Author丨Kwai Chung
Editor丨Nuts
Cover source丨Unsplash
Recently, Wu Xin, who has always been low-key in the show and life, has become a "top stream" in Xiaohongshu.
At the beginning of April, the official account of Xiaohongshu released the closing report of Wu Xin's live broadcast in March. Wu Xin broadcast live twice in March, of which on March 30, the GMV exceeded 35 million, and the heat value of a single hour was 100 million+, becoming the fourth star anchor in the station with a heat value of more than 100 million.
is different from Dong Jie's "The Years Are Quiet", Zhang Xiaohui's "Celebrity Aesthetics", Yi Nengjing's "Spiritual Healing", and Wu Xin's live broadcast room focuses on a casual relaxation.
She used her Northeast sense of humor and "ordinary girl" positioning to hit the pain points of most girls' daily dressing, and all 27 spring outfits in the live broadcast room were sold out.
From Dong Jie's broadcast on Xiaohongshu to Wu Xin's ranking among the top buyers on the site, Xiaohongshu's buyer e-commerce has been developing for more than a year. In this year, Xiaohongshu's buyer ecology has always been the world of female stars, but there has been no "amateur" top-notch appearance.
According to Xinhong data, among the top 10 buyers of Xiaohongshu in March, only two were KOLs in the station, and the remaining 7 were female artists and actresses. Dong Jie ranked first in terms of on-site observation and sales, followed by Yi Nengjing, Wu Xin, Jiang Sida, Xinzi, and Zhang Li.
It also emphasizes the decentralization of algorithms and traffic, and Douyin's top influencers change from time to time, but Xiaohongshu's top anchor lineup is very stable. When celebrities left the live broadcast room in batches, Xiaohongshu was still encouraging more female stars to come to Xiaohongshu to start broadcasting, and recently, Xiaohongshu officially announced the news that Shen Mengchen and Zhang Zixuan started broadcasting and bringing goods.
Why is it that after a year, Xiaohongshu is still enthusiastic about female celebrities? Is Xiaohongshu a more suitable platform for female anchors to survive? Do those middle-waist talents who have been planting grass in Xiaohongshu for many years still have a chance to emerge?
1
Female celebrities are crazy in Xiaohongshu
After Wei Ya retired, there are very few female anchors who can become popular among the head anchors on various platforms. Physical fitness, limitations of delivery style, consumer preferences... Multiple factors prevent female anchors from standing out on social platforms.
Female stars who can make achievements are even rarer, and the short video platform is not very tolerant of celebrities who enter the game and bring goods, and any flaws that are not professional enough will be magnified. Zhang Li and Wu Xin, who can achieve tens of millions of GMV in Xiaohongshu, have been questioned by "expensive prices" and "fakes" when they brought goods live on Douyin before.
Xiaohongshu's live streaming ecosystem is completely different. Here, the anchor is called the buyer, and the buyer does not need to get attention through promotional outcry, in the words of COO Conan, the buyer needs to rely on professional judgment, aesthetics, and expression to connect with users.
To put it simply, compared with low prices, Xiaohongshu values the personal charm of anchors more. It's not just about the goods, it's about providing emotional value. This is also why the live broadcast rhythm of Xiaohongshu buyers is slow, and most of them are healing, chatting, and dry goods styles.
Professionalism requires buyers to deeply study the brand and industry, so they have to spend a considerable amount of energy and time to select products, and often publish product experiences through notes and videos outside the live broadcast venue. This also leads to the fact that the frequency and duration of Xiaohongshu buyers' live broadcasts are generally lower than those of other platforms.
Many top buyers, such as Wu Xin and Jiang Sida, start broadcasting about two or three times a month, which is very rare on other platforms.
The lowering of the physical fitness threshold is more conducive to female anchors coming to the fore, in addition, many female artists have established a persona in Xiaohongshu to help them gain trust more easily when recommending products.
Before Yi Nengjing's live broadcast, she often output women's golden sentences on Xiaohongshu to guide women how to channel negative emotions and be true to themselves, and she has an extremely wide audience on the site.
Yi Nengjing's live broadcast slices and program clips are very popular in Xiaohongshu, and some fans bluntly said that Yi Nengjing's skillful "ugly duckling" narrative during the live broadcast is very infectious, and I can't help but want to cry after watching it for a while.
Actress Zhang Li began to share her daily beauty experience and life troubles on Xiaohongshu in 2018. During the live broadcast, Zhang Li's mantra of "I am a dog if I don't use it" was ridiculed as "canine system" to bring goods, which is exactly the same as her character of "stupid beauty" in the station.
Whether it is Zhang Li, Yi Nengjing, or Wu Xin, who is favored by "ordinary girls", they have often accumulated a solid reputation and number of fans in the station before the broadcast, coupled with the platform's inclined live broadcast resources, after the broadcast, they will soon be able to open up the gap with the middle-waist experts in the station.
Shen Mengchen, who just finished his premiere recently, won 10 million+ GMV in the first live broadcast in the off-season. Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui are top-level buyers, and their sales in a single game remain above 40 million.
Looking at the live broadcast report officially released by Xiaohongshu, the buyers who can reach the level of 10 million this year are all artists with their own traffic and influence.
2
Awkward amateur buyer
Celebrities bring goods in Xiaohongshu, and tens of millions of chassis are the norm. But sooner or later, there will be a time when celebrities are not enough, and a year has passed, what are the results of ordinary talents and KOLs on the station?
According to observations, the average sales per game of ordinary buyers in Xiaohongshu hovered in the millions. According to the estimation of the new list, from September to December last year, a total of 9 amateur buyers had an average sales of more than 10 million.
Of course, this is inseparable from the blessing of Double 11, the fourth quarter of each year is the peak of advertising and sales revenue on e-commerce platforms, and it is difficult for these amateur buyers to replicate the results of the big promotion period in the off-season.
For example, the top talent in the station @王红quanxing, with 1.16 million fans, and a cumulative GMV of about 130 million yuan from September to December last year, but in the last 90 days, @王红权星的场均销售额只有84万.
Miss @野persim子 in the home track and @short-headed flower, which focuses on dressing, both reached the level of 10 million on Double 11 last year, and the average GMV per game in recent months has been around two or three million yuan.
According to the official transaction data and reports of relevant practitioners, we can feel that a single GMV of 1 million is already at the upper middle level for ordinary talents. There is a world of difference between celebrities and amateurs in Xiaohongshu.
Since female celebrities can rely on their long-term business and the number of fans to bring goods in Xiaohongshu, why can't other top KOLs who have been active in Xiaohongshu for a long time not sell?
This is related to the distribution characteristics of KOLs in Xiaohongshu. According to the "2023 China KOL Marketing Trend Insight Report", Xiaohongshu has the largest number of tail influencers (92.3%) with < 100,000 followers, accounts with more than 1 million accounts account for about 0.3%, and accounts with more than 5 million accounts are less than 0.1%.
The backbone of Xiaohongshu's buyers is precisely this part of the experts with 100,000~1 million fans. KOLs with millions of followers don't account for much of Xiaohongshu, and even fewer can successfully transform into buyers.
This is also why Xiaohongshu has not been able to cultivate native super buyers such as "Li Jiaqi" and "Dandan". The fan stickiness in the live broadcast room of the waist and tail talent needs to be cultivated, and the buyer's attributes are destined to be niche and high-end in the selection.
3
How to plan for long-termism
Xiaohongshu also understands the importance of supporting middle-waist talents. Just like Luo Yonghao to Douyin, Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui's demonstration effect in Xiaohongshu is far greater than the significance of their sales.
Only by building up the scale can we slowly affect the user's consumption mentality on the platform. The business ecology of any platform is inseparable from the support of waist and tail accounts.
An important reason why Douyin can continue to "make stars" is that the supply of waist and tail influencers in the station is sufficient, and anchors below the head can contribute more than 80% of GMV. Xiaohongshu's long-term goal is also to introduce more merchants to buyers and support more waist and tail experts to transform into buyers.
This is evident in recent official initiatives.
Xiaohongshu held a "REDeco" open day for the home furnishing category in mid-April, announcing its support for 1,000 home furnishing brands, and then cooperated with "VOGUE" to plan to use 400,000 cash and traffic to help designers open stores in Xiaohongshu.
At the same time, in the past two months, the official has begun to frequently publish buyers and MCN recruitment posts in vertical tracks such as food and mother and child on the station.
Compared with "people" and "goods", Xiaohongshu was criticized the most last year for the configuration of "field". Last year, many MCN service providers pointed out that Xiaohongshu's e-commerce infrastructure was very rough, "like the level of Douyin in 2019". Now in the buyer's official comment area, you can still see complaints about "insufficient pallet depth".
The slow change of "field" is related to the overall progress of commercialization. Due to the maintenance of the community ecology, Xiaohongshu has been hesitant and cautious about commercialization since its establishment. Internal repeated games and trade-offs will eventually affect execution.
Xiaohongshu has been increasing the proportion of e-commerce content in the community. In the year of the development of buyer e-commerce, the personnel structure related to the commercialization of Xiaohongshu has been continuously adjusted. So far this year, the company has brought in a number of executives who previously worked in large factories to manage commercialization and growth.
It is foreseeable that the commercialization speed of Xiaohongshu will be further accelerated this year, and commissions, advertising load rates, and e-commerce GMV are the focus of this year's efforts.
Recently, it was reported that Xiaohongshu expects to achieve a year-on-year increase in GMV of about 90% in the e-commerce sector in 2024. Since Xiaohongshu shut down all of its self-operated e-commerce companies last year, buyers have become almost the only engine of GMV growth.
In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary not only to recreate a few more chapters and directors, but also to normalize and high-frequency transactions of tens of millions of ordinary buyers. I wonder if the buyers who focus on "slow live broadcast" can afford such a sustenance?