In terms of planting grass, the Little Red Book can be said to be an elder-level existence. At the end of 2013, Xiaohongshu was also called "Hong Kong Shopping Guide", allowing users to learn about Hong Kong's play information and scan the route, and buy the latest and most popular or cost-effective goods.
With the continuous expansion of the scale of the platform, many merchants regard Xiaohongshu as an important marketing platform (or even not one of them), and the influx of a large amount of commercial content and mixed marketing information have triggered many controversial events. Recently, Xiaohongshu opened a new round of anti-false marketing actions, and similar actions in the past, this time Xiaohongshu has made a great determination, some of the brands identified as having false marketing will be banned, including Lu Deqing, Nivea, Dove and other well-known brands are affected, and the search for keywords of related brands has been unable to display notes and other content.
As a platform that is still growing, Xiaohongshu dares to take a shot at the brand side and delivers some key signals. In the face of pressures such as single revenue channels and commercial development, Xiaohongshu is now re-examining the long-term value of the platform, and will return to the original intention of development and attach importance to the user's experience and value.
Get rid of the "fake" label with action
On many online platforms, the correlation between Xiaohongshu and the word "false" is very high, and many netizens are complaining about various false content on Xiaohongshu. Among them, false grass planting is the hardest hit area, some users have been pitted a lot, choose to actively bypass many bloggers at the same time are recommended products, feel that these content are soft ads, the index of thunder is relatively high.
It is worth noting that among the 29 brands banned by Xiaohongshu this time, they are mainly skin care brands, and picking this type of brand has the intention of "killing chickens to show monkeys". Xiaohongshu initially rose by the concept of "female grass planting community", and the proportion of female users on the platform was once close to 90%, and female users mostly made Xiaohongshu's platform commodity grass planting category biased towards skin care, beauty and home.
According to the report of Qiangua Data, in the statistics from January 1 to November 20, 2021, the highest proportion of xiaohongshu business notes and interactions are skin care notes, in addition to the ranking of wash and care fragrance and makeup are also ranked in the top five. Xiaohongshu has struck a blow to rectify the false marketing problem of skin care brands, the main reasons include the following two aspects.
First, the platform skin care business notes accounted for the highest proportion, the side shows the importance of skin care product advertising revenue, Xiaohongshu on its own important source of income, can show users their determination to rectify false marketing, to use practical actions to remove the "false" label of the platform. Looking back at the thunderstorm history of Xiaohongshu, it is a certain brand of false marketing, and it is a blogger overturning, and it is also a scraping ball content, etc., while rectifying the thunderstorm, many users are questioning the real rectification of Xiaohongshu, thinking that it is just to appease netizens to go through a formality.
Second, starting with big brands is also a warning to other categories and brands. Before the platform really establishes enough industry moats, most of the platform needs big brands to settle in to enhance the style of the platform and attract other small and medium-sized brands to join with the demonstration role of large brands. The rectification action also reflects that Xiaohongshu is adjusting its position with the big brand side, from "need" to "coexistence", the growth of Xiaohongshu has given the brand the opportunity to develop, such as the rise of perfect diary by Xiaohongshu, but the false marketing behavior of the platform affects the further growth of Xiaohongshu, and it is not tolerated on key issues related to the long-term value of the platform.
Considering the development of platform e-commerce, Xiaohongshu does not have an absolute fierce hand on these brands, although Lu Deqing and Nivea can not search for notes, but can still find related goods in the mall, Xiaohongshu only temporarily cut off their marketing communication chain, in the platform can not be publicized but can buy.
After experiencing the last "scenic spot filter" incident, Xiaohongshu was pushed to the cusp of the storm, in the face of public opinion tsunami Xiaohongshu issued a statement apologizing, saying that in the future will try to launch products such as scenic spot rating list and pit list, so that users can get more yuan information. Continuous "stepping on the brakes" to rectify the community is the actual need of Xiaohongshu, too much false content on the platform will only create the tragedy of bad currency expelling good money, which not only damages the user experience, but also directly negates the development value of the Xiaohongshu platform.
Return to the original intention of development
In an interview, Qu Fang, the founder of Xiaohongshu, once said: "Xiaohongshu, as a lifestyle community, does not hope that users will spend time on the Internet, but hope that the content in Xiaohongshu is enough to touch users, so that users have a wish, put down their mobile phones, and return to real life." ”
Little Red Book's Slogan has changed several times, from the original "Find Good Things Abroad" to the current "Mark My Life". The cross-domain from commodity to life is not The Little Red Book's denial of its past, but more like it is expanding the circle, finding good things is actually improving the quality of life, and "Marking My Life" emphasizes sharing lifestyles, experiences, etc. But the embarrassing thing is that the fake content on the platform is like punching themselves in the face, so that users have to waste more time on screening and increase the cost of content discrimination.
Many users have complained on the Internet about their experience of stepping on the pit on the Little Red Book, and found that the probability of brushing up on content such as really writing "good things" and sharing lifestyles is decreasing, while various "ghostwriting" content is increasing. The previous filter attractions have made many users feel cold, full of joy to put down the mobile phone to accompany family or friends to the grass scenic spot punch, the result is to meet their own cold reality, the real landscape of the attraction and the photo is seriously inconsistent.
Previously, there was such a set of new brand building formulas circulating, "5,000 Little Red Book Notes + 2,000 Zhihu Q&A + Li Jiaqi / Wei Ya Live Streaming With Goods = a new brand". In this set of links, the amount of unit content carried by Xiaohongshu is the largest, not that the commercial value of Xiaohongshu unit business orders is low, on the contrary, it just proves that the Xiaohongshu platform has strong grass planting strength and can be more recognized by advertisers, but in general, this also causes the problem of many false content of Xiaohongshu.
For ordinary users, the value of a piece of content comes from the real experience of the blogger, "ghostwriting" can be regarded as a simple and fast irrigation content, in the ghostwriting agency chain, bloggers do not need to experience most of the goods as long as the editor sends. A friend who does zhihu skin care content around me has a similar experience, he said, "I am taking an advertisement from a small brand, the pictures and text are responsible for the brand, while some large brands will find a third-party agency to write on behalf of them, and they are only responsible for review." ”
In addition to improving the user experience and showing its return to the original intention of development, Xiaohongshu's fight against fake content also has considerations for platform commercialization and sustainable development.
In order to promote the commercial development of the platform, mainstream content platforms have built their own media management platforms, including the star map of Douyin, the magnetic star of Kuaishou, the fireworks of Station B and the dandelion of Xiaohongshu. On the one hand, media platforms can increase the probability of content creators receiving promotion, especially some tail creators, and the guarantee of income is the motivation for them to continue to stay on the platform and create more high-quality content; on the other hand, the media platform is a bridge between advertisers and content creators, and the platform can take a profit from it.
The media model means that the more brands and creators trade on the platform, the more the platform's own income will be, for Xiaohongshu, advertising revenue in 2020 accounts for about 80% of the total revenue (data source from good business), and it is extremely important to expand new revenue channels. The media model belongs to the strategy of benefiting the platform but to a certain extent to increase the cost of advertiser content delivery, Xiaoxiang Morning News reported that Xiaohongshu will charge 10% of the service fee to the brand side, which is much higher than the proportion of 5%-8% of other platforms, so some brands choose to contact bloggers directly in order to reduce costs.
Xiaohongshu's crackdown on false content can bring multiple benefits in one fell swoop, the application of the media model to improve the quality of business content, not to appear "ghostwriting" and other situations, and there are "return to the original intention" and attach importance to the user browsing experience of these two halo blessings, making Xiaohongshu more confident to promote the dandelion platform internally and externally.
Making up for shortcomings is the key
Little Red Book's platform planting attributes are very strong, but it has not yet reached the point of "fault" leadership. It can be seen from the "Male Content Incentive Plan" previously launched by Xiaohongshu that Xiaohongshu wants to make the community more diverse and make its platform ceiling higher.
The increase in male users means that the platform can broaden revenue channels, with female users focusing on vertical categories such as beauty and skin care, while men focusing on digital 3C and automobiles, which are the categories with more advertisers. Another problem that Little Red Book needs to face is that platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou and B Station are strengthening their ability to plant grass, and Douyin launched a graphic plan some time ago, aiming at the areas where Xiaohongshu is good at.
It is worth noting that with the further breaking of the circle of Station B, it is entirely possible to develop into a grass planting platform that challenges Little Red Book. Runwise's data shows that in the praise of top 30 accounts in various vertical categories, B station has an eye-catching performance in beauty, digital 3C and automotive. The culture of Station B is more diverse, the proportion of men and women is closer, and different content divisions have high potential for content planting and grass development.
Many of Xiaohongshu's "brake" behaviors this year have shown its development characteristics of seeking stability at this stage. Community diversification development and other issues can be put aside, the new initiatives of other platforms in a short period of time is difficult to affect themselves, Xiaohongshu to avoid is the gradual decline in user reputation, if similar to the 2019 Xiaohongshu App due to problems such as cursive ghostwriting and other issues were removed from the major application markets again, it will only be disappointed users once again pushed to other platforms.
The so-called master tricks, not to fight for strengths but to be less than whose shortcomings, at this moment in the small red book of checking for leaks and filling in the gaps, but I want to make my "flaws" less.