What did the brand account with the most fans on Xiaohongshu do right?

Recently, the joint venture between Mixue Ice City and China Post has set off a wave of enthusiasm online, and young people have been making fun of it. This article details the success of Mixue Ice City's marketing and how to learn from it. It is recommended for students who want to understand the operation of Xiaohongshu.

Recently, because of its joint store opening with China Post, Mixue Bingcheng has become a hot topic among young people.

On Xiaohongshu, Mixue Bingcheng also took the initiative to use the copy "Xuexue, I can't hide it anymore" to respond to netizens' ridicule. A single note received 87,000 likes, and users were happy to pair Mixue Bingcheng and Luckin Coffee together, so the comment section was full of excitement.

The brand temperament of "being good at playing and connecting with memes" has earned Mixue Bingcheng a lot of praise on Xiaohongshu. The two brand accounts it opened have the highest number of fans among Xiaohongshu's brand accounts.

@蜜雪冰城Little Red Book Notes Screenshot

In fact, it’s not just Mixue Bingcheng. A large number of brands are making every effort to establish themselves in the minds of young people.

Nobel Prize winner in Economics Kahneman believes that the way to make people believe in a concept or thing is to repeat it constantly, because it is difficult for people to distinguish between familiarity and truth.

For brands, operating a Xiaohongshu brand account is one of the effective ways to build familiarity among young people.

After all, young users in high-tier cities are the main force of Xiaohongshu. Data released by the platform show that Xiaohongshu currently has more than 260 million monthly active users, of which more than 70% are born after 1990, and 50% are users in first- and second-tier cities. In terms of user income, users with a monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan account for 47%.

However, compared to short video platforms, it is more difficult to become a top corporate account on Xiaohongshu. Brands that are close to their native advantageous content are more easily accepted by users. Some brands need to break the constraints of their own tone to have a chance to get a piece of the pie.

For young users, they care more about the brand's gameplay rather than its origin. Such implicit conditions provide new possibilities for building brand favorability. In the wave of entering Xiaohongshu, different categories and brands have performed unevenly. Only a few brands are top-tier, and most brands are still working quietly.

As Xiaohongshu's commercial value gradually awakens, what is the current status of Xiaohongshu's brand accounts? How can we find the starting point for brand marketing on it?

1. Brands build houses on Xiaohongshu

On Xiaohongshu, the brand with the highest volume is probably Mixue Ice City, which belongs to the food and beverage track, is close to the lives of users, has been established for a long time, and has already opened up the national market. In terms of content, Mixue Ice City also has its own set of gameplay. Mixue Ice City operates two official blue V accounts on Xiaohongshu, namely @蜜雪冰城 and @蜜雪冰城雪王. Among them, @蜜雪冰城 mainly outputs brand dynamics, such as official MVs, new product displays, opening new stores, milk tea carnivals and other relatively direct marketing information, and has accumulated 733,000 fans on Xiaohongshu.

@蜜雪冰城Little Red Book homepage screenshot

@蜜雪冰城雪王 has accumulated 1.516 million fans on Xiaohongshu. According to incomplete statistics from Kas, this is the account with the largest number of fans among Xiaohongshu brand accounts . It is worth noting that in recent days, extreme rainfall occurred in many places in Beijing and Hebei, causing floods and geological disasters. 蜜雪冰城 donated 10 million yuan for disaster relief, which increased the brand's favorability. Combined with the effect of content output, these two brand accounts have gained hundreds of thousands of fans in a short period of time.

If we put aside the emotional appeal and brand power, in terms of content, @蜜雪冰城雪王 still has a lot to learn from.

@蜜雪冰城雪王 follows the "plot + animation" route. The purpose of the account is not to monetize, but to shape the IP of Snow King. In the work, Snow King is endowed with many human emotions. In terms of personality, he is like an ordinary college student who is a little lazy and a little greedy. With the arrival of summer vacation, Snow King has successfully entered the army of students, and his every move has aroused the resonance of fans.

@蜜雪冰城雪王Little Red Book screenshot

The animated expression not only integrates the recently popular animation elements into the account to gain traffic benefits, but also avoids many risks that conventional brand persona accounts encounter when strongly binding with real people. Kas checked the popular animation notes on Xiaohongshu. Without exception, they all grasp the psychology of young female users, looking for topics from the details of their daily life, work, social life, and love, and appropriately magnifying them by finding the "stalks" and "emotional points" to form notes in the form of multiple pictures.

@蜜雪冰城雪王 is also well aware of this, and attracts users to watch and comment through immersive plots, thereby effectively increasing the platform's recommendation rate. Another user who follows the same route as Snow King is Dingding. He mainly publishes anime videos on Xiaohongshu, keeps up with hot topics, actively plays memes, and closely unites with young people. His account currently has 500,000 followers. Recently, Dingding took the initiative to follow the hot topic of "The gears of fate begin to turn" and created a self-deprecating video, which received more than 7,000 likes.

@Dingding Xiaohongshu Notes Screenshot

In addition to playing memes, there are two other ways to attract young people's attention, that is, "lottery" and "CP formation". Lao Xiangji has done a good job in this regard, which also sends a signal to other brands: brand accounts do not have to be cold and indifferent. They can only be on the right track by integrating into the platform, becoming users, and promoting in a way that users can accept.

In addition to actively "forming CP" with brands such as Starbucks and Zhou Hei Ya, Lao Xiang Ji also announced in May this year that it would "recruit" two fans every month to serve as assistants to Xiao Hong Ji, with a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan. At that time, the recruitment notes had received 47,000 likes, and it was a well-deserved hot-selling note on Xiaohongshu. In the name of recruitment, the lottery was actually held, which not only satisfied the fans' desire to "get rich quickly", but also increased the opportunities for interaction and exposure for themselves, and spread the brand's "generous" image. This activity has been going on for 3 months, and the notes for making money have gained the "envy and jealousy" of everyone in the comment area. From a marketing perspective, as long as it can bring traffic to the brand and promote transaction volume, it is a good marketing method. It seems that Lao Xiang Ji paid a monthly lottery cost of 20,000 yuan, but in fact, the tap water comments and likes of users have saved it a lot of advertising fees and the time needed to come up with better plans.

@老乡鸡Little Red Book Notes Screenshot

In addition to animation, youth, character setting, and interactive draws, Kas found that different categories of brands have different tones, which also form differentiated marketing. For example, in the sporting goods track, Decathlon's official account has become a "fitness + outdoor" vertical expert account, covering all aspects of sports from fitness wear, equipment selection to action guidance. At present, Decathlon has accumulated 44,000 fans on Xiaohongshu by continuously outputting professional content, with a total of 164,000 likes and collections. Kas browsed Decathlon's content and found that it is equipped with a professional team for content output, which can update a note every 1-3 days. It has both graphic guides and will try to use live videos, strip comics and other forms. For example, in March this year, Decathlon released a video note entitled "Three Tips to Teach You the Correct Posture of Shooting". Due to the detailed introduction and wide application of the population, it received 6563 likes and 3199 collections. The knowledge points are explained in the form of notes of a strategy nature. The more knowledge there is, the more likely netizens will not be able to remember it and will collect it. After all, "collecting = learning".

@DECATHLON Decathlon Xiaohongshu Notes Screenshot In addition to establishing a professional persona, publishing tips, and highlighting product advantages, Decathlon also builds brand awareness by creating scenario-based labels. In 2022, Decathlon published a note titled "How We Spend a Whole Day in a Decathlon Store", actively demonstrating its own positioning awareness - "a free gym for middle-aged men and a holy place for parents to take their kids out for a walk."

To summarize the operating ideas of Decathlon's official account: First, the content direction is chosen very cleverly , and professional content is output for various problems that users encounter in sports; second, it is very good at taking advantage of hot topics, and the content is closely related to current popular social and entertainment topics. For example, it takes advantage of the popular topics such as "Barbie", frisbee, camping, cycling, etc. to produce highlights.

@DECATHLON Decathlon Xiaohongshu notes screenshot

The constant exploration, extension, re-exploration, and re-extension of brand content have made users who originally had no expectations of brand content begin to embrace brand content and keep chasing updates. When brands try to face consumers with a different identity, the marketing ideas have undergone earth-shaking changes. Regardless of whether they can quickly integrate into young people, at least they have taken the first step in communicating with young consumers.

2. 3 tips for creating a brand account on Xiaohongshu

1. Create content based on user characteristics and interests

Innovative precision marketing can not only improve users' brand awareness, but also accelerate the brand's transformation to a younger audience. However, for users, the most important thing is always content. Therefore, when marketing on Xiaohongshu, brands should fully combine the characteristics and interests of users to create content. Users may not buy into marketing methods that are too blunt or lack sincerity.

2. Actively interact, quickly provide feedback, and build brand familiarity

Consumer interaction is rapidly becoming a two-way communication bridge between brands and consumers. The 2021 Global Marketing Trends Report released by Deloitte Consulting shows that in a survey of 7,506 consumers in China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil, 56% of consumers participated in at least one brand interaction in the past year. Consumer interaction is rapidly becoming a two-way communication bridge between brands and consumers.

To gradually convert platform traffic into traffic for one's own account, one needs to demonstrate continuous fan-attracting capabilities, which relies on deep interaction and stickiness with fans. For example, the idea of ​​pairing up Hometown Chicken and Zhou Hei Ya, mentioned above, came from the imagination of Xiaohongshu netizens.

3. Find content direction related to brand positioning

Brands need to make comprehensive plans when entering Xiaohongshu. Unlike personal accounts, it represents the overall tone and style of the company and brand and is a window to showcase corporate culture.

The significance of a brand account is to form a memory of the brand symbol in the minds of users through content, rather than just laughing it off. Users should not only remember the entertaining memes but fail to see the actual increase in the brand's voice.

Now, some brand accounts have exposed a problem, that is, the content is disorganized, and they just take advantage of any popular content, and try their best to combine entertainment content with their own business, making their own food and doing seamless implantation. However, it is difficult to maintain an account without a main content line in the long term. It may look glamorous in the short term, but it is actually full of hidden dangers. On Xiaohongshu, if brands want to impress the target audience through content, they still need to spend more effort and time.

Author: Lou Xingchui

Source: WeChat public account "CaasData (ID: caasdata6)"