They say content is king, but if you’re a brand looking to drive e-commerce sales in China, then it might just be your knight in shining armour. Marketing in China in the coming year will increasingly rely on content platforms to woo, win, and retain Chinese consumers. Especially for brands looking to sell their products through cross-border e-commerce channels, the opportunity to reach Chinese consumers requires significant commitment both financially and culturally.

Brands face rising advertising and influencer fees when marketing in China. The result is increasing pressure on brands to come up with innovative ways of achieving reach, engagement, and conversion metrics that will satisfy their stakeholders. Given the architecture of social-first e-commerce platforms, it is not surprising that content is becoming a powerful make-or-break strategy for digital marketing in China.

Let’s explore how ordinary users can get attention and make money on Xiaohongshu.

Content Marketing Tips: How to write notes on the Xiaohongshu from 0 to 1.

1. Beauty and skincare

Xiaohongshu is mainly used by female users, and the development of the platform, whether it is social or e-commerce, is mostly based on the beauty and skincare category of products. For a fresh start, it is easier to write this type of notes to capture attention from general audiences. General themes such as lipstick Amway, makeup sharing and skincare product notes. 

2. Food orientation

To maintain quality and effective communication, Xiaohongshu’s recommendation algorithm encourages users to interact with topics they are interested in. It may be unexpected, but the base of food sharing is greater than expected. It seems like Chinese Gen Z do love food sharing topics! 

Food can also be divided into 2 types : 

• Packaged snacks: If you find any new and peculiar new snacks, you can share them on it

• Lazy recipe: For example, 3min lazy breakfast collection

3. Learning direction

Majority of the users of Xiaohongshu are the young generation, so you can choose to gradually share notes about learning. For example, the popularity of desk sharing, how to write reading notes, sharing knowledge and life experiences that truly add value to others.  

4. Personal Growth 

After all, everyone wants to be a better self, so the notes in this area are naturally easy to attract people to click in. For example, sharing your own growth story and establishing a relationship with your audience who can connect to you through your notes and thoughts.  

5. Emotional or Relationship topic

In this highly competitive market, brands struggle to distinguish themselves to increasingly apathetic consumers. To become more competitive, retailers employ emotional branding as a way to engage their customers, addressing the growing trend of consumers’ seeking emotional relationships with a brand. Although brand technicalities such as product attributes, features, and facts may be unmemorable, personal feelings and experiences better shape consumers’ evaluations of brands. This study illustrates why emotional branding is essential, especially to brands, when developing brand strategies in a volatile marketplace.  

6. Home Living 

We know that most people research online extensively before making big decisions. You can trust that your future residents or their family members and caregivers are doing the same thing before committing to their future living plans. As a business, you want to reach your audience wherever they already are—and where they are is on social media. Many senior care communities have personas that include adult children of the elderly who may be planning the future care of their parents. Sharing about tips on how to take care of communicating with your family members, especially the senior citizens will be a popular topic.  

Summary 

As part of the e-commerce revolution for purchasing better products, Xiaohongshu’s unique positioning as a trustworthy, celebrity-approved distributor of overseas products is a great channel for brands that look to capitalize on the social commerce trend.

The nature of Shopping Notes makes it not merely authentic, but also useful to potential consumers. Driving brand recognition and sales aside, a well-established presence on Xiaohongshu allows a business to track customer sentiment over a test period, which can then be used to inform future marketing strategy.