Xiaohongshu launches Dandelion low-gap marketing rules. What impact does it have on brands and bloggers?

On December 22, Xiaohongshu launched the Dandelion low-difference marketing rules, revealing the official determination to manage certain types of content. This article focuses on the two major marketing methods of false reviews and bad painting styles. Let's take a look.

On December 22, Xiaohongshu launched the Dandelion Low-Difference Marketing Rules, which listed content such as exaggerating facts, fabricating user experience, comparing with other brands, and routine marketing.

The rules also emphasize that they will focus on governance, revealing the official's determination to manage such content. Note: Dandelion Notes refers to the brand's order reporting notes.

I will focus on false reviews and poor painting style.

1. False reviews sent directly

False reviews include exaggerating facts and providing fake shopping experiences.

The most typical example is direct advertising without real experience, such as horizontal tests and ranking notes, poster puzzles and cutouts that list multiple brands. However, a careful reading of the notes reveals that the promoted brand is usually ranked first, which may be suspected of dragging down peers.

Figure 1: Ranking Note Types

Official control of such notes also has a huge impact on brands and bloggers.

Most of these merchants are white-label, which can be simply understood as unbranded goods produced by small manufacturers. Compared with big brands, they do not have the budget to invest in influencers and advertisements with distinctive styles.

The notes in the ranking list can solve the problem of not violating the rules when collecting notes. On the other hand, it can accurately intercept the user's search and decision-making needs.

There is another more important aspect. The price of direct posting is cheap. Usually, a blogger with tens of thousands of followers only quotes around 300 yuan, so the cost of posting is low. The official control of low-difference notes on Dandelion makes it increasingly difficult for white-label merchants to survive.

It also has a significant impact on direct posting bloggers. The bloggers who accept direct postings and reviews are basically bloggers of comics, film and television editing, and graphic and text secondary creation.

Their pain point is that the data is extremely good but the monetization ability is weak. As there is no reserved advertising space, big brand owners basically do not invest. Even if they accept brand notes, creation and shooting are still difficult.

Direct-sending review notes are a perfect solution to this problem. Brand owners usually prepare notes and just need to send them directly.

The official introduction of the low-difference Dandelion rules has reduced the income of these bloggers. Bloggers of other types such as comics and editing also need new transformation and upgrading.

2. Vulgarity and discomfort

The focus is on skin blemishes, vulgar pictures and other straight hair notes, and there are many acne removal, gel and gynecological brands.

Most influencers are cultivated by brands or direct from comics, movies and TV shows, and their influence on brands and bloggers is as above;

Figure 2: Discomforting notes

This type of note is basically sent directly. Prepare the pictures and let the blogger send them directly. The core is to collect them, and then intercept them in the comment area to guide customers to place orders on Xiaohongshu or Taobao.

The platform manages this type of notes to protect the user ecosystem. Imagine if there were a large number of such fake grass-planting notes in the community, the user experience would be relatively poor, and the platform's evaluation system and user growth would also have big problems.

3. What the platform rules tell us

Why did the platform introduce these rules? What lessons can we learn from it?

1. Follow the rules and follow the algorithm

From the introduction of the community convention, the prohibition of diversion, the crackdown on underwater notes, the prohibition of second-hand luxury goods listings to the Dandelion low-difference policy, the platform has become more and more formalized.

In other words, it will be increasingly difficult for merchants and bloggers who want to commercialize by damaging the user experience! If you want to work on Xiaohongshu for a long time, you must first abide by the rules of the platform, follow the algorithm mechanism, and produce compliant notes.

2. Platforms’ urgency for revenue

The frequent introduction of rules is a community issue, as well as a platform revenue issue. Whether it is restricting traffic or the Dandelion low-difference rules, they are all means to increase platform revenue.

Looking at the top 100 brands on Xiaohongshu, nearly 50% are occupied by such direct-to-consumer brands. Although the number of placements is high, the amount of placement basically does not exceed 200,000 yuan. The platform will naturally suppress such practices that do not create value for the platform and damage the community ecology.

The standardization of the platform is also intended to gain more commercial revenue. The bloggers' income has swelled into French fries cards, and the French fries are not discounted but given away for free. These details also reveal the platform's urgency for revenue.

3. Update bloggers carefully to celebrate the arrival of spring

We are also working on blogger-related matters, and we receive a large number of direct requests every day. Some even ask you to modify a currently-going note, insert two pictures, or change the topic, and they will pay you 500 or even more, but all of these will be rejected by us.

Monetization is indeed our first goal in running Xiaohongshu, but it is not all. As bloggers, we also need to think about how we can provide more value to users and platforms.

The platform’s crackdown on Dandelion’s low-margin marketing will also encourage more brands to look for bloggers who are capable of outputting content, and the spring for bloggers who update their content diligently will also come.

The above are some of my thoughts on the low-difference marketing rules launched on Xiaohongshu.

Author: Jiang He, WeChat public account: Jiang He Talks Marketing