As Xiaohongshu “enters” the film and television industry, can it become a new “film and television base”?

01 Xiaohongshu "enters" the film and television industry

Film, television and entertainment have always been a highly popular vertical category on various content platforms, but they have their own merits in terms of specific presentation forms. For example, Bilibili is good at sorting out long plots and systematic complaints, while Douyin is dominated by film and television editing accounts, where you can “watch a popular drama in three minutes.” However, among the popular film and television notes on Xiaohongshu, picture and text sharing of drama chasing occupies a mainstream position.

From the title format to the content focus, these film and television contents are also very characteristic of Xiaohongshu: mainly pictures and texts, and most of the content is shared in fragments; in addition to the recommendations and complaints of professional drama experts, there are more drama sharing posted by amateur bloggers, which are occasionally promoted to hot posts on the site because of the hot drama topics; users are more willing to interact and the atmosphere is relatively friendly.

The formation of this style feature is closely related to the Xiaohongshu community ecology.

Kas observed that the film and television content on Xiaohongshu has been significantly enriched in recent years. On the one hand, this is due to changes in user demand . After Xiaohongshu gradually became a "circle of friends", sincere and friendly sharing became the mainstream content of the community, which to a certain extent raised users' willingness to consume film and television content; on the other hand, it is due to the supply of content . The platform seems to be interested in joining the "drama-chasing craze" and building itself into a part of film and television marketing.

In March of this year, the official entertainment account of Xiaohongshu @娱乐薯 launched the "2023 Drama Chaser Event", encouraging users to post notes with the topics #小红书追剧人＋#我是追剧的剧, and opened up multiple topics such as "Magnifying Glass Chaser", "Immersive Chaser", "This Drama is Super Sweet", etc., and gave traffic exposure rewards to high-quality notes.

Xiaohongshu official @EntertainmentPotato

It is not difficult to see that since the beginning of this year, many popular dramas have occupied a place on Xiaohongshu, such as the opening drama of the year "Kuang Bi", which has received over 1.06 million notes on the site, as well as the Korean revenge drama "Dark Glory" and the currently popular fairy idol drama "Chang Yue Jin Ming".

Going back further, "The Beginning", "The Stars Are Beautiful", "The Blue Orchid" and other works were once very popular on Xiaohongshu. In addition, some classic movies, niche TV series and documentaries are also very popular on the platform.

During this period, Xiaohongshu also demonstrated its potential in "creating memes" and "spreading memes", becoming another platform for users to communicate about film and television after Weibo and Douban.

During the period when "The Storm" was popular, a set of "My Mental State Chart" was widely circulated on Xiaohongshu. Gao Qiqiang's pig's trotter noodles and fish stall became hot memes, appearing in various original or reposted jokes.

What kind of film and television content has the most traffic on Xiaohongshu? Kass counted several types of creative forms of Xiaohongshu film and television bloggers.

The first is sharing of dramas. This type of bloggers often focus on popular dramas and continue to follow them during the broadcast. Their notes are mostly in the form of pictures and texts, which are relatively simple. They often capture high-energy scenes and classic lines in the plot, or unravel the plot, or express their own feelings and thoughts about the drama, as well as their complaints and tears. The intuitive and clear characteristics of pictures and texts have not only lowered the threshold for content creation, but also increased users' desire to share.

In addition, "quickly following dramas" and "making amazing pictures" can also be summarized as sharing dramas. In the former, bloggers often quickly summarize the overall main points of the plot and explain them in the text to allow users to quickly understand the direction of the plot; the latter belongs to the secondary creation of film and television dramas, which actually expands the reach of film and television dramas.

The second type is the high-energy fragment reaction type , with typical accounts such as @小Q宝.

In November 2022, @小Q宝 began to update the "Outrageous Domestic Dramas" video series on Xiaohongshu, specifically capturing funny and high-energy clips from domestic dramas and supplementing them with his own real-time reaction performances.

In the first video notes, the heroine said the line "One of us is in heaven and the other is on the ground, how can we fall in love?", and the hero slowly turned the brim of his hat. Under the words "High energy ahead", he suddenly supported himself on the ground with one hand, stood upside down and kissed the heroine, and the blogger's expression below the video changed from embarrassment and evasive eyes to unstoppable crazy laughter. The devilish laughter, "sweat" and "big face" special effects complement the content of the picture.

After hitting the user's funny bone, this note received 27,000 likes.

Xiaohongshu expert @小Q宝

This type of highly entertaining and simple reaction video is very popular among Xiaohongshu users. In five months, @小Q宝's Xiaohongshu followers increased to 160,000, and the best video note received 580,000 likes.

The third is Amway content , such as @拉拉的日记 and @aaayyi. This type of blogger often does not focus on a single TV series, but rather searches widely. The dramas they promote are not limited to popular dramas, but also include niche TV series, documentaries, animations, etc. Many of them directly mark "chasing dramas" in their IDs.

Bloggers often write down the Douban ratings and plot highlights in their copy, and there are templates to follow for the title format, such as "It's really interesting at first glance", "It's amazing, go watch it right away", "I'll be hooked after one episode", etc., to ensure that they attract users' attention as soon as possible.

In addition, there are film and television editors and dubbing bloggers who rely on their professional skills to win the favor of fans.

02 Xiaohongshu is not able to promote film and television celebrities

"The traffic of Xiaohongshu's film and television section is still quite sufficient." Xiaofeng told KasData.

When she first joined Xiaohongshu, she aimed at the beauty market, but the traffic was not improving until she accidentally posted a note about the drama she was following. As a result, she unexpectedly received 100,000 "little eyes", and the highest number of views reached 250,000. After being considered a high-quality note, the platform's push mechanism sent it on the road to becoming a hit.

Such "unexpected" notes are not uncommon among amateurs. On Douban, many users have posted that film and television content has better exposure.

For example, after bringing up the topics #长月瑾明 and #澹台瑾, Xiaohongshu user @纵容 posted a note titled "Who understands "吾夫瑾" ahhhhh", expressing how Tan Tai Jin would feel if he found out that all this was done to take advantage of him.

This short article about the experience of watching the drama quickly resonated with users and received more than 5,800 likes. @星空葡萄, who has only 142 followers, sent a note during the period when "Kuang Bi" was popular, saying "If Gao Qisheng was still alive, Gao Xiaochen would not have had a rebellious period at all", which received more than 14,000 likes.

"The interaction on Xiaohongshu is very good. Many users will discuss the characters and the direction of the plot with you. The overall atmosphere is very pleasant." For Xiaofeng, the marketing competition on Xiaohongshu is weaker and the users are more friendly. Many film and television bloggers on Xiaohongshu will specially mark "real-life drama" and interact with the comment section.

Although it started slowly, Xiaohongshu has its advantages in film and television content. In terms of age, the main audience of film and television content is young women, which is consistent with the main user group of Xiaohongshu. On the other hand, unlike Bilibili and Douyin, which were once deeply involved in copyright crises, Xiaohongshu's copyright risk is weaker.

According to the report "2022 Film and Entertainment Social Content Marketing Trend Insights" by Clour, from January to July 2022, the growth rate of entertainment user interaction on Xiaohongshu reached 267%. Although the overall base is weak, entertainment content is in a period of rapid growth. At the same time, Weibo, Douyin, and Bilibili all showed a downward trend.

Xiaohongshu's film and television marketing is on the move: Recently, "The Embers of the Moon" has been a hit on Youku S+ drama. Youku and the actors have all come out to Xiaohongshu. An official video titled "Little Fox, I'm a Mouth-Splitting Agent in the Workplace, Angry at the Unscrupulous Leader" received 34,000 likes and attracted traffic through peripheral development; the actor @是孙贞妮's Xiaohongshu fans increased to 195,000, and the highest number of likes on a note was 12,000.

Screenshot of the film and television section of Xiaohongshu

At the same time, Xiaohongshu's shortcomings are also very obvious: the scale of the platform's film and television entertainment content is far behind short video platforms such as Douyin, and in terms of film and television marketing, it has not formed a mature and replicable link and is still in a free growth stage.

For film and television bloggers, the dilemma may come more from traffic and monetization.

On the one hand, traffic is unstable. After the "cold surprise", the inability to maintain traffic is one of the reasons why creators who switch to film and television hesitate.

On Xiaofeng's Xiaohongshu homepage, there are quite a few notes with single-digit likes. In addition to some top accounts, the data performance of many film and television accounts also fluctuates. Due to the lack of data work, creators often cannot measure the reasons. "If you can't enter the homepage recommendation, the possibility of being forgotten will be very high."

On the other hand, due to the immaturity of the film and television marketing chain on the platform, the monetization channels of film and television bloggers are relatively single and highly path-dependent. On Douban, someone posted that the notes she wrote for a certain TV series were about 150 yuan each. In the absence of traffic monetization, the drama promotions launched by the sponsor may be the monetization path for film and television bloggers.

Looking at several accounts that can be called top accounts, there is almost no window display with goods, only occasionally with electric toothbrushes, beauty products, etc. At the same time, the unstable traffic and weak long-tail effect of the film and television sector will affect the brand owners' investment.

Xiaohongshu has not yet produced any film and television talent. In comparison, Bilibili has @三代鹿人, @木鱼水心, and Douyin has @毒舌电影, while Xiaohongshu's film and television power is even weaker.

Of course, the phenomenon of "lack of leaders" is not unique to the film and television sector.

B station UP host @木鱼水心, @三代鹿人

What’s interesting is that it may not be the film and television bloggers who make a TV series popular, but other fields that take advantage of the popularity of the topic.

For example, after "Sister-in-law" Chen Shuting became popular, countless beauty and fashion bloggers rushed to launch imitation makeup and "Sister-in-law outfits"; in the TV series "Go Where There Is Wind", Dali was also visited by many travel bloggers.

In the future, will Xiaohongshu become an important battlefield for film and television marketing, and will film and television bloggers usher in the dawn of "monetization"? We will wait and see.

Author: Lin Wu

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