As the future of TikTok stuck in limboXiahongshu, known in English as Rednote, is trying to take advantage of its new popularity By partnering with American influencers who can help promote the company and bring more Americans onto its platform. The Chinese lifestyle and travel app, which has more than 300 million mostly monthly active users, fell to the top of the US app store charts last week due to the TikTok ban. contacted,
In a campaign brief obtained by WIRED, Solaray Global, a New York City-based marketing agency, encouraged creators to create sponsored posts for RedNote, in which they would feature videos telling their followers about the sudden rise of Chinese apps in the US. Are. The brief asked creators to describe “how fun and engaging the app is” and “emphasize its user-friendly design and international appeal.” It also instructed them to share their own Rednote accounts and encourage their followers to join the platform.
Xiaohongshu did not respond to a request for comment sent to his official WeChat account. Solaray Global also did not respond to a request for comment asking how many influencers they contacted or how much the company expected to pay per post.
The brief, seen by WIRED, required creators to turn in their videos on a 24-hour deadline to ensure they were up by January 17. same day The Supreme Court was going to decide after two days whether the ban on TikTok would be implemented or not. It also stipulated that influencers would have to leave their videos up for at least six months.
Xiaohongshu was founded in 2013 and has long focused on attracting domestic audiences in China, especially young women who live in major cities. Like TikTok, it revolves around a central algorithm that recommends an endless stream of posts to users based on their interests and behavior. But instead of showing people one video at a time, Xiaohongshu presents photo slideshows, text posts, and videos in a grid format.
But perhaps the biggest difference between the two apps is how they handle content moderation. Because it is available in China, Xiahongshu is required to comply with strict censorship rules set by Beijing. (wired first reported Xiaohongshu was struggling to hire English-speaking moderators to help manage the flood of content being posted by Americans.) TikTok, on the other hand, is not available in China. Its parent company ByteDance operates A separate video app There is called Douyin.
The influx of Americans onto Xiaohongshu provided a rare opportunity for people from the US and China to connect on a shared social media platform. Some users spent hours asking their new foreign pen pals questions about their respective countries and cultures, ranging from what school lunch is like in Wisconsin to what a typical apartment looks like in Chengdu. Now it appears that Xiaohongshu is trying to capitalize on those sentiments to promote itself as a positive, global platform.
“The kindness of ordinary people and the warmth of being curious about each other is the main feeling out there right now,” the influencer said. “And we think that's a beautiful thing.”