Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), as a content sharing platform, has always relied on advertising as its core business. In today’s market environment, to maintain and improve its advertising revenue, Xiaohongshu needs to come up with new strategies to attract advertisers. To that end, the company has made changes to its advertising system at the beginning of 2023.
According to recent announcements, starting January 5th, Xiaohongshu has upgraded its “Dandelion Brand Cooperation Label (蒲公英品牌合作标)” to the “Brand Mark Component (品牌标记组件).” This new feature allows brands and agents to choose whether or not to display the brand mark component, which redirects to professional accounts, when placing an order on Dandelion dashboard. The best part? It’s completely free of charge. The component will be displayed in the lower left corner of the Dandelion note detail page (the name for posts at Xiaohongshu), and is only shown to users coming from natural traffic. Additionally, the display time is 5 seconds and users will see the component every time they enter the note detail page.
Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) is one of the most valuable Chinese social media channels
In simpler terms, Xiaohongshu’s brand cooperation label still exists but brands now have the option to make it “invisible” when placing an ad. This means users may not even realize they’re looking at an advertisement while browsing posts.
Xiaohongshu has been working on monetizing its platform for a while now, and this new update allows brands to decide whether or not to display the cooperation label based on their marketing goals. This gives brands more freedom and control. Choosing the invisible option can reduce users’ negative perception of ads and choosing to display the label can increase brand visibility.
For influencers on Xiaohongshu, the new “invisible” ad label could be a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, having the label can show their commercial value but on the other hand, it can lead to losing followers because of the ad content. On the other hand, hiding the label allows influencers to create more relatable and natural-looking posts, which will be more accepted by followers and consumers.
However, users also have the ability to spot an advertisement. Hiding the label may give them a sense of dishonesty and make them more resistant. Therefore, while the “invisible” label can reduce users’ resistance to ads, brands still need to focus on their product quality and strengthen their marketing strategy on Xiaohongshu.
For the beauty brands we’re currently working on, this change on Xiaohongshu means more options for our clients to increase traffic and fine-tune their marketing strategy. As one of China’s leading social media platforms, Xiaohongshu is particularly effective for specific industries like beauty, skincare, travel, and organic food.
