaohongshu, and Miju, Head of Product Operations for Commercial Product Search and Promotion at Xiaohongshu, to discuss the importance of new search to brand marketing, and how brands can take advantage of this change to develop more effective marketing strategies and leverage new growth.

01 The evolution of search patterns: from funnel to network

As an insight and practitioner in the marketing industry, Wang Yijun, president of Accenture Greater China, has in-depth research in the fields of digital media, performance marketing and e-commerce. In her opinion, the traffic generation form of search marketing has been reconstructed in the new media era.

In the past, search marketing was funnel-shaped and had a clear purpose. Through layers of screening and matching, it would eventually find the people the brand needed for conversion.

However, in the context of Xiaohongshu’s search, the funnel-like marketing process has been subverted into a network-like structural marketing . This model emphasizes the connection between scenarios and products, thereby stimulating users’ potential consumption intentions and leading to active search behaviors.

For example, when L'Occitane hand cream was being advertised, it used to choose keywords such as "whitening skin care" and "hand cream" for large-scale and large-category traffic, but these are often popular keywords in the skin care track. Not only is the competition fierce, but the price of advertising has also risen. Therefore, L'Occitane found the Xiaohongshu search team and analyzed the search indexes of hot topics, upstream and downstream keywords, etc. through platform data. Finally, it decided to focus on specific usage scenarios and target groups, and link the brand with a specific lifestyle. For example, in the direction of nail art search, it laid out high-click scene keywords such as nail art recommendations and popular nail art in autumn and winter; in the direction of gift search, it laid out scene keywords such as hand cream gift boxes/sets and gift guides; in the direction of office goods search, it laid out workplace commuting/white-collar blue ocean keywords.

The comprehensive search matrix layout is like a network, allowing brands to reach target groups more effectively and frequently . Regardless of how consumers' search motivations and interests change, brand-related content can appear in search results, thereby increasing brand exposure and conversion rates.

We found that search is no longer just a marketing tool, but has been upgraded to a marketing hub . If content in the past could only be the result of search, then today’s content can be the user’s search motivation, the answer, or the trigger for the next search behavior. The role of search is changing from a single point to a multi-dimensional one.

Xiaohongshu's business marketing director Yousi also agrees with this view. He believes that the relationship between search and information flow content browsing is not a linear relationship, but an intertwined process.

"Users don't browse a bunch of content first, make a list of questions and search for the information they want to find. We always browse information in a mixed behavior of searching and looking."

The most intuitive example is that users have formed a habit of going from "general search" to "intensive search" to in-depth search in Xiaohongshu . For example, when "staying up late" want to learn about skin care products, they will first search for "staying up late to work overtime skin care" in general, and after a preliminary understanding of the situation, they will further search for specific brands or products (such as a brand of essence) to supplement the information content.

Therefore, as a "hub", search can give full play to its role and value of "connecting" various scenarios, combined with the platform's advantageous functions and mainstream products. While carrying traditional and deterministic user needs, it may also create more incremental demand.

02 Natural growth needs: Seizing new blue oceans

For brands, seizing the incremental opportunities brought by new search marketing has become the key to gaining business growth.

In fact, in recent years, major platforms have been continuously increasing their investment in search business.

For example, Douyin's "heuristic search". When we are watching videos, we will find that Douyin has preset keywords in the search box. There are also clickable keyword links in the comment area or below the video. Clicking it will generate a search action.

For example, Taobao’s “Consumer Search”. When we have decided to buy a product, we will go directly to the Taobao homepage to search for relevant product information and place an order.

Another example is Baidu’s “information search”. As an old search engine, Baidu is an important information browsing tool in the PC era. We used to be accustomed to finding the answers we need in massive amounts of information.

In the White Paper, Xiaohongshu's direct search is defined as "Life Decision Search" . From being a community product that provided users with a "shopping guide" to the current situation where users are accustomed to using Xiaohongshu as a "life search engine", Xiaohongshu continues to explore and link content and services within the platform for users, which naturally provides business space for more brands and merchants.

We believe that for brands that require certain decision-making costs, have high quality, focus on experience, and have long cycles, they should all make good arrangements for Xiaohongshu search.

Why do you say that?

1. Real trust, closer to user consumption scene

I am a loyal user of Xiaohongshu. From the user experience, the content provided by Xiaohongshu is warmer and closer to life. These contents usually come from real and useful information shared by users, which makes it easier for us to resonate and trust them and further make purchasing decisions .

According to the platform search user survey, more than 80% of Xiaohongshu search users will first search for information on Xiaohongshu when they have a preliminary understanding of products or services. Before purchasing a product, consumers will search for other people's user experience here, which makes Xiaohongshu users have a higher purchasing decision-making power for the product and are closer to the consumer scene.

2. Demands are planted, and multiple scenarios bring opportunities to break through the circle

As a natural grass-planting platform, Xiaohongshu’s diverse grass-planting scenarios give brands or products more opportunities to break through the circle and increase their growth.

A typical case is Casarte water heater. Xiaohongshu created the concept of "Little Private Soup" for Casarte. In addition to the traditional audience of durable consumer goods, it also achieved a breakthrough in the crowd and reached the skin care product crowd. In traditional cognition, the marketing scenarios and target groups of water heaters are limited, and there is a high probability that they will be targeted at decoration scenarios and home improvement crowds. However, when promoting Casarte water heaters, it was proposed that water heaters can also be "Little Private Soup", extending the communication scenarios of water heater marketing to high-presence scenarios such as hot springs, skin care, and bathing children, from low-frequency home furnishing crowds to exquisite life crowds, skin care crowds, and mothers and babies. In the short two-month planting time from listing to 618, the GMV of Casarte's e-commerce platform exceeded 13 million, the search volume increased by 415%, and the brand search ranking on Xiaohongshu rose from 9th to 1st.

The process of demand growth is not only a process of breaking through the crowd, but also a process of increasing the number of scenarios . Relying on its strong "grass-planting gene", Xiaohongshu's direct search can better provide soil for brand owners to seize the search mind, grow from the core population to the general public, and continue to reach potential people in an "anti-funnel" manner along brand-related words, category words, and even opportunity words, and increase the number of scenarios in the process of breaking through the circle layer by layer. Once the innovative scenario is effective, it is very likely that the brand's business scale will expand exponentially.

3. Leveraging growth, the platform commercialization dividends still exist

First, Xiaohongshu search has released a commercial dividend, and brands can leverage incremental growth at a low cost . In traditional search platforms, the bidding for keywords is already saturated, but Xiaohongshu's search marketing has only begun to mature in the past two years. For companies, it is a blue ocean full of opportunities.

Secondly, Xiaohongshu search is extensible, which gives brands in niche areas more opportunities to break through . "Xiaohongshu search is not only the last stop before users consume, but also the first stop for consumer decision-making. From general search to precise search, it can constantly stimulate user needs." said Shengxiang, head of Xiaohongshu Marketing Laboratory.

For example, after searching for "mountaineering", the next most popular search is "mountaineering wear", and the next is "jackets". After understanding clearly, they will start searching for "specific brands". In the past, brands often directly chose red ocean words such as "jackets" and similar brands for advertising, but Xiaohongshu search can help brands block potential users at the first few keywords and find more blue oceans for growth.

Miju, the person in charge of product operations for Xiaohongshu's commercial product search and promotion, also mentioned that Xiaohongshu search is a very accurate and cost-effective customer acquisition channel for niche brands. When small and medium-sized enterprises have limited advertising budgets and immature advertising capabilities, Xiaohongshu can help them find blue ocean words that are missed by big brands, and use automated advertising products to optimize advertising materials, ultimately achieving cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

At present, many brands are in a state of looking for incremental growth under the competition of existing stocks. In my opinion, "precise search" can be understood as existing stocks in a sense, while behind "general search" are the incremental groups that brands can strive for . For brands, especially small and medium-sized brands, as long as the efficiency of search seeding is high enough, this part of the incremental growth has more room for imagination.

03 The evolution of marketing thinking: from short-term transformation to long-term construction

For a long time, Xiaohongshu has always maintained a restrained and Buddhist attitude towards commercialization.

The reason for this situation is that "Xiaohongshu's logic of doing things is growth." Yousi told me, "Xiaohongshu does not want to treat users as traffic. Take the search business as an example. When it sees that search generates enough user value and more than 70% of monthly active users have search behavior, it will consider how to further satisfy them. Therefore, it opens up the search field, connects the entire business scene, and empowers the entire marketing chain."

In my opinion, this growth logic is a choice based on deep understanding and satisfying user needs. It is a user ecology formed on the basis of intensive cultivation, long-term deep digging, and quality links. For brands, this provides them with high-quality soil for growth. Not only can they rely on traffic to complete sales conversion in the short term, but they can also give brands time to calm down and "plant the land" . With long-term investment and slow nourishment, they can build a user wall from the cognitive stage, drive user emotions, and output brand attitudes, thereby gaining consumers' trust and favor, and achieving mental influence and consumption drive.

In addition, the rich user touchpoints on Xiaohongshu allow brands to hear more real voices from users, and to realize the real demands of consumers in communication with users, so as to achieve product iteration and truly create value for consumers. Brands and platforms build together, find scenarios from needs, create high-quality products that truly match market trends, and feed back the company's marketing strategy to achieve long-term growth of brand business.

In an era where brands are seeking to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and integrate product and effect, Xiaohongshu search provides an opportunity to enter the market at a low cost. We also look forward to seeing excellent brands breaking through the waves in this new blue ocean as soon as possible.

Editor: Meng Qi Chief Editor: Shen Shuaibo

Source: WeChat official account: "Jinjibo Finance (ID: jinbubo)"