RED BOOK: Quietly Becoming The Most Impactful App
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Red Book (aka Little Red Book or 'xiao hong shu' in Chinese), has blossomed into a broader medium to share experiences. It started in 2014 as a social platform predominantly for female shoppers to share product reviews and to connect with overseas buying agents. Companies such as Chanel and Dior have already spent significant resources on the platform. From clothing and cosmetic reviews to unique travel experiences, many businesses can take advantage of the power of Red Book to increase the awareness and prominence of their businesses.
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Table of Contents
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Red Book and The Hotel & Tourism Industry
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What Is Red Book?
In the years of past, many Chinese customers of luxury goods and cosmetics were wary of being tricked by online vendors. Red Book was therefore created to tackle this! This platform allows the KOC's (Key Opinion Customers) to post product reviews and write about their own authentic experience. Red Book also served as a platform where customers in mainland China could connect with buying agents (also known as Daigou) located overseas. This reciprocal arrangement encouraged better shopping experience with clearer images and more detailed product descriptions, which in turn brings trust and spurs more business opportunities for many.
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Seeing that this ecosystem was quickly evolving, Red Book has moved to create more commercial opportunities. As the platform developed and offered more features, these luxury and consumer brands registered enterprise accounts and created their own corporate pages with content and campaigns giving their audience a more direct avenue to the company. They also partnered with trusted KOC's and influencers to further enhance the brand's image as well as stimulating direct sales.
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Nowadays, Red Book plays a major role as part of the customer journey for both retail and service industries. Whether it be from another digital medium or an offline channel, Red Book is often the first stop that consumers go to for unbiased reviews. Companies are keenly aware of this, which is why they spend countless resources on encouraging posts not just from KOC's but from regular customers as well, because they know how important UGC (user generated content) is.
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i. visual image focused
ii. open platform
iii. driven by KOL/KOC user generated content
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Visual Image Focused
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the statement 'pictures say a thousand words' couldn't be more true
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pictures/short videos play a major role in evoking emotion, thus drawing attention; the nature of this platform is very visually based and similar to that of Instagram
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Open Platform
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allows for open sharing and searchability;
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simple search will yield official accounts but also individual users who tag on information
Driven by KOL/KOC user generated content
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any KOL/KOC campaign should include posts on Red Book; as this allows for maximum visibility
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to benefit from social proofing, you need the right parties talking about you as well as the right avenue to channel out that information; this is THE platform in China for social exposure
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More About Red Book
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​More than 80% of the users on Red Book are women and 90% are under the age of 32.
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As of 2021 the app has over 300 million users with over 100 million monthly active users.
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Roughly 40% of users hail from first tier Chinese cities.
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The majority of users are high income earners with a large disposable income.
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Often cited as the preferred platform for pre-purchase research in the customer journey.
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Interaction is done through liking or commenting on posts as well as through bookmarking favorites.
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Top interests shared on Red Book include: beauty, fashion, luxury goods, travel and lifestyle.
Why Should I Care?
Most people who aren't normally using Chinese social media platforms would be less familiar with Red Book compared to WeChat and Douyin (Tik Tok in China). However its impact to social proofing is immensely critical for brands and for their audience. Red Book is at heart an open platform for content sharing. Similar to Instagram and Pinterest, the public can see what others are posting and this creates a community where authenticity, trust and value are created. Posts and reviews by the public are encouraged as they create more trust and followership, which subsequently helps elevating them to influencer status on the platform. Red Book further fostered this ecosystem by prohibiting anonymous reviews and encouraging lengthy and detailed reviews.
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The uniqueness of this platform is that the content value is found on influencer accounts (UGC), as opposed to the commercial entities. What do I mean? Well, the posts and reviews of influencers and other users are in fact more important and hold more value than what you post on your brand’s profile. Then why should you bother to create an account with Red Book, you may ask? Your presence on the platform is essential as it serves to provide first-hand updates and a reference point for these third-party users when they mention you in their content. Your profile is also a place where the public can be re-directed to once you are being tagged (like Instagram or Twitter). Therefore, it is crucial to choose influencers/KOL/KOC who already have a strong presence on the platform.
Red Book and The Hotel & Tourism Industry
BEFORE Red Book was known for its social commerce success, many users took to the app to share their travel experiences by posting colorful pictures and detailing their adventures. Similar to Pinterest and Instagram, Red Book offers a visually based platform allowing users to share their experiences while travelling overseas. Shopping undoubtedly was critical to the list (hence the direction the platform has taken), but many users also shared Insta-type photos during their vacation, these include photos of restaurants, attractions, hotels, resorts and even airport transfer services.
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It's important to remember that FIT (fully independent travelers) from China is somewhat a recent phenomenon. Back when foreign travel was more restricted, recreational travel was done primarily through group tours. This made it easier for ground navigation, linguistic challenges, and most importantly visa applications. In recent years, travelers have gotten younger, more adventurous and more curious. They speak more foreign languages and are searching for more unique experiences. Many travelers want their recommendations from other visitors and Red Book is arguably the top platform for sourcing this information.
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Savvy hotel and resort brands know the power of having relevant presence on important platforms. They spend a lot of their resources promoting UGC (user generated content) because they know that when it comes to travel.....their hotels and resorts will come to mind. We mentioned in the past that other platforms such as WeChat aren't a must, however, we strongly recommend Red Book especially for travel related businesses. Attractive visual content can be relatively easy to create, which encourages content sharing - and this results in a multiple return on investment.
Services You Actually Need
Understanding where your market niche is key for you to maximize engagement (and thus, profits). Much of a brand's success is based on user generated content, which is why working with KOL's and having them drive presence on Red Book is key.
What You Need
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Set up and register for an account and get your company verified on Red Book. This is usually quite straightforward and can be done at a minimal cost.
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Post regularly. The purpose of this is to ensure that visitors who come to your profile will be able to know more about your company. Updated posts confirms to the viewers that the company is maintained and still in business. Conversely, how would you feel when an account hasn't been updated for 6 months?
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Customer service engagement. As a media platform, inquiries are expected and interaction should be encouraged. The connections between the account and users as well as with the influencers you work with are critical. Social credibility is born here.
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