As the SXSW festival hosted its inaugural outing in London, Dao Insights was honoured to be part of the panel discussion about one of the hottest social platforms this year. The panel featured Crystal Pang, Global Business Solution Lead for Europe & North America at Rednote (小红书), and Arnold Ma, founder and CEO of the creative marketing agency and digital media group, Qumin. Dao Insights founder and editor-in-chief Tom Nixon was the moderator.
With 300 million daily active users and 50 million-plus daily engagements, Rednote is currently one of the hottest platforms, not just in China, but also to the rest of the world. In the past 12 years, Rednote has evolved from a product recommendation platform to an all-round lifestyle platform with one of the best algorithms for creators, merchants and users alike.
Rednote has evolved from a product recommendation platform to an all-round lifestyle platform with one of the best algorithms
Since earlier this year, Rednote has been picking up international traction as more people download the app, especially from the US. Currently, international stars like Shakira, top influencers like IShowSpeed and more global content creators are on the platform, trying to reach Chinese audiences.
What is Rednote?
When asked if she could distil the essence of Rednote into one sentence, Pang said that Rednote is the platform where “everyone has their moment to shine”. This rather Warhol-esque quote is, indeed, a key to understanding how Rednote works.
Pang uses two seemingly extreme examples: the American pop-rock band Imagine Dragons is trying to promote their China tour while her grandma shares her apple pie recipes, both on Rednote. Since Rednote’s algorithm is so powerful and drives content to the right audience, both accounts would end up with similar engagements on the platform, despite a huge difference in following.
Ma, on the other hand, described the platform as “Instagram on crack”, from his experience working with the platform and many others. His reason for the description is:
- Rednote has much more personality and character as it favours raw lived experiences over polished and curated visuals.
- It has much more functionality, especially social commerce-wise, whereas Instagram has failed multiple times.
- It goes more in-depth with niches and micro-communities
Rednote favours raw lived experiences over polished and curated visuals
Micro-communities, macro influence
Having brought many an international brand to China, Arnold Ma calls Rednote the best platform for foreign brands and creators to reach Chinese audiences. When Qumin started, just a year before the founding of Rednote, major platforms like Weibo and WeChat were all closed platforms. Rednote, on the other hand, became one of the first open platforms in China. For this reason, it attracted its user base, who are highly educated and well-travelled, and open to different cultures and views.
Rednote doesn’t just look at its user demographics in terms of gender, age, region and income, etc., it looks directly into your interests, hobbies and niches to push content to you or bring your content to an audience. Pang summarises that whoever you are and whatever interests you have, you can find someone similar to you on Rednote; if not, you’ll find people who will accept you.
Ma notes that Rednote has moved away from conventional platforms’ “the bigger the better” mentality but thrives on the nichest of the niche, almost “cult-like” communities, different people with different perspectives. If your content is genuinely useful, it will be found by the people who need it. The old saying of “content is king” is once again the key phrase with Rednote.
Toolbox of Rednote: from spotlight to dandelion and telepathic rhino horn?
Pang describes Rednote as the “go-to place for solving your daily problems”. She added that 90 per cent of the 300 million daily active users are influencers, and they create content to help others with specific problems. Their content is designed to be useful and the search rate on Rednote for specific problems is very high.
Then the SXSW panel began to discuss the tools Rednote offer creators and brands:
- Spotlight (聚光平台): Data analytics to understand your brand’s value to help with media buying
- Pugongying (蒲公英): Dandelion – “Gentle puff” to spread your message globally (kol collabs)
- Lingxi (灵犀): Free AI tool to read your customers’ minds and user penetration. (Lingxi comes from 心有灵犀, a traditional expression for when minds understand each other as if telepathic through a magical rhinoceros horn)
Of them, Lingxi is the rising trend among certain categories, such as recommending searches for “woody fragrance shower gel”, which is rapidly growing when you are looking for “moisturising shower gel”.
Different from conventional platforms, Rednote uses a reverse funnel for its media buying and marketing. It will target the core audience first, before expanding into a wider demographic.
Ma then explains what this means from an agency perspective. It can support product research and development by understanding people’s preferences, highlighting real experiences with similar products and identifying common problems and needs.
On the topic of community, something also cherished at SXSW, Pang stresses that Rednote prefers authenticity, real people sharing real experiences. It pushes content to specific desire, hobby, interest, preference or problem. For brands and marketers to target the Rednote user, who usually has an aversion to corporate messaging, being genuine is the key. Rednote users enjoy authentic content, and this means trust in the creators. Therefore, building trust through honesty is the way to find your audience.
The next evolution is going to be cultural export
When asked by Nixon what the next step for Rednote is, Ma points to the evolution of media format from text to images and from video to livestream, predicting the next evolution to be cultural export. Pang, on the other hand, looked around the room, stating that it would be time for Rednote to expand further globally and see how far it can go after taking the stage at its first international conference at SXSW London.