Xiaohongshu has many popular articles but they don’t bring conversions. How to break the deadlock?

1. Topic selection bias = invalid hot article

Although data is the basic standard for a hot post, the reason why a note becomes a hot post is not necessarily the brand. For example, I saw a business note of a women's clothing brand with 27,000 likes, 880 collections, and 330 comments. The focus of the comments is on the blogger's figure, hair color, photography skills, and praising the blogger for her beauty, which has little to do with the brand. Although this is also a hot note, from the perspective of brand communication effect, it is an invalid note.

Hot articles can indeed bring great publicity to brands, increase their popularity and conversion rate. Brands must have them when doing marketing, but they should not fall into the trap of "hot articles". They should know what is a truly effective hot article. A truly effective hot article is worth many ineffective hot articles. In a nutshell, the key to judging whether a hot article note is an effective hot article is that effective hot articles usually have core information such as keywords, scenarios (applicable groups) and consumer pain points. Its user comments mainly focus on positive information such as products or scenarios created by notes.

The reason for ineffective popular articles is usually because of the topic selection. The topic selection is the core issue of the note. The topics of many notes have nothing to do with the product. They just give the product exposure in a certain scene, briefly introduce the features, and then go back to the topic to talk about other content.

This kind of soft implantation looks soft and will not affect the user experience, but in fact it will hardly bring any memory points or mindshare to the product or brand. Xiaohongshu's users are all highly educated women with independent thinking abilities. It is difficult to convince users to buy through just a few seconds of exposure and a few selling points in a Bif.

The focus of the topic selection must be the product. You can share some lifestyle around the original usage scenarios of the product. Which group's pain points does this product solve, and which needs are not met by competing products? Then combine the expert's own experience to make notes.

2. No keywords = no investment

Some soft-advertising note experts are reluctant to insert brand and product words during initial communication, usually because they are worried that the platform will identify them as soft-advertising and affect their accounts. This situation does happen, but the probability is not very high. As long as the number of brand-related notes posted each day is not too large and the notes are not maliciously reported, there is a high probability that there will be no problem.

However, if this note does not include keywords, the effect on the brand will be very limited. Therefore, if you want to achieve a good effect, adding keywords is a must and you cannot compromise.

What problems will arise if no keywords are added?

1. Recommended traffic is not accurate enough

According to Xiaohongshu’s “tag-to-tag” distribution logic, if a note does not include product keywords, it will not be recommended to users who have a need to buy a projector. It will not reach potential consumers, and the effect of planting grass will be greatly reduced.

Of course, the audience of this note may also be attracted by the product, but even without adding keywords, the product's communication points are probably not mentioned at all. In this case, it is difficult to bring about effective product promotion.

2. No search traffic

Not adding keywords means that the notes cannot be searched by keywords, and there is no search traffic at all. You should know that the average daily traffic of the discovery page and the search page is almost the same. The search traffic is not only not less than the recommended traffic, but also more accurate. Therefore, search traffic must be obtained.

3. Irrelevant content

The title is irrelevant, the content does not have a product introduction, and even the brand word or category word is not mentioned. The topic of the note is unclear, the content is lengthy, or the product information is at the end of the video or accounts for too little of the overall content. Most of the discussions in the comment area are not related to the product.

3. How to solve the above situation?

The core reason for the above is that the topic and scenario of the content are not right. Whether it is soft advertising or reporting, it must be centered around the product usage scenario, corresponding to user needs, and speaking the right communication points in the right scenario. This must be the tone of every cooperation note.

If it is a soft advertising note, use a third-person perspective to talk about your own experience. It can be good or bad, but the good parts should be as close to the product communication points in the brief as possible. After reading the overall content, it is OK if the good feelings outweigh the bad ones.

If it is a report note, use the first-person perspective to explain the reason for the recommendation. You can use in-depth user experience or in-depth evaluation. Don't talk too much about the communication points. It is better to talk about the opposite than to talk more. Just integrate the various communication points into your own language style.

Secondly, we must pay attention to the guidance of the comment area. This is very important. When our company purchases expert resources, we communicate with the comment area together. If you do not cooperate with the guidance of the comment area, we will resolutely not purchase.

Our own method is to use our colleagues' own accounts to interact with experts, and ask in the comment area about purchase channels, usage methods and effects, etc. Of course, be careful not to overdo it, and create a real interactive atmosphere, and then let the experts reply one by one.

On the other hand, is it really impossible to pursue comprehensiveness in the content of a note? My answer is: the key points of creating a hit article should be comprehensive, but not all the selling points. A prescription that claims to cure all diseases is far less credible than a cold medicine that only cures colds. Most products are good at one thing and many things. Instead of covering everything, it is better to focus on one point (or two or three core selling points) in a note.

Therefore, although brand cooperation notes are a form of advertising, the content must be as "soft" as possible. Otherwise, even if the platform does not limit traffic, it will be difficult to run good data.

Author: Vic

Source: WeChat public account "Vic's Marketing Thinking (ID: Viccps0227)"