"Little Red Book City" becomes popular, Internet users report marketing logic

Xiaohongshu released its 10th anniversary usage report, setting off a new model of platform marketing. If you want to understand how the platform conducts marketing promotion through user reports, this article provides a specific case analysis, which is of great reference value.

August 2nd is the tenth anniversary of Xiaohongshu.

Taking this opportunity, Xiaohongshu launched "Xiaohongshu City - My Footprint Report" on the APP, connecting user stories with Xiaohongshu's ten years through online life scenarios + data review.

How many notes have you read in total? Who do you like to read the most? What is the most heartfelt comment you have ever posted? ... These memories that the human brain cannot accurately obtain can all be unlocked by searching for "Usage Report" on Xiaohongshu. Currently, the topic #小红书使用报导# has received more than 61.76 million views on the APP .

In fact, it is no longer a new thing for Internet platforms to release user usage reports these days, especially the annual reports that are released in large numbers at the end of the year, which have long made users lose the sense of novelty that they had at the beginning.

This time, Xiaohongshu, which has been deeply involved in the community ecology, launched the user usage report in such a heavyweight way in its tenth anniversary event . TOP Jun also wants to talk about the reason behind this, why the user usage report routine works, and how the platform should innovate under the trend of homogenization.

1. Annual reports on APPs that are blooming everywhere

The method of generating user behavior reports was first introduced by NetEase Cloud Music, which first launched its annual listening report in 2016. It deeply touched the hearts of users with its sections such as the number of songs listened to throughout the year, cumulative duration, and the most repeated songs. The emotional images and rational data inventory summarized the unique listening habits of each user.

Perhaps the emergence of new things is always accompanied by novel eyes and industry imitation, so after NetEase Cloud, more and more applications have gradually joined the queue of generating annual reports. Taking 2022 as an example, it is even more blossoming: Weibo, Bilibili, Meituan, AutoNavi Map, WeChat Reading... From listening to music software to social entertainment platforms, from daily travel to takeaway ordering, from express mail to game platforms, major APPs cover daily food, clothing, housing, transportation, books, and audio-visual, packaging every bit of user life with data to bring users cyberpunk memoirs.

At this point, TOP can't help but ask if you still remember how many songs you listened to in 2022? How many books did you read? How many takeaways did you order? Maybe you can't remember these details, but it doesn't matter. Countless apps will remind you through usage reports: you have "so much" fate with them .

2. With so many flowers blooming, will the platform finally break out of the circle?

According to incomplete statistics, since December 2021, various platforms have launched more than 20 year-end summary reports, and this number has reached a new high in 2022. As time enters 2023, the endless stream of reports will inevitably cause the public to have some aesthetic fatigue.

After reviewing the year-end reports of major platforms, TOP also found that serious homogeneity problems and cold and one-sided data are common problems in annual reports.

In terms of form, they are all equipped with simple BGM illustrations or animations, with thoughtful copywriting and scenes for the statistical data, and are presented one by one with their respective thematic emphasis (such as time series, etc.); finally, most of them are summarized with user portraits or group types, such as ranking data, preferences of the same type or the same region, and interest circles.

In terms of data, the data deliberately selected by the platform does come from the individual's use of the application platform. However, since the platform's summary will try to meet the greatest common divisor, it is not necessarily consistent with the user's subjective wishes. The final report can only represent a part of the user's life and cannot go deep into the essence of personal life.

Of course, for the big Internet platforms, generating annual reports is both labor-saving and can attract a wave of spontaneous traffic, so why not do it? However, from a long-term perspective, if you want to truly empower your products and capture the hearts of the public, you still need to dig deeper. While choosing key time points, find the right attributes and positioning for the platform, and do platform marketing in a more attractive way.

1. Marketing expert NetEase Cloud Music’s 10-year music listening report is out again

To be honest, NetEase Cloud is really good at social marketing. Whether it is the "Netease Cloud" with the slogan "I'm sorry for being born as a human being", or the personality test H5 such as "Draw your subconscious mind" and "The dominant color of your personality", every marketing action can successfully go viral.

Perhaps this also stems from its underlying user thinking: to provide a variety of targeted products and services in response to various personalized and segmented needs of customers, truly achieving "user first" .

April 23rd this year marks the tenth anniversary of NetEase Cloud Music. In response to the occasion, it launched a ten-year listening report, compiling the important songs listened to by users in the past ten years into a "Ten Years of Life Collection", using the behavioral data recorded in the background to help users recover their lost past in the form of music, and cleverly using the connection points between songs and stories, emotional needs and emotional pain points.

More importantly, NetEase Cloud Music links users' emotions with the brand, and by having already entered the minds of the target audience, it spontaneously arouses users' inner emotions, achieving an emotional marketing effect that is tailored to each individual.

2. Xiaohongshu, a rising star, has a suitable platform content and atmosphere

Back to Xiaohongshu mentioned at the beginning, Xiaohongshu also took the opportunity of its tenth anniversary celebration to release a user usage report.

It is worth noting that this is the first time that Xiaohongshu has generated a user behavior report, but the platform has also been committed to providing users with data references for personal notes in the form of weekly reports. At the end of 2020, Xiaohongshu began to launch the annual life trends for the new year, analyzing the changes that may occur in people's lives in the coming year.

"Scarcity makes things valuable", before the platform released the official note report, some netizens also created their own content . The content is mainly data such as "XX friends have read me in a year, which note is the most read, XX notes have been published, and XX new friends have been made", etc., and they also design their own pictures and texts.

Of course, the merit of Xiaohongshu's marketing lies in the fact that the content of its reports is compatible with the positioning and atmosphere of the platform - everything about life can be found on Xiaohongshu. From the initial beauty sharing and grass-planting notes to today's life sharing and daily search engines, Xiaohongshu has established a close relationship with users based on its coverage of all aspects of life, and can be called a "guide to lifestyle." The use of the usual interesting copywriting language and healing painting style in the report also meets the users' expectations of the platform.

3. The reporting routine is complicated, and the platform comes knocking

As an interactive report that helps users understand and summarize the APP usage in the past year, it presents the past in the form of data and can also help users efficiently realize their urgent desire to share their usage experience. It can be said that major Internet platforms use annual reports as a marketing tool at the end of the year, which can invisibly improve their image and reputation in the market and public opinion.

1. Year-end face recognition: the battle for traffic and topics

For various platforms, releasing such a user data summary at the end of each year is undoubtedly a repetition of the previous "traffic code".

On the one hand, out of personal curiosity about platform usage habits, the annual report format can attract more users to participate in the report generation process by "clicking to view", which to a certain extent increases the number of visits and usage of the application. On the other hand, these reports will also be widely discussed and shared on the Internet, forming hot topics and bringing more traffic and attention to the application.

For example, on the Weibo platform, the topic #QQMusicAnnualListeningReport# received 250 million views and 230,000 discussions, and #MyWeiboBroadcast# received 1.84 billion views and 3.558 million discussions.

For apps that have been deeply involved in the platform ecosystem all year round, it is not difficult to generate a user data report in the data age, but taking this opportunity to let users see the close connection between themselves and the platform and experience the role of the platform in their lives is an excellent marketing opportunity that obviously should not be missed.

2. Social Currency: Strong and Weak Connections in a Connected World

Jonah Berger said in "Contagious": "If products and ideas can make people look better, more stylish, and more cheerful, then these products and ideas will naturally become social currency and be widely discussed."

Interestingly, most users learned about the platform’s annual report not through the platform itself, but through their friends’ circles or social media, and only then did they catch up with the report trend after seeing others share it.

The platform publishes various year-end reports, taking advantage of the desire of some users to gain group recognition by sharing their own experiences. In the comments and exchanges with familiar friends or strangers, users look for friends with common data identification or differentiated characteristics - when the same interests become their "labels", they can quickly integrate into the social circle of "similar people".

Ultimately, in the vast interconnected world, people establish strong connections of emotional identification through reports, and weak connections of brief encounters on online platforms. The identity of the platform is no longer just a software, but also a good "intermediary" for users to make friends.

3. Electronic rituals: Data recreates annual memories

In this fast-paced, digital age, isn’t the launch of the annual report on the platform an electronic ritual for users to say goodbye to the past and welcome the new year ?

Accompanied by soothing or cheerful music, the annual report tells the story between users and the APP. With the help of big data, it helps users mark important time nodes in the past year, reproduces users' annual moments with dates and scenes, and evokes users' warm memories.

For the platform, the user usage report is also a summary of itself. With the help of the platform's algorithm data, personal reading interests, consumption preferences, living habits and other information are highlighted. The platform can also better understand user information and their preferences, and conduct marketing activities that are more beneficial to the platform.

IV. Conclusion

The reason why user reports are so popular among industry giants is the marketing centered around emotions, identity, and circles . Its advantage is that it identifies consumers as the core of marketing initiatives and builds on consumers' specific psychological mechanisms.

Of course, in an increasingly competitive industry environment, platforms also need to think more about how to break through aesthetic fatigue and find more attractive ways .

Author: Top Jun

Source: WeChat official account: TopMarketing (ID: TMarketing)