World Courant
Taipei, Taiwan – Alice Guo generated lots of curiosity on Xiaohongshu, the Chinese language social media and e-commerce platform, when sooner or later in 2021 she determined to present recommendation on making ready for a job interview.
The Chinese language-born Guo was residing in Toronto on the time, grounded by the COVID-19 pandemic after years of bouncing between jobs in Vancouver, Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles and Shanghai.
“I began posting a number of posts and sooner or later I simply posted in regards to the interview course of that obtained me right into a enterprise capital agency,” Guo, who’s in his early 30s, instructed Al Jazeera.
“I wakened the subsequent day, abruptly it went from perhaps 20 followers to 500 followers.”
It did not take lengthy for Guo’s web page, known as “Ali is Working Onerous” in Chinese language, to construct an viewers of about 45,000 followers, attracted by a mixture of skilled recommendation and updates on her each day life in Canada.
Guo’s web page is amongst quite a few accounts on Xiaohongshu which have tapped right into a consumer base composed primarily of younger, extremely educated girls, each in main Chinese language cities and in expatriate communities overseas.
Though it lacks the worldwide model recognition of Fb, Instagram or
In response to self-reported information, the platform, described as China’s reply to Instagram, had 200 million month-to-month energetic customers in 2022, about 70 % of whom had been girls.
About 70 % of Xiaohongshu customers are girls (Aly Tune/Reuters)
Whereas Xiaohongshu interprets into English as “Little Pink E-book” – the identical identify as Mao Zedong’s well-known textual content – the platform in any other case has little in frequent with the Chinese language chief’s assortment of speeches and writings.
Quite than selling revolutionary values, the platform, which mixes weblog posts and quick movies, is an instance of China’s post-communist shopper tradition, which is aspirational, aspirational and globally centered.
And for ladies in a society the place political dissent is tightly managed and socially conservative attitudes prevail, Xiaohongshu has change into one thing of a haven for like-minded friends to speak freely about matters of frequent curiosity.
Customers share content material on a variety of matters, from comparatively uncontroversial matters like work and trend, to semi-taboo – if not overtly political – matters like divorce, home violence and the notion that ladies who are usually not married and have had youngsters are their early thirties are failures or undesirable.
“It is all stereotypes, however it’s there. It’s actual and it creates concern,” Daniela, a Xiaohongshu consumer who requested to be recognized solely by her first identify, instructed Al Jazeera.
“And naturally, many truly proficient girls from nice backgrounds are going through huge profession challenges,” added Daniela, who posts content material associated to girls’s profession improvement and empowerment to her greater than 125,000 followers.
Regardless of Beijing’s heavy censorship of the Web, discussions about controversial points are sometimes allowed on Xiaohongshu, particularly in the event that they give attention to private experiences slightly than bigger systemic points in Chinese language society.
But there are pink strains.
One Xiaohongshu consumer, who requested to not be named, instructed Al Jazeera that posts she made about her expertise freezing her eggs had been deleted, even because the Chinese language authorities urges girls to take extra to have youngsters.
Discussions about fertility remedies have been censored on Xiaohongshu because the Chinese language authorities tries to encourage girls to have extra infants (China Pictures/Getty Pictures)
The platform has additionally cracked down on sure expressions of conspicuous consumption, warning customers to be extra “empathetic” and to not flaunt their wealth as it’s “nonetheless out of attain for a big portion of individuals.”
Customers are additionally discouraged from over-editing their pictures and movies.
A part of Xiaohongshu’s attraction is that it embodies a cultured, or “jinzhi,” female aesthetic that requires “not simply cash, but in addition cultural and academic capital” to attain, setting it other than extra male-dominated platforms like WeChat and Weibo. to Jia Guo, professor of gender and cultural research on the College of Sydney.
“Jinzhi has at all times been an enormous a part of Xiaohongshu,” Guo instructed Al Jazeera. “What’s behind this jinzhi way of life is the categorized shopper tradition in post-socialist China and the categorized distinction in style. To be a jinzhi requires not solely cash, but in addition cultural and academic capital. Such an city, middle-class way of life is widespread on Xiaohongshu and can be strongly gendered – usually introduced by younger girls.”
Since its founding greater than a decade in the past, Xiaohongshu has additionally change into adept at understanding its customers, due to its “sport changer” algorithm, mentioned Sheng Zou, an assistant professor at Hong Kong Baptist College who researches the digital financial system .
Zou mentioned Xiaohongshu customers usually point out the algorithm as a part of its attraction.
“Most agree that the algorithm is correct and efficient at detecting and/or predicting their content material preferences or features of their identification, extra so than another widespread apps they use,” Zou instructed Al Jazeera.
“You’ll be able to dive very deeply into completely different communities,” James Hsu, a Taiwanese-Canadian based mostly in China who makes use of Xiaohongshu to advertise teaching and consulting companies, instructed Al Jazeera, explaining how “lots of influencers really arrange group chats the place you shut just by going to their profile web page.”
“It feels extra like an actual useful resource than simply pure leisure, as a result of you possibly can positively go in there and study issues like onerous abilities, or smooth abilities, like how you can begin a enterprise, like how you can apply for a job , and there are lots of cross-sections of that,” Hsu mentioned.
Revenue issues
Regardless of his loyal and rising following, Xiaohongshu has struggled to become profitable till lately.
In its early days, Xiaohonghsu had a powerful e-commerce part, the place Chinese language customers might purchase dependable international merchandise – a boon in a rustic stuffed with fakes and counterfeit merchandise.
The platform step by step shifted in direction of way of life and academic content material over time, and extra lately with the rise of short-form movies, livestream buying and influencer model offers.
Olivia Plotnick, the founding father of Shanghai-based advertising and marketing company Wai Social, mentioned Xiaohongshu seems to have discovered its area of interest with such offers.
“They’ve had lots of bother producing income over the previous couple of years, and I feel they’ve lately discovered a great way to do this with livestreaming,” Plotnick instructed Al Jazeera.
These offers do not come low-cost, as Chinese language influencers can cost three to 5 instances greater than their Western counterparts, Plotnick mentioned.
An influencer with 10,000 followers can command $300 to $500 per submit, whereas an influencer with greater than 300,000 followers can command $5,000, she mentioned.
Plotnick mentioned such partnerships are enticing to manufacturers as a result of Xiaohongshu has at all times been robust in growing model consciousness, at the same time as its e-commerce part lags behind retail giants like Taobao and Tmall.
In the meantime, the platform differentiates itself from the competitors with a livestreaming type that gives a “quiet luxurious” really feel, she mentioned.
The method appears to be paying off.
Alibaba is likely one of the largest buyers in Xiaohongshu (Aly Tune/Reuters)
Xiaohongshu, whose prime buyers embrace Alibaba, Tencent and U.S.-based GGV Capital, made its first revenue final 12 months, raking in $500 million on income of $3.7 billion, the Monetary Occasions reported in March, beneath reference to individuals who had been briefed on the matter.
Xiaohongshu didn’t reply to a request for remark.
As Xiaohongshu tries to strengthen its monetary place, it has additionally tried to diversify its consumer base.
Regardless of having round 200 million customers, its buyer base continues to be small in comparison with platforms like Weibo, Douyin and WeChat, which declare between 600 million and greater than 1.2 billion customers.
Xiaohongshu’s push to develop its consumer base contains efforts to achieve males and other people residing exterior China’s “first” and “second” cities comparable to Beijing and Shanghai.
Xiaohongshu can be gaining floor exterior mainland China, together with in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Western cities with giant Chinese language diaspora populations, comparable to Toronto, the place Ali is Working Onerous’s Alice Guo relies.
Guo mentioned a 3rd of her viewers comes from North America and she or he herself is an avid shopper of diaspora-created content material.
“It is like my Yelp, it is like my Google. So once I need to know the place to eat, what to eat, I search for it on Xiaohongshu. Particularly in Toronto, there are tons of Chinese language folks, so virtually each restaurant has a very good assessment, and I can discover some content material about it,” Guo mentioned.
“If I need to learn a e book and understand how good it’s, I am going to Xiaohongshu. And once I need to know extra about make-up, I am going to Xiaohongshu.
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