A pack of wolves surround Xiaohongshu

Xiaohongshu's graphic and text ecology has been imitated by other platforms. What is Xiaohongshu's "moat" to resist such attacks?

Xiaohongshu’s graphic and text ecology has fallen into a state of being “surrounded by wolves”.

On February 16, the WeChat official account @微信派 pushed a message titled "Today, let's meet in a different way." Different from the layout of official accounts that people are familiar with, this picture and text message looks very similar to the interface of Xiaohongshu: long articles disappeared, replaced by "short content" and multiple slide-viewable pictures, and sharing, liking, collecting, and viewing were moved to the lower right corner. Whether in terms of interface design or interaction methods, WeChat seems to be moving closer to Xiaohongshu.

WeChat is not the only one that intends to develop graphics and text. Prior to this, Douyin had already "impacted" Xiaohongshu's graphics and text barriers by launching apps such as Xincao and Croissant, as well as launching graphics and text modes on the site. In an era of fragmented user attention, short graphics and text seem to have become an indispensable form of content, and are highly sought after by large companies. Xiaohongshu, which has a first-mover advantage, has undoubtedly become an object of imitation and reference. Large companies are dividing Xiaohongshu's graphics and text cake. Does Xiaohongshu have a moat?

1. WeChat creates “micro-books”

The emergence of "Xiaoweishu" has, to a certain extent, fulfilled WeChat's long-cherished wish to create short content. WeChat has long valued short content. At the WeChat Open Class Pro in January 2020, WeChat talked about the original intention of setting up public accounts, "The original idea of ​​the public platform was to replace SMS as a group messaging tool based on connecting brands and subscribers, and effectively avoid spam SMS. The content of the group message is not the focus, and all forms of content should be acceptable, such as text, pictures, videos, etc." This group message was ultimately presented in the form of "long article + picture", and WeChat described it as "accidentally making it into an article content carrier."

When it was launched in early 2012, WeChat official accounts with long articles set off a wave of self-media content, but this form is not without barriers to creation. This is undoubtedly contrary to WeChat’s original intention of “valuing content that everyone can create”, and the “lack of short content presentation” has thus become a regret for WeChat.

In February this year, WeChat launched a new layout method, which is similar to the Xiaohongshu notes. This is seen by the outside world as a substantial step for WeChat to embrace "short content" with pictures and texts. According to Huxiu, this "picture message" function is a routine optimization of the WeChat public platform on the content landing page. The original intention is to provide creators with a diversified content production environment and provide users with a diversified content consumption form. Aiming at the picture and text mode of Xiaohongshu, WeChat may have many considerations.

Since its launch in 2012, WeChat Official Account has ushered in its eleventh year, and the Internet situation has undergone earth-shaking changes. The rise of short videos and live broadcasts has changed users' content consumption habits and forms. In the era of fragmented attention, the long article form of WeChat Official Account is actually facing a traffic crisis.

At the same time, the rapid growth of Xiaohongshu is obvious to all. In September 2020, Xiaohongshu's monthly active users exceeded 100 million. By the end of 2021, the platform's MAU exceeded 200 million, making it a first-class content community. On the other hand, Xiaohongshu's cultivation of users' minds is amazing. Countless young people choose to consume content and make decisions on the platform, and Xiaohongshu's value of planting grass has therefore attracted public attention. WeChat and Xiaohongshu are not completely without intersection, but there has been a "pull period".

Earlier, WeChat launched its own "WeChat Circles" in the field of grass-growing, but it was officially discontinued at the end of 2021; in June 2021, some media found that some luxury brand business cards on Xiaohongshu could be linked to WeChat mini-programs with one click, but this function was soon disabled. For WeChat, which relies on national-level traffic, it seems more important to "break external links" and build its own grass-growing field. Although WeChat finally chose to take a solid step in the "short content" track, in fact, in the wave of large companies "hunting" Xiaohongshu, WeChat is already "late".

2. Xiaohongshu’s “Guangmingding” battle

At the end of 2021, Xiaohongshu completed a new round of financing with a valuation of more than 20 billion US dollars. After becoming the largest picture and text community in China, Xiaohongshu has received more and more attention and scrutiny from the outside world. Among them, the platform's main picture and text notes are regarded as an important content form that combines the value of planting and sharing, triggering a "copycat show" among major companies.

Before WeChat was transformed into "Xiaoweishu", Douyin was considered as the "strong rival" of Xiaohongshu. In the past few years, Douyin, which believes in "great effort makes miracles", has "violently attacked" Xiaohongshu's moat in terms of pictures, texts and grass-roots promotion.

As early as 2018, Douyin launched the "Xincao" APP, positioning it as "a community for young people to visit", but due to the inappropriate algorithm recommendation mechanism and the inability of users to choose the content they want to watch, "Xincao" failed less than a year after its launch. Continuing this concept, ByteDance launched the APP product "Croissant" in July 2022, positioning it as a "lifestyle community for young people". It "copied" Xiaohongshu in almost all aspects from slogan to product form, but not long after its operation, "Croissant" could not escape the fate of being removed from the shelves.

Douyin is also filling in the gaps in content other than short videos and live broadcasts. In October 2021, Douyin launched a graphic plan, introduced a grass-growing function on the site, and started supporting hundreds of millions of traffic; in early 2022, Douyin changed the first-level entrance "Same City" at the top of the homepage to the "Grass-growing" channel to increase exposure, and the first-level page of the grass-growing section also matches the double-column waterfall flow mode of Xiaohongshu.

At the 4th Douyin Creator Conference in 2022, Douyin announced its achievements since its efforts in the graphic and text ecology:

The number of daily readings of its pictures and texts has exceeded 10 billion, and more than 70% of active users read more than a dozen pictures and texts on Douyin every day . Judging from the multiple incentive policies for pictures and texts announced at the meeting, picture and text content will continue to be the focus of Douyin's development in the coming year.

In addition, Toutiao is also "attacking" Xiaohongshu. According to LatePost, developing a double-column picture and text format similar to Xiaohongshu has become Toutiao's current top priority task, but the "discovery" channel that carries such content is still in the experimental stage, and the current focus is on promoting creators to submit content and improving the style of painting.

Another "heavyweight" entrant is Alibaba.

After transferring "Guangguang" to the first-level entrance of Taobao traffic, Alibaba incubated a new e-commerce APP "Taibang" in April last year, focusing on the trendy culture of young people. It revolves around the core of "planting grass-pulling grass" and also intends to get closer to Xiaohongshu .

Of course, Xiaohongshu is not the only one being imitated. In order to seek new traffic growth, the Internet has shown a trend of great integration in the past two years. Platforms that are unwilling to touch the traffic bottleneck are actively expanding outward and imitating each other in content form, trying to retain users with a diversified content ecosystem or accelerate the construction of a closed business loop. Some actions of the platform have challenged user perception to a certain extent.

For example, the vertical video mode officially launched by Bilibili last year has impacted the platform's native horizontal long video content and set off a "horizontal vs. vertical" debate among users . But it is undeniable that the traffic growth brought to Bilibili by vertical short videos cannot be ignored.

At the same time, Kuaishou launched the "bullet screen" mode of Bilibili, and Douyin also launched long video content . @张同学, who became popular last year, was one of the people who tried out long videos.

In addition to pictures and texts, Xiaohongshu is also trying to build itself into a composite platform with multiple functions, such as launching the "group chat" function to test the waters of social interaction, and increasing the proportion of video in the content ecosystem. In the Xiaohongshu revision in January this year, "video" replaced the original "shopping" and appeared in the second column of the homepage (although this change was revoked in a recent update). After clicking on a video note, users can directly scroll down to the next content and enjoy the same immersive feeling as Douyin.

3. What is Xiaohongshu’s “moat”?

As a community product that focuses on text and picture notes, Xiaohongshu's advantages lie in its diversified content ecology, authentic and friendly community atmosphere, and the cultivation of user mindsets. Xiaohongshu is not the only content platform that uses text and picture as its main form. Other platforms that are familiar to the public include Douban, Weibo, or Weibo's similar product "Oasis".

However, Douban is still a gathering place for young people who love books, movies and music, and has not really reached the general public; Weibo has gradually become a central venue for celebrity entertainment, social news, etc., and Xiaohongshu has an obvious first-mover advantage in "planting grass", and with the low-threshold form of text and pictures, it has quickly become the largest planting grass community in China. This is partly due to the user base. According to Qiangua data, in 2022, Xiaohongshu users born after 1990 accounted for 72%, and users in first- and second-tier cities accounted for 50%. Young and strong spending power constitute the key words of Xiaohongshu's user portrait.

On another level, the fact that most of the users are female is a notable feature of Xiaohongshu. However, with the enrichment of the content ecology, in addition to the content that women are more concerned about, such as beauty and skin care, some neutral content such as sports events, technology and digital, food and travel has gradually taken root, attracting some male users. According to the data from Xiaohongshu's middle platform, as of November 2021, the proportion of male users of Xiaohongshu has risen to 30%, providing more room for the growth of Xiaohongshu's traffic.

From the perspective of content ecology, the operating logic of Xiaohongshu has always been the content community. In 2017, when describing Xiaohongshu, founder Qu Fang said, "The content community is the horizontal underlying architecture of Xiaohongshu, and e-commerce is just a vertical monetization method." Xiaohongshu is not only a lifestyle platform, but its uniqueness lies in its combination of content attributes and tool attributes . As a consumer decision-making portal, many users search for fitness, beauty and skin care, fashion and other life strategies on Xiaohongshu. "When in doubt, go to Xiaohongshu" has become the real life state of many people.

The key to Xiaohongshu's rapid growth is to move towards life. Sincere and friendly sharing, more authentic interactions in the comment area, and an algorithm system that does not rely on social interactions among acquaintances have transformed Xiaohongshu into a new "circle of friends" for contemporary young people . The aggregation of interests has undoubtedly improved user retention and raised user value to a new level. This is also the reason why outdoor activities such as frisbee and camping first emerged on Xiaohongshu.

Xiaohongshu’s third “moat” is its tool attribute. Whether it is content sharing or grass-planting value, “usefulness” is Xiaohongshu’s core competitiveness .

In terms of content, according to the Crawley Research Report on the Power of Content on the Three Major Platforms, 37.5% of users follow influencers on Xiaohongshu, and more than half of them follow influencers based on the high practicality of the content posted by KOLs. In terms of content, Xiaohongshu seems to have entered the "content integration" stage.

On the one hand, judging from the monthly fan growth list of Xiaohongshu, the entry of influencers from video platforms such as Douyin and Bilibili has brought new strength to Xiaohongshu. Influencers regard Xiaohongshu as another operating platform to distribute content, which to some extent blurs the differences between platforms; on the other hand, a large amount of content from platforms such as Douban, Weibo, and Zhihu appears on Xiaohongshu, covering film and television, hot events, novels and tweets, etc., making Xiaohongshu's content more and more abundant, and the platform is jokingly called the new "search engine". At a time when various platforms are competing for user time, this is undoubtedly a huge advantage for Xiaohongshu.

Of course, facing the "fierce attack" of WeChat and Douyin, Xiaohongshu's disadvantages are also obvious: unlike the huge traffic backed by WeChat and Douyin, Xiaohongshu's 200 million monthly active users are still far behind; the platform has not yet seen super-head influencers like Douyin and Bilibili, and it is still difficult to convert traffic from content to accounts . On the one hand, this makes the traffic relatively more balanced, benefiting new creators who have entered the market; but on the other hand, the lack of native super-head influencers also puts Xiaohongshu in an awkward state with insufficient memorable points.

In addition, the imperfection of the e-commerce closed loop also makes Xiaohongshu's road to monetization full of ups and downs. At present, as users have developed a content consumption mentality, Xiaohongshu's picture and text barriers will not be easily broken. But based on the positioning of the platform, what changes will the construction of the picture and text ecology of WeChat and Douyin bring to the content landscape? We will wait and see.

Author: Chu Cheng

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