Last Updated on November 20, 2024 
Jeffrey Hau
What are Notes on XiaoHongShu (aka Little Red Book)?
To keep it brief for you, ‘Notes’ (笔记) are any type of posts from users on the XiaoHongShu platform.
These ‘Notes’ come in three main categories:
- Image-based Notes(图文笔记): Notes attached with images as the main content and message.
- Video-based notes (视频笔记): Notes attached with a short video as the main content for users to watch.
- Text-based notes (长文笔记): Notes where the message is mainly communicated through the text description.
- Another content category: Livestreams (直播) are not strictly considered ‘Notes’, but it is still a significant feature on the XiaoHongShu platform!
XiaoHongShu’s metrics are important for your notes’ performance, which is judged based on its engagement rate.
XiaoHongShu’s engagement metrics include likes, comments, shares, and one of the more special features of XiaoHongShu, ‘collect’（收藏）. ‘Collect’ means for users to save their notes to their accounts for future reference.
First impressions are important to drive XiaoHongShu users to click on your notes, which directly affects your notes’ performance.
The cover image of your notes is crucial to this, as it is the first thing attracting users’ eyes when the note is recommended on their homepage.
Besides, a clear and precise description of your notes is also as important, as it will affect your notes’ ranking in the platform’s search algorithm, especially when the users heavily rely on the ‘search’ function to get useful notes.
XiaoHongShu Notes - Format & Sizing
Image-Based Notes
The most common type of note on the XiaoHongShu platform is that your message is communicated through the image attached to your post, followed by a description. The best formatting size for image-based notes is 1242 x 1660px.
Capturing users to your notes through attractive cover images is incredibly important for image-based notes. The first image in these notes becomes the cover image, therefore you need to select the best one to catch the attention of browsing users, leading them to click on your notes and boosting your chance to achieve high engagement rates.
If you are sharing easy-to-visualize topics such as fashion tips or product comparisons, image-based notes are your way to go! These topics can be quickly conveyed and understood through visuals such as images.
Besides, image-based notes are easier to produce, which is perfect for users new to the platform!
Video-Based Notes
Video-based notes are notes attached with videos instead of images along with a short description. The duration of video-based notes can range around half a minute or even several minutes depending on its content.
Video-based notes best work in the formatting size of 1080 x 1440px for vertical videos, and 1440 x 1080px for horizontal videos, but we would recommend you create vertical videos as it is presented best on XiaoHongShu’s display page.
For your video duration, although XiaoHongShu allows users to upload a maximum duration of 15 minutes of video, we would suggest you keep your videos under 5 minutes.
This is to align with modern users’ shortened attention spans, with the modern day human’s attention span decreasing to just 8 seconds, and also to prevent users from getting bored with the content. Also, try creating a suitable thumbnail with a clear message for your notes to attract users to click on your video.
If you are sharing topics that require more comprehensive information and guidance to users, such as food recipes or travel tips, you can consider video-based notes as your main content.
Although video-based notes require more effort and time to create, it is a great way for you to connect and interact with your audience better!
Text-Based Notes
Text-based notes are quite similar to image-based notes, but in these notes, your description becomes the main star of your note instead of the attached image
Look at it this way: your attached image is only a way to capture users to click into your notes, but the main information source they will be reading from is the description text.
For text-based notes, your attached image follows the same formatting size as image-based notes, which is 1242 x 1660px.
The keys to a good and viral text-based note are an attractive cover image, an interesting title, and a neat arrangement of your text description.
Select an aesthetically pleasing cover photo for your note, and craft a title that can induce your audience’s curiosity to click into and read your note.
For your text description, instead of cramming your content into a big chunk of text, try breaking it into clear and short bullet points for easier reading. You can also throw in some emojis to add some refreshing colors to your text!
If you are sharing content that requires a lot of context and explanation, such as full travel guides or FAQs about a specific topic, text-based notes are the way to go.
Livestreams
As a heads up, the livestream function is only available if you have a business account! The best format size for XiaoHongShu live streams is the same as vertical video notes, which is 1080 x 1440 px.
To make a successful live stream, here are some tips to consider:
- Unlike other platforms like Douyin whose algorithm can directly push live streams to users’ homepages.
- XiaoHongShu’s live streams are only accessible through ‘Notes’. Therefore, to raise traffic to your livestream, make sure that you have posted enough notes for users to notice you! The greater the number of notes, the higher the chance of more users noticing and accessing your live stream.
- Send notifications before your live stream to create anticipation and inform your followers about the live stream. We recommend you spread the word at least a day before your livestream.
- During your livestream, be sure to answer viewers’ queries on time try to stream for at least 4 hours every day, and be consistent with your time of streaming to retain your viewer base.
Live streams are best if you are a business looking to sell your products on XiaoHongShu’s e-commerce platform. This is because XiaoHongShu livestreams allows you to attach a shopping cart, where you can display your products for viewers to purchase through the XiaoHongShu shop (小红书店铺) directly.
Tips to Make Your Notes Perform Better on XiaoHongShu
Create Useful and Valuable Notes
The most vital factor affecting the note’s performance is the quality of the note’s content itself. Users of XiaoHongShu mainly use the platform to search for answers, instead of browsing it for entertainment. They have a clear aim of what type of content they need when they visit the platform.
Therefore, to make your notes desirable to users, make sure that your notes can truly solve problems or provide information to the users.
You should avoid posting low-value notes such as pure promotional content, and emphasize how you can provide value to your audience through your notes’ content.
We suggest you come up with ways to transform your promotional notes into something that can be perceived as ‘valuable’ to your audience.
For example, instead of notes promoting your fashion apparel products, you can create useful notes such as fashion tips for different seasons, while incorporating your products into your content.
In this way, you are actually providing valuable information for users through your content, resulting in higher-quality notes and a higher engagement rate!
Optimise your Note’s Cover Image and Title
XiaoHongShu is a platform where the attractiveness of notes heavily depends on visual appearance. In this case, the cover image of your notes directly affects users’ decision to click into your notes! To drive users into your notes, try putting more effort into the cover images.
For image-based notes, you can invest in improving your photography skills, to capture the best cover photo for your XiaoHongShu note.
For video-based notes, focus on creating a relevant thumbnail that best describes the video, to induce more people to watch your video note. An attractive thumbnail usually consists of:
- The image of your end product of the video to keep users interested about the process
- Text that describes your video effectively, ideally with specific figures such as ‘5 Minutes Meal Recipe!’
- The recommended formatting size of a XiaoHongShu video thumbnail is 1080 x 1440 px.
On the other hand, for text-based notes, put your design skills to work. Use eye-catching colors and fonts to create a cover image to attract users to click into and read your text description. For example, bright and high contrast colors such as yellow and red work great for attracting attention compared to calm colours like light blue. Besides, try to use large and thicker fonts to make the text more visible on the cover image!
Besides, a compelling title is also important for user attraction, as it is the second thing users see after your cover image when your note appears on their home page!
To craft an effective title, try to incorporate specific adjectives into your title, such as ‘5 Easy Tips for Good Skin’ or ‘Effortless Male Summer Fashion Tips’.
These specific titles can better attract users to click through your notes and also benefit your notes in the platform’s search algorithm.
Use Trending Keywords & Hashtags
Using trending, relevant keywords and hashtags is also a great way to push your notes to more users, and also for the platform’s algorithm to help promote your content!
You can see what are the current hot topics on the platform listed on the XiaoHongShu Hot Ranking (小红书热点榜), which shows the currently most searched topics on XiaoHongShu.
Do some research with this feature to figure out what trending keywords you can incorporate into your notes, to let all these users come across your notes when searching for these trending topics.
As for the hashtags to attach with your note’s description, make good use of the platform’s features! When you are typing out hashtags, the platform’s own hashtag recommendation feature will analyze your note and show you the relevant hashtags with their search index as suggestions for your note.
Integrating suitable keywords and hashtags into your note can boost its visibility to users, making your notes more noticeable to users!
Include a CTA (Call-To-Action) in Your Note
A Call-to-Action (CTA) is a text instructing users to interact and engage with your note. Instead of using the algorithm or your content to passively attract users to engage with your notes, an effective CTA allows you to directly talk to your audience and influence them to carry out these actions, such as liking and commenting on your notes.
We suggest you attach your CTA in the last sentence of your note’s description or put it into the last image in your note. For example, if you are sharing a note about a cake recipe, include a CTA at the end such as ‘Comment to receive more easy recipes!’, etc.
This ensures that users get your message after enjoying your content, and know what to do before leaving your note. This strategy can help you to raise your notes’ engagement rate, as your audience will be more likely to interact with your post with your instructions!
Respond to Your Audience to Create Engagement
XiaoHongShu loves active users, as these users are constantly contributing to keeping the platform’s ecosystem thriving. Accounts that are actively interacting and engaging with users are more likely to be recommended by the platform’s algorithm to more users!
When users leave comments under your notes, try responding to them as a content creator to create meaningful engagements with them.
Whether it is exchanging opinions with your audience or just simply showing your gratitude towards your audience, each of these interactions you start is building rapport between you and your audience, and also promoting yourself to the platform’s algorithm.
This strategy benefits you in two ways: your audience loves you for being responsive and pleasant, attracting them to stay with your account for more future notes, and driving up your notes engagement rate; while the platform rewards you for being an active user and helps to recommend your posts to more new users through its algorithm.
Great Examples of XiaoHongShu Notes by Brands & Companies
Decathlon - Image Notes
Decathlon is a well-known international sporting goods brand and its XiaoHongShu account features image-based notes about product recommendations.
This specific note titled ‘Workout Stylings throughout the week’ is aimed to recommend Decathlon’s sportswear products to users.
This note is successful because rather than shoving product information into the users’ minds, the content creatively recommends the product by using attractive illustrations to show the ideal styling of products to customers.
The cover image with a clear title is also eye-catching to attract users to click on the note. It is also providing useful information by suggesting users with daily sportswear styling tips.
It has attached the product names to the images, influencing users to directly search for the product after enjoying the note. Through this note, Decathlon has successfully introduced its products to the XiaoHongShu audience, with a number of 1,054 likes and 603 collects, showing users’ interest in this note.
City University of Hong Kong - Video Notes
The City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is an educational institution based in Hong Kong and its XiaoHongShu notes focus on introducing the university to more Chinese students, which are considered as one of the main demographics of XiaoHongShu users.
This specific video note by the brand’s account is aimed at introducing the special locations and utilities available on its campus to its audience.
What makes this note successful is the brand’s attempt to ride on current trends. The cat video meme has become a new trend on platforms like XiaoHongShu that features cute cats as characters in different scenarios.
By creatively using this trend in its video note to promote the campus, the note can reach a wider audience interested in the trend.
Besides, the effective use of relevant hashtags such as #studyinHongKong also ensures that the note is visible to users searching for related information. Through this note, more users engaged with this note, resulting in a higher number of likes of 768 likes!
Need Someone to Help You Out on XiaoHongShu?
If you’ve made it this far, we reckon that you might be interested in trying to enter the Chinese market. Whether it’s brand management, help with notes, or full service XiaoHongShu management – we can help out, regardless of which stage of the journey you’re at.
Click the button below to reach out for a free consultation – we’re here to help!
