We discussed these 6 issues regarding the future development trend of Xiaohongshu

This article analyzes and explains the future development trend of Xiaohongshu through several questions. It first analyzes which categories of Xiaohongshu have potential in the future from the perspective of content, then analyzes which is more popular, video or text, and mentions Xiaohongshu's buyers and gameplay. This article is suitable for brands who are interested in the Xiaohongshu platform.

Chat with @坎坎, founder of Zhaixingge, about the future trend of Xiaohongshu. They are the only MCN invested by Xiaohongshu and have more say.

This article is used to share the core ideas of our communication and does not represent the official views.

1. In terms of content, which categories have potential in the future of Xiaohongshu?

Home and pets have a rapid growth trend. From the following points:

1) Xiaohongshu users care a lot about the quality of life and hope to take better care of themselves. Therefore, more and more users are posting their decorations on Xiaohongshu, and consumption demand is also increasing.

2) The buyer case selected by the official at the e-commerce conference is the furniture category, called "One KK". The categories selected at this conference must be those that the official thinks are valuable.

3) Having aesthetic ability is the advantage of Xiaohongshu. In addition to beauty, fashion and clothing, furniture is definitely the best. Moreover, it can carry pictures, texts and videos, which is suitable for Xiaohongshu.

4) The trend of pet products can be felt from the traffic of the just-concluded Asia Pet Show on Xiaohongshu. In addition, young people are less interested in getting married and are more invested in pets, just like raising their own children.

Of course, there are also many problems with these two categories.

1) For some furniture accounts, the real person does not appear on screen, so there is no persona. Accounts without persona have a low ceiling for monetization.

2) For accounts that are established by filming in corners of their own homes, fans will get bored if the scenes are not changed; if the scenes are changed all the time, it is illogical and continuous updating will be a big problem.

3) Pet accounts are difficult to live stream. Pets won’t stay in front of the camera obediently, so it’s hard to keep them on camera. But it’s weird for the owner to be on camera, because users are fans of pets, not owners.

Therefore, the rapid development trend of these two categories does not mean that the scale will be large or the monetization ceiling will be high.

2. How to read the two types of content, pictures and short videos? Which one is better?

1) More pictures and text.

There is too much content of this type now, with a relatively low conversion rate and weak monetization ability. This type of content cannot present a rich and three-dimensional experience.

2) Graphics and text are not necessarily cheaper to produce than videos.

Especially for pictures that require more quality, such as outfits, the cost of matching clothes, selecting locations, shooting, and retouching is very high. Compared with oral videos, picture content is very complicated.

3) Overall, it is recommended to post more videos.

Xiaohongshu is a community that focuses on people. If you want others to know and remember you, you need to have a more real and profound feeling. You don't have to compete with whether your appearance is pure beauty. As long as you have characteristics, someone may like you.

3. When creating a Xiaohongshu account, there is no need to pursue vertical content.

Some bloggers post unboxing/outfitness/travel/fitness content, and the effect is very good.

The relationship between Xiaohongshu bloggers and fans is closer, with more of a sense of companionship and growth.

It is also necessary to have a persona, but it is not limited to the content category. The more important thing is authenticity. You can try all kinds of content related to your true self.

The advantage of this is that you can constantly switch your fans' focus so they won't get tired of the looks. Some people may not like your outfit but like the way you look when you work out.

Similarly, it also provides more brands with the possibility of cooperation and increases monetization opportunities.

If you limit yourself to one content category, there will be a ceiling for the number of fans and commercial realization within the track. It is very likely that you will never be able to go up to 30,000 fans and die in this track.

4. If you can get a lot of good-looking and aesthetic bloggers, your efficiency will be high?

There is a point of view: when Xiaohongshu and MCN joined forces, they got a lot of good-looking and aesthetic bloggers, and the efficiency was high. But they don’t know how to sell goods through live broadcast, so it is difficult to realize it now.

This is what Zhaixingge did before, but it doesn’t mean that Xiaohongshu is the same.

Kankan used to be a photography blogger. He brought many models from Weibo to do Xiaohongshu. Their looks were really outstanding, and the content was all about beauty and fashion. Around 2017, the effect of increasing followers was very good, and he was overwhelmed with advertisements.

It is also a fact that by 2020 and 21, Xiaohongshu started to move towards video, and their competitiveness has been declining.

Therefore, we cannot say that Xiaohongshu is promoting beautiful people. We can only say that Zhaixingge had such a strategy at the time, but it was only temporary.

With the platform becoming more video-based and more and more bloggers, the content production and consumption structure has also changed. Some of the bloggers who used to be good-looking are no longer growing as fast.

On the contrary, bloggers who are more authentic, more energetic, and post more videos have greater and greater opportunities.

5. Xiaohongshu rarely produces hot topics that go viral on the entire Internet. Why?

Xiaohongshu is positioned as a community, and its media attributes are quite weak. There are rarely any hot topics, and bloggers are not popular.

They all play their own games, don't care about hot topics, don't take advantage of hot topics, don't interact with each other, and don't create traffic.

This is related to the traffic operation mechanism of the community.

Weibo and Tik Tok are the best at this. The core is that they both have the ability to quickly detonate a point and have such a traffic mechanism.

Weibo is forwarded, especially when it is constantly forwarded by big Vs.

Tik Tok is following suit, and a large amount of content with the same content model or BGM has been exposed.

Both of these forms can generate hot spots and explosive points, but Xiaohongshu’s traffic does not have this ability, and it seems that they are not pursuing this.

6. What do you think of Xiaohongshu’s buyer e-commerce?

The word "buyer" is really super invincible on Xiaohongshu!

Many people started Xiaohongshu in the beginning just to share their good stuff with others. They like doing it, not for making money, and this is the attitude of the original bloggers.

In addition, considering the fashion category, which is Xiaohongshu’s advantage, it is very suitable for buyers.

There are many fashion boutiques, many channels for goods, and not so many standard products. So those fashion bloggers can try to promote goods first to see if they can succeed. Now we can only say it is a trend, but it is hard to say how to make it happen.

On the other hand, buyers will indeed encounter problems if they become bigger.

At that time, many big brands wanted to do live streaming on Xiaohongshu, such as Gucci and Tiffany. When doing it, I found that some bloggers had a hard time, probably because they had no experience in this area and there was no strong operation role to manage it.

Therefore, from the perspective of MCN, it is very difficult to support a blogger’s live streaming sales ability from 0 to 100 or even 1,000.

Author: Han Xu, WeChat public account: Operation Dog's Work Diary