At a time when consumers prefer real content over flashy ads, Xiaohongshu (rednote) has become an important place for brands to establish deep connections with their audiences. This platform that integrates social and business creates a unique community atmosphere and culture of trust through user-generated content (UGC).

Activities such as Clarins' "City Guardian Alliance" and a2 Milk's "Straw Challenge" show that brands are shifting from traditional marketing on Xiaohongshu to more realistic strategies that focus on empathy, local trends and actual social value. Data shows that 82.5% of beauty consumers discover products through Xiaohongshu, which further confirms the platform users' demand for more humanistic rather than purely transactional advertising. This not only enhances brand influence, but also creates emotional resonance with users, achieving a win-win situation for brands and users.

1. a2 Milk’s "Straw Challenge" – Empathy-Driven Campaign

When promoting knowledge about feeding cleft lip and palate infants, the maternal and infant brand a2 broke through the limitations of traditional clinical science popularization, took emotional resonance as the core, and created immersive interactive marketing on the Xiaohongshu platform to narrow the psychological distance with users.Through the "Straw Challenge", users were asked to drink milk with a leaky straw to simulate the plight of children with cleft lip and palate, and then a2 products were used to "solve" the problem, vividly conveying brand care.

On the Xiaohongshu platform, a2 expanded its communication volume through in-depth cooperation with KOLs and used surprise boxes to enhance the user interaction experience. At the same time, the brand launched flash events in five offline cities to achieve seamless connection between online and offline communication links; In addition, by integrating the resources of the Xiaohongshu platform, customizing exclusive single-page advertisements and setting up brand areas, a three-dimensional marketing matrix covering multiple online touchpoints is built. In the end, the event received more than 3.8 billion exposures, and the search volume for "Smile Operation" increased by 206%. This successful Xiaohongshu marketing proved that by creating emotional resonance and concretizing abstract problems, brands can not only inspire public empathy, but also effectively promote the development of social welfare.

2. Yi Cashmere – Content-to-Commerce Live Streaming

Yi Cashmere, a 25-year-old brand, has made a breakthrough in the fiercely competitive Xiaohongshu live streaming market with precision Xiaohongshu marketing. The brand is well aware of Xiaohongshu's characteristic of "focusing on content rather than promotion", and innovatively adopts the "same color + clothing + video" display mode. At the same time, it uses data to target women in first-tier cities over 30 years old for targeted testing.

During the preparation stage of the live broadcast, Yi carefully optimized the trailer and the live broadcast room setting; during the live broadcast, it dynamically adjusted the promotion strategy every hour based on real-time data analysis, and cultivated user viewing habits through regular scheduling. This set of refined operation strategies has achieved remarkable results, with the number of live broadcast viewers increasing by 7 times, and the brand ranked among the top ten on Double 11. This move confirms Xiaohongshu's preference for brands that are both inspirational and authentic - Yi Cashmere has achieved a balance between aesthetic value and commercial conversion with a closed-loop Xiaohongshu account strategy, and successfully found the optimal solution between community trust and sales growth.

3. Skyland Resort – Local Travel Revival via Inspiration Marketing

After the epidemic, nearby vacations have become a new trend in travel. Skyland Resort targets the user group of 70% of female travel decision makers on Xiaohongshu, focusing on the repositioning of the Jiangnan and Zhejiang regions. By optimizing SEO keywords such as "Jiangnan and Zhejiang Tours" and "Parent-Child Activities", and launching the first "Room Voucher" live broadcast discount, it accurately meets the needs of users for nearby travel. This strategy has achieved remarkable results. 33.9% of the traffic to the scenic spot comes from Xiaohongshu, and 40% of users make travel decisions based on the platform content. The success of Skyland confirms the core operating logic of Xiaohongshu's "inspiration drives consumption".

4. Cross-Case Insights: Xiaohongshu’s Unique Advantages

Three unifying themes emerge from the success of campaigns like a2 Milk’s "Straw Challenge," Yi Cashmere’s live-streaming strategy, and Skyland Resort’s localized travel revival: community-driven trust, seamless content-to-commerce integration, and hyper-localized engagement. These advantages position Xiaohongshu as a uniquely effective platform for brands aiming to bridge authenticity with measurable impact.

1. Community Trust as a Growth Catalyst

Xiaohongshu’s ecosystem is based on user-generated content (UGC), where user recommendations and relevant narratives are far more important than traditional advertising. The platform’s “warm” culture—take a2 Milk’s empathetic “Straw Challenge” as an example—enables brands to build emotional connections rather than transactional interactions. By collaborating with KOLs and participating in challenges, brands can tap into the community’s inherent trust in user-generated content (UGC).

Topkee’s expertise in social customer service management — including direct message replies, comment moderation, and @mention interactions — ensures brands maintain that trust through ongoing, genuine conversations. The result? Higher conversion rates and a surge in search volume, proving that empathy-driven content resonates better than carefully crafted Xiaohongshu ads.

2. Hybrid Content-Commerce: From Inspiration to Action

Unlike platforms that simply focus on transactions, Xiaohongshu prefers brands that can both inspire users and provide practical consumption guidance. Yi Cashmere’s livestream success highlights this advantage: by combining data-driven audience targeting with carefully curated “matching colors” displays, the brand converts aesthetic appeal into sales without alienating the community.

Topkee’s Xiaohongshu advertising services further strengthen this strategy, offering diversified ad formats and more precise user targeting to increase conversion rates. The platform and brand zones will further integrate resources to create a closed-loop experience that allows users to seamlessly move from discovery to purchase.

3. Hyper-Localization: Precision Meets Relevance

Based on the Xiaohongshu algorithm's priority push mechanism for localized content, brands can more flexibly adapt to regional consumption trends and user behavior characteristics. Skyland Resort’s revival took advantage of this by optimizing SEO-friendly notes (“Jiangxi Tour”) and livestreaming nearby resort “room coupons”.

Topkee’s customized theme scheduling and data insights enable brands to replicate this success, tailoring content to local consumer preferences while monitoring KPIs for continuous optimization.

4. Brand Strategy Highlights

To fully leverage Xiaohongshu’s strengths, brands must:

• Strengthen UGC and KOL collaboration: Prioritize collaboration with user-generated content and key opinion leaders to enhance user trust.
• Use the content e-commerce integration model: Use Xiaohongshu ads and live-streaming tools provided by Topkee to achieve seamless integration between content inspiration and product sales.
• Promote localization strategy: Rely on data insights to accurately grasp regional trends and user needs to improve Xiaohongshu marketing targeting.

By integrating these principles with Topkee’s end-to-end services—from content creation to social customer service—brands can transform Xiaohongshu’s unique ecosystem into a scalable growth engine. The platform’s future lies in AI-driven personalization and deeper localization, but its core will remain rooted in community warmth—a differentiator no brand can afford to ignore.

Conclusion

The rise of Xiaohongshu signals a broader shift: Consumers favor brands that engage rather than interrupt. From a2’s empathy loop to Yi’s precise content, the key to success is alignment with community values. As the platform evolves—likely toward AI-driven personalization and hyperlocal trends—brands must stay agile. Ready to build your Xiaohongshu account strategy? Contact Topkee’s experts to turn warmth into influence.

Appendix

• Clarins: Charity lights up business, unlocking a new paradigm for summer sun protection
• a2: Protecting the smile of a baby with cleft lip in a straw
• Yi: When cashmere coats get on the "live streaming fast track"
• Skyland: Poetry and the Distance at Your Doorstep
• "Live with Beauty" Xiaohongshu Beauty Industry User Insight Report