Traditional marketing channels like TV and print are losing effectiveness in China, where consumers prioritize authenticity and turn to influencers for brand recommendations. With 81% of Chinese consumers purchasing products endorsed by influencers, brands must collaborate with influential sources on platforms like Red (Xiaohongshu) to create localized, high-quality content. Red, a blend of Instagram and Pinterest, is crucial for engaging Millennial and Gen Z consumers in China, providing a powerful platform for brand discoverability and market expansion through influencer-driven, keyword-optimized content.
Published On: May 30, 2023
Traditional marketing channels such as TV and print are now longer effective enough in attracting the attention of Chinese consumers, who have grown increasingly concerned with authenticity.
Instead, they turn to influential sources for recommendations of brands and products. In fact, 81% of people in China who followed at least one influencer say they have purchased the products the influencer endorsed.
As competition for the Chinese market stirs among international and local brands, to maintain and increase market share brands need to work with successful influential sources who can create localised, high quality content on the social media platforms where their target customers are most active.
Introducing Red: The key ingredient for a successful APAC marketing and communications strategy
Loved by celebrities and popularised by macro (KOL) and micro (KOC) influencers, the Chinese social media platform Red (also known as Little Red Book or Xiaohongshu) is the place for global luxury, fashion, beauty, travel and lifestyle brands to increase their share of voice in APAC.
Red is best described as the Chinese Instagram with a pinch of Pinterest and is a place where brands can engage with a new generation of shoppers seeking recommendations on overseas products and brands. It is the place to catch consumers on their pre-purchase journey. Red’s community uses the platform to discover and purchase new brands and products, read reviews and share the latest lifestyle tips and outfit inspiration.
Red’s users have strong purchasing power and is the primary social media platform for many Chinese consumers. Last year, Red the platform had more than 150 million active users and its community continues to grow. Most users are Millennial and Gen Z females living in upper tier Chinese cities as well as Chinese nationals living overseas.
On Red localised, user-generated, content is king so working with influential sources is key to international brands’ success.
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Working with influential sources to grow brand affinity and drive commercial impact
There are three main types of influential sources on Red. Similarly to TikTok’s content creators, loyal customers who started sharing their own content on the platform and developed loyal communities became Red’s fist content creators. As the platform gained popularity, influencers from other platforms such as Weibo and WeChat began using Red, as well as local and increasingly international celebrities.
Red is effective at engaging consumers at every stage of the buyer journey providing brands with an opportunity to partner with influential sources throughout the different stages.
Brands can collaborate with local celebrities and macro influencers on aspirational lifestyle brand campaigns as well as seed/gift products to micro influencers, a cost-efficient strategy especially important for a brand entering the Chinese market. To further increase brand discoverability, influencer content can be amplified on Red’s promotion tool.
To drive product consideration and sales, brands can capitalise on the strength of China’s live streaming ecosystem and partner with influencers skilled in this space to engage consumers with live streams and Q&A sessions. Fashion and Beauty brands can also pair their influencer marketing strategies with Red enabled e-commerce shopping experiences.
Increase brand discoverability with Red’s powerful search engine
While you may know how your brand ranks on Google or Baidu, beyond search, billions of Chinese users are discovering your brand on social media. They discover brands and products on their personalised social feeds recommended by influential third party sources.
Red is one of the world’s most powerful discoverability platforms. It is essentially a brand and product recommendation engine. As Red’s algorithm is connected to search volume and post engagement, optimising content by keywords is the key ingredient to success.
By partnering with influential sources on Red brands can fast-track their expansion and entry in the Chinese market by increasing brand discoverability through high-quality, localised, keyword optimised content.
If you are interested in finding out how we can help increase your brands’ market share in China, book a demo or send us an email at
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Both influencer marketing and traditional advertising can achieve broad reach and foster trust—yet they do so with different strengths and challenges. Influencer marketing builds trust through personal, authentic endorsements that resonate with targeted audiences, often leading to higher engagement and a sense of community. Traditional advertising, on the other hand, leverages the credibility of established platforms and can quickly raise brand awareness across a wide audience.
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