Video VS. Photo Posts on Xiaohongshu: Which Performs Better?
Popular social reviews platform Xiaohongshu (RED) offers several content formats, from the original photo + text posts, to video, and most recently adding live streaming. But which type of content performs best? As a micro-KOL on RED, in this article I will share my personal experience experimenting with the various content types as well as stats shared by RED in hopes that it will help brands and other content creators with their content strategies.
Photos + Text
Photos + text posts are the original content format on red and and very well suited for creating what is known as 干货 content or highly valuable content full of takeaways and resources. Posts can include up to nine images and 1,000 characters of text, and are best for travel guides, tutorials, comparison posts, lists, and other types of content that users will want to save and easily refer back to.
Note: in addition to the usual Like, Comment, and Share, a key metric for content creators on RED is “Collects” or how many users have saved the post to a board on their account (similar to pinning content on Pinterest). When a user saves a post it indicates that they not only like the post but they find the post valuable enough to want to revisit it.
RED is different from other social media platforms in China because users specifically come to the platform to research and learn about products, destinations, etc. Accounts that primarily feature content that is simply entertaining or only includes a couple of images with no in-depth explanation will not do as well long-term because RED users are seeking value.
The screenshot below is one of my graphic context posts, and it’s about a collection of 4 ways to study marketing. In the notes, I recommended 3 websites, 3 e-learning platforms, 4 books, and 3 podcasts, and gave a brief introduction of each recommendation. Within 3 months, the notes had accumulated 1,809 likes, 3,604 Collects, and 38 comments, and it is the most popular note on my RED page.
But there are also downsides to relying only on photo posts, mainly that with so many content creators on RED who are following the same posting best practices, it is easy for content to become homogenized and it is difficult to distinguish your personal characteristics.
This is important because most of the time, people follow influencers not only because they love the influencer’s content, but because they are attracted to the influencers’ personality. Photo posts are not as vivid as videos and it is very difficult for the KOL to let their true personality shine through.
Short Video
In 2020, RED has clearly been giving short video content more traffic. Why? Well the platform has shared that average engagement with video posts is 1.2 times higher than a photo post, average follower growth from a video post is 2.3 times higher than a photo post, and the exposure of video posts is 2.4 times higher – all clear reasons why RED should encourage more video content.
Watching videos is easier than reading text posts, because it does not require full concentration. And since video includes both sounds and images, and users can publish videos up to five minutes long, the content format, presentation, and amount of information is more flexible.
Compared with text, it is easier for an influencer or brand to display their personality, build their IP, and develop a stronger connection with their audience, and as a result improve user stickiness.
My Personal Experience on RED
On RED, I mainly focus on creating personal skill improvement and professional work experience content. To date I have published 48 posts and 10 of them are video posts. Some weeks I have gotten over 1k new followers a week, but recently that number has decreased. Even though my content is getting new likes every day, it does not convert to actual followers of my account, making me realize that I have to focus on improving my contents.
After researching some other career and personal development type of influencers on RED, I found out that most of their contents are in video formats. @Dynamite_h is a career experience and English study influencer on RED, 70% of her content is in short video format. I noted that my page has more likes and collections than her page but she has twice as many followers as mine.
@冰糖学姐小桔桔 is one of my favorites career advice and interview tips influencers on RED, with 91k followers. Her videos are usually less than 3 minutes making them easy to digest.
Realizing that I need to begin incorporating more video content to drive follower growth, I have begun the process of shifting my content from photo post dominated to video photo dominated, but it’s not easy at the beginning because my followers don’t recognize me.
Many of them followed me because they love my tutorial and collection posts, but they have no sense of who I am, so when my videos show up in their feed they may ignore them because they don’t immediately notice that the posts are from me. This is a clear sign that I need to continue building up my personal IP.
Key Takeaways
Short videos are very popular among Chinese internet users right now, therefore many platforms are giving video posts increased exposure. What’s more, video posts are the best way to demonstrate your personality and develop a relationship with your audience, so for these reasons, I strongly recommend influencers and brands leverage video content to drive follower growth on RED.
However, creators should also regularly incorporate photo + text posts, especially for content that users may want to easily reference while shopping, planning a trip, etc.
