Xiaohongshu: A Social Media App with Search Engine Capabilities
As the younger generation increasingly turns to social media as a search engine, Xiaohognshu shows greater potential for this purpose than other social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.”
About Xiaohongshu
Xiaohongshu, also known as Little Red Book or RED, is a social media platform that was created in 2013 with a focus on sharing shopping and beauty tips. It initially targeted urban females aged 18–35. But with its expanding content offerings, Xiaohongshu has seen significant growth in its male user base, now accounting for 30% of its total users. Up to 2022, Xiaohongshu has 200 million monthly active users. This platform is now one of the largest lifestyle communities.
Update: ByteDance is pushing the American version of the Xiaohongshu app, Lemon 8.
Comparing Xiaohongshu to Instagram and TikTok
· More text-focused
Unlike Instagram, which was created as a photo-sharing platform (or TikTok as a video platform), Xiaohongshu was created to share shopping tips, product reviews, and recommendations. As a result, it leaves more space for text. In Instagram, on the other hand, text plays a supplementary role to visually appealing photos. The text-focused nature of Xiaohongshu creates more searchable content, making it a potential alternative to a search engine.
· Location-based features
In addition to the standard “Following” and “For You” tabs, Xiaohongshu has a “Nearby” tab. This location-based feature allows users to view posts from other users in their vicinity, making it easier for them to find local guides, restaurants, and even marketplace information. It offers a more convenient way of performing location-based searches compared to TikTok or Instagram.
· Useful content with “Collect”
While Instagram prioritizes social interaction by highlighting its “Tag Friend” and “Share” functions and TikTok focuses on creative content with its emphasis on “Like” functions, Xiaohongshu emphasizes the Collect function to value content that is useful to its users. ( The Likes/ Collects ratio of Xiaohognshu is much lower than Tiktok.) By collecting the notes, the users recognize the usefulness of the content. This aligns with the values promoted by the Xiaohongshu community, which encourages sharing sincere and useful experiences.
Using social media as a search engine
Search engines like google still play an irreplaceable role when users access a website, check the weather, know about celebrities, etc.
However, in some circumstances, users prefer to search on social media. When users search sushi restaurants in New York. They are not simply looking for a list of every sushi place, they want recommendations or guides. Similarly, when users search for a product, not only do they want to know where to purchase it, but they also want to know if it is worth the money.
Take TikTok for a comparison.
A recent article by The New York Times, “For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine,” highlights the trend of using TikTok to search for products and businesses, as well as ask questions. Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior vice president at Google, stated that “almost 40 percent of young people when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram.”
While TikTok certainly has its advantages in terms of searching for tutorials, guides, and visual content, there are also some drawbacks.
· Rewatch video: users often find themselves rewatching the same video multiple times in order to reference a piece of information.
· Nonrelevant result: the limited text and emphasis on video can sometimes lead to less precise search results. To address this, TikTok is testing a feature that identifies keywords in comments and links them to relevant search results.
· Distrust in the TikTokers: Some users view TikTok posts simply as means for influencers to gain internet fame or show off. As a result, the overall impression of TikTok remains of a short-video app for entertainment rather than a reliable source of information.
Xiaohongshu, in contrast to TikTok, places a greater emphasis on text-based content. This allows users to quickly gather information with a simple scan of a post. More text also provides more accurate search results.
The trust in Xiaohongshu content has been built. Users trust both the community and the platform and appreciate the honest opinions provided by regular users on various products. Furthermore, influencer posts are labeled as “Sponsored” if they have been paid for. Over time, Xiaohongshu has built a strong foundation of trust among its users.
Now let’s test it out.
Let’s conduct several searches as examples to see which app performs better.
Typical use of social media
· Tutorial- search “Season cast iron skillet”
On Instagram, a few tutorials are displayed, but upon clicking, most of the results are recipes that use a cast iron skillet.
TikTok offers great tutorial videos that are detailed and useful, but the pain point of rewatching still persists.
Xiaohongshu presents tutorials in both videos and pictures with accompanying text, making it easy to follow step-by-step instructions at any time.
· Local Guide- search “Vet in Los Angeles”
Instagram shows confused results due to a lack of captions.
TikTok offers more relevant videos, and a lot of them are posted by businesses themselves.
Xiaohongshu provides numerous recommendations based on personal experience.
It is hard to argue which is more trustworthy, a post from the business or a review from an individual customer. It largely depends on a user’s personal habits and preferences. Some users may prefer information directly from the business, while others may find peer reviews to be more valuable. It is subjective and varies among users.
Nontypical use of social media
· Knowledge- search “WW2 timeline”
On Instagram, related historical pictures are displayed, but without captions. After all the clicks, none of the pictures answers my question.
TikTok offers engaging timelapse videos of WW2, but the information is presented quickly and the seek bar cannot be dragged in all the videos.
Xiaohongshu provides answers through a combination of pictures and text, making it easier to find the information. Most of them also answer my question.
I think Xiaohongshu performs better than the other two apps in this test.
Users play an essential role in the search engine capabilities of Xiaohongshu.
As a user-generated content (UGC) platform, Xiaohongshu is built by its community of users. Xiaohongshu also actively encourages and guides users to share content about specific topics. For example, a timely event posting about trips during the Spring Festival. By doing so, users have the opportunity to increase traffic to their posts.
The slogan of Xiaohognshu has evolved from “ Good products from the world” to “Your guide of life” This shift reflects the platform’s focus on providing content that is both useful and relevant to every aspect of daily life. The Xiaohongshu community has developed a deep trust and close relationship with its users. As a result, the content users provide is often highly related to the content users search for.
In summary, Xiaohongshu’s user-generated content focus, strong community relationships, emphasis on text-based content, and location-based features have all contributed to its capabilities as a search engine. Xiaohongshu offers a wealth of information that is easily searchable and highly relevant to users’ needs. As the platform continues to grow and evolve, it will be interesting to see how it develops and the impact it has on online search.
Reference
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/technology/gen-z-tiktok-search-engine.html
https://www.theverge.com/23365101/tiktok-search-google-replacement
