Recently, when I opened Little Red Book, the screen was full of English copywriting, unfamiliar foreign faces, and dynamics with greetings in broken Chinese...
It seems that overnight, Little Red Book was injected with a mysterious "foreign flavor" and started an "international journey". Behind all this, it is closely connected with a group of mysterious visitors who call themselves "TikTok refugees".
"TikTok refugees" revealed
The so-called "TikTok refugees" are actually a group of users who are forced to find a new social home because TikTok faces a serious ban risk in the United States.
Since the US government has been putting pressure on TikTok on the grounds that "China may use TikTok to collect data from American users and conduct surveillance, threatening US national security." In 2024, the "Sell or Ban" bill was passed, requiring TikTok to separate from its parent company ByteDance before January 19, otherwise it will face a comprehensive ban.
As the ban time approaches, American users are about to lose TikTok, a social platform that has been with them for many years. They can only say goodbye with tears while looking for new social platforms as a replacement. At this time, Little Red Book became one of their first choices, and a large number of TikTok users flocked to Little Red Book.
Since the influx of TikTok refugees, the download volume of Little Red Book has soared, and it once topped the free list of Apple's US App Store. Moreover, on the Little Red Book platform, under a topic called "tiktokrefugee (tiktok refugees)", as of press time, the number of notes on this topic has exceeded 500,000, the total number of views has exceeded 1 billion times, and the number of discussions has reached nearly 20 million. Little Red Book has ushered in a wave of "overwhelming wealth".
The unique charm of Little Red Book
According to data, Little Red Book was founded in 2013 and is a lifestyle platform and consumer decision-making portal. In recent years, it has rapidly grown into a powerful new force in the fields of e-commerce and social media.
According to the latest data, in the fourth quarter of 2024, the average daily search volume of Little Red Book has climbed to 600 million times, doubling in just over a year compared with 300 million times in mid-2023. And it is reported that Little Red Book is expected to double its profits in 2024, exceeding US$1 billion.
As a content community and e-commerce platform popular among the younger generation, Little Red Book has also performed well in the capital market, attracting support from well-known investment institutions including Alibaba, Tencent, GGV Capital and Sequoia Capital.
According to PitchBook data, Little Red Book completed a round of financing in July 2024 with the participation of investors such as Boyu Capital and Sequoia Capital Group, with a valuation of US$17 billion, a total of more than US$900 million raised, and more than 2,000 employees.
The reason why Little Red Book has become the choice of TikTok refugees is inseparable from its unique platform charm. On the one hand, Little Red Book has indeed made some updates recently, such as moving the like, favorite, and comment buttons on the video interface to the right vertical row, similar to Douyin.
On the other hand, Little Red Book has both social and sharing functions, and its content covers a wide range of fields, from fashion and beauty to food cooking, travel, fitness and home life, and users can find content and topics of interest on Little Red Book.
It is precisely with its unique content charm, rich and diverse topic coverage, and sincere sharing and altruistic community concept that Little Red Book has successfully built a platform that is closely connected with the lifestyle of young groups.
Little Red Book: A new consumption front
In fact, with the growth of the number of users and the expansion of platform functions, Little Red Book has gradually developed into a comprehensive social e-commerce platform.
In July 2024, Little Red Book gave a new definition of e-commerce, that is, Little Red Book e-commerce is "lifestyle e-commerce", which is to create, select and match products through e-commerce people (buyers, managers) who understand lifestyle to meet the personalized needs of users.
Under the new positioning of "lifestyle e-commerce", Little Red Book opened a year of accelerated e-commerce in 2024. According to relevant data, the number of new merchants entering Little Red Book e-commerce in 2024 increased by 8.1 times year-on-year, the number of store live broadcast rooms with a single broadcast exceeding one million was three times that of 2023, the number of buyers increased by 8.1 times compared with 2023, and the number of users purchasing in buyers' live broadcast rooms increased by 3.4 times.
Moreover, during the Double Eleven period in 2024, Little Red Book's e-commerce strategic adjustment has initially shown positive results. Data shows that merchants and buyers have ushered in rapid growth, the scale of tens of millions of merchants has increased by 5.4 times compared with the same period last year, and the number of buyers with a single transaction volume exceeding tens of millions has reached 3.6 times that of the same period last year.
It can be seen that Little Red Book's consumption potential is being stimulated, and more and more segmented new demands are being discovered and satisfied in Little Red Book. In the current consumer world, Little Red Book's grass-planting notes have basically become an important guide for consumers' shopping decisions.
Little Red Book's user portrait is very distinctive, mainly young groups, especially those born in the 1990s and 2000s. They are the main force in the current consumer market, full of vitality and creativity. They are keen to share their lives and obtain information on Little Red Book, and have a strong curiosity and desire to pursue new things.
At the same time, these young users pursue fashion, quality and personalized life, have strong consumption power and advanced consumption concepts, strong consumption demand, and are willing to pay for improving life experience. Little Red Book can accurately reach these young consumer groups, so this greatly improves the connection efficiency between brands and target customers, and lays a solid foundation for subsequent sales conversion.
For example, a large number of foreign netizens have flocked to Little Red Book this time, and many brands have taken advantage of this opportunity to quickly release brand marketing notes for the "TikTok refugee" hotspot. In the future, with the further diversification of platform users and content, Little Red Book's commercialization potential will continue to be released. In addition to being a social platform, it will also be a powerful content and commercialization platform.
Consumer listed companies respond to business with Little Red Book
The explosion of Little Red Book has driven related concept stocks to move. In particular, consumer listed companies are actively "planting grass" on platforms such as Little Red Book to promote further brand expansion.
EZVIZ Network mentioned that in the past two years, the company has placed publicity for the company's elderly care business in mainstream media such as newspapers and financial media, and has planted grass and promoted the elderly care business on six major social media platforms including Weibo, Douyin, Little Red Book, WeChat, Bilibili, and Kuaishou. As the company's products and businesses gradually improve and mature, the company will also increase publicity and investment in this regard.
Beikesong said that the company currently has relevant layouts on traditional e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, as well as emerging channels such as Douyin, Pinduoduo, and Little Red Book (the company won the Little Red Book will annual super single product award in December 2024), and promotes business development through a new retail model that integrates online and offline.
In response to investors, BAIC Blue Valley said that the company's brands are continuing to expand their online social media footprint and have created a full range of online marketing matrices on popular channels such as Douyin, Little Red Book, WeChat, Weibo, and Bilibili. BAIC BluePark has planned and implemented a series of colorful marketing activities such as graphic promotion, video marketing, and grass-roots traffic diversion through these platforms, and has achieved remarkable results, successfully improving brand awareness and product market sales. Little Red Book is an important position of the company's new media marketing strategy.
This paper is from Ulink Media, Shenzhen, China, the organizer of IOTE EXPO (IoT Expo in China)
