How to Post On Rednote: A Complete Tutorial for Beginners | Rednote Tutorial

There are three types of people on Rednote App: those who lurk, those who genuinely share, and those who want to become popular.

If you're in the latter category, and you're serious about building your Rednote App presence, then this article is for you.

Different platforms distribute traffic in fundamentally different ways. However, in algorithm-driven platforms, the logic behind content going viral and gaining followers is very similar.

So, essentially, I view Rednote App, TikTok, Kuaishou, and even Quora as similar platforms, at least from a content creation standpoint.

Personal Accounts

1. Rednote App claims that 80% of its users are female, with 60% being between 25-35 years old. The majority of users are located in economically developed Tier 1 cities.

Therefore, most content revolves around women, covering topics like beauty, skincare, parenting, weight loss, and celebrity news.

2. From a search engine perspective, Rednote App posts currently have some visibility on Google.

Especially for cosmetics and skincare products, as Google tends to prioritize its own applets on mobile, Rednote App posts have a chance of ranking high for certain broad keywords.

Also, because Alibaba is an investor in Rednote App, searching brand names on Taobao can sometimes pull in relevant high-quality posts from Rednote App within the "Taobao Experience" section.

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

3. When creating content for TikTok, we often notice a common core in high-quality content. In its early days, Rednote App heavily focused on content that "fulfilled fantasies."

Women tend to have a stronger desire to compare themselves to others. This has led to the common perception that "the wealthiest young women in the world are all on Rednote App."

They constantly showcase limited-edition Chanel bags, travel the world, take picture-perfect, Instagram-worthy photos, have handsome, young, and wealthy husbands, and mothers-in-law who are even more doting than their own mothers!

Even with the recent influx of TikTok and Kuaishou MCN companies now creating content on the platform, the core of running a successful Rednote App account remains focused on producing content that is both intriguing and aligned with the interests of women, adhering to the principle of "what others don't have, I do, and what others have, I do better".

4. Before you start operating your Rednote App account, please follow "@薯管家" (very important!).

Every platform has its own rules. Rednote App's rules are generally published by "@薯管家".

Rule changes often mean changes in content creation and strategies. As a personal account operator, focus on posts related to "brand partnerships". Brand accounts should prioritize reading "Promotional Post Community Guidelines" and features related to "brand accounts".

5. Rednote App uses a post "indexing" mechanism.

Only posts that are indexed by Rednote App receive recommendations and can be searched.

The sign of a post being indexed is: Directly search the first sentence of the post. If the post has been indexed, it can be found. Otherwise, the post is ineffective. Being indexed doesn't guarantee being recommended by the algorithm, but being recommended does mean it has been indexed.

6. There are two main types of Rednote App posts: "text and image" posts and "video" posts. Both types have similar indexing mechanisms.

For text-based posts, check the first sentence of the body text. For video-based posts, check the first sentence of the video description (the accompanying text) to see if it has been indexed.

7. Factor 1 influencing post indexing: Formatting.

Rednote App doesn't have a third-party editor like WeChat Public Accounts. Content is edited directly on the platform. To make your content look neat and appealing, use emojis and Rednote App's built-in emoticons.

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

8. Factor 2 influencing post indexing: Title.

The first sentence should ideally contain the title, considering the relevance of keywords on Rednote App.

Similarly, keywords within the body of your post can also increase the likelihood of your post being indexed under those keyword searches.

9. Titles are a key factor in driving open rates on social platforms.

On Rednote App, the title of a text-based post is the first sentence, limited to 20 characters.

Also, give the "cover title" equal importance to the "text title." The titles on image and video covers also affect open rates.

10. Add numbers and data to the title.

For women, these numbers often relate to money, timeframes, or the number of items. Many women are non-rational consumers. Some titles may seem unscientific, yet they still receive lots of likes.

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

11. Emotional Titles, Use lots of Exclamation Marks!!

Since it's a personal post, you can disregard advertising regulations to some degree and use words like "best," "perfect effect," and "top tier" to grab attention, for the sake of traffic.

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

12. Include identity tags in the title. Since a large number of Rednote App posts are related to beauty and skincare, when choosing identity tags, go beyond traditional options like "student" or "office worker," and look for identity recognition based on skin type, hair type, etc.

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

13. Embed keywords in the title! No matter what you're writing about, it needs to be centered around keywords. This is the basis of Rednote App's indexing and recommendation mechanism. Each post's title should have your chosen keywords.

14. Factor 3 influencing post indexing: Tags.

You can add tags to your post's image, covering everything from locations and brands to specific stores, or tagging other users.

Verified brands (covered in the brand account section) can be tagged to link to the related brand topic. You can also add voice tags which are effective for users creating a strong persona.

15. Factor 4 influencing post indexing: Images.

Use original, high-resolution, watermark-free photos. For ads, avoid using individual product shots (even if you do, add emojis and text).

For regular content, the first image is as important as the title. Avoid covering important elements of the image with the title (e.g., don't block important figures or hide product packaging).

16. Rednote App account authority

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

Like Quora, Rednote App accounts have their own authority. A user's authority within a specific topic or keyword is determined by the number of likes, comments, and shares they have received on previous posts within the same topic.

A user's past data in a certain area reflects their credibility within that area. The likes, comments, and saves from high-authority users can affect the ranking and traffic recommendations for a post.

17. Rednote App accounts also need "nurturing."

If you are familiar with WeChat account management, you should understand that on Rednote App, to improve your account's authority, you need to not only create content but also engage daily by liking, following, and commenting on others' posts.

18. Because of account authority, Rednote App content creators should strive for a consistent persona and niche content focus. Consistently output high-quality content recommended by the platform within your chosen vertical.

19. Rednote App Account Level System.

To encourage content creators to keep publishing, Rednote App has its own community level system. Basically, completing content publishing tasks and earning engagement will level up your account. Upgrading gives you some minor perks, but most importantly! Higher-level accounts have their content prioritized in the review process, making it more likely to be recommended.

20. A large number of promotional posts without disclosure or going through brand partnership channels can lower your account’s authority.

21. What defines a promotional post? Basically, any post with an advertising nature.

Rednote App defines it as any post where a brand or other party with a stake has provided a gift, paid for a post, invited for a product trial, or offered an "unboxing" event with a chance for prizes, all fall under the category of an existing vested interest with the author.

22. What kind of posts will be categorized as Promotional Posts.

You need to carefully read these Rednote App Promotional Post Community Guidelines, which I am providing a link to in the notes. Generally, brand gifts and paid advertising are most often identified as promotional. Copy this message to open the Rednote App APP to view @薯管家's post!

23. The rules for publishing promotional posts have changed in Rednote App's latest update.

Unlike the guidelines, authorized "Brand Partner" authors will need to have their posts run through the Rednote App brand registration system. Similar to TikTok’s Spark Ads, Rednote App wants to control all advertising through the platform and monitor the data.

24. Rednote App's traffic distribution: the platform's internal traffic is primarily concentrated in two areas: recommended traffic and search traffic. There is some overlap, but the content is generally quite different.

25. The most concentrated traffic locations on Rednote App's homepage are "Discover," "Search," and "Trending."

If you want to grow your followers, you must understand how your content aligns with the traffic of each section.

26. Rednote App's homepage display is very similar to Kuaishou, with a waterfall-style format that acts as a source of recommended traffic for content creators.

Posts that align with Rednote App's algorithmic recommendations have a good chance of appearing on users' home pages and receiving high traffic.

27. Like TikTok and Kuaishou, Rednote App's traffic recommendation system is tiered. It starts by pushing your content to a small number of users, and then gradually expands the reach based on the content's performance.

Therefore, the hard metrics that are used by other platforms, like "watch time," "engagement rate," and "account authority" also impact recommendation frequency.

Generally, to "fake" data accepted by the system, similar to Taobao "brushing" (or fake reviews), text and image posts need to be viewed in a specific time from the first photo to the last, with the user performing one action of "like," "save," or "comment."

The same is true for videos; users need to watch the entire video and then like and save it.

28. People you follow have a chance to appear in the "Discover" section with the label "Your Follows".

As a Rednote App user, when you follow an account that updates, you have a chance of seeing this update pop up on your feed.

29. Within each vertical on Rednote App, there is an official account. For example, in the beauty field, it is "Beauty Potato," and in the fashion field, it is "Fashion Potato."

Like TikTok’s "TikTok Assistant," official accounts collect high-quality content from relevant creators daily and also publish official activities. Remember to tag them when you update, you might get a recommendation.

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

30. How to see the popularity of a vertical?

Generally, check the follower count of each official account. Since Rednote App is a female-dominated platform, "Entertainment Potato," "Fashion Potato," and "Beauty Potato" all have a huge number of followers (generally over 4 million).

While this means more traffic in these verticals, there is also a lot of competition. The biggest influencers and MCN companies have basically monopolized a majority of platform resources.

31. Rednote App's hashtag system is somewhat hidden and needs to be manually added when you publish content.

It's important to note that the hashtags recommended by Rednote App are related to the topics you chose during your initial registration.

If you want to create your own account and know your target audience, pay close attention to this during topic selection. Otherwise, if you want to ride the wave of traffic from certain topics, you have to manually search and add the hashtags.

Each post can only have one hashtag. You cannot add multiple.

32. Rednote App also has some recommendations based on LBS (location-based services). Therefore, if possible, it is a good idea to add your location information when posting.

33. I mentioned account authority previously; on Rednote App's recommendation engine, likes and saves by large accounts can increase your post's reach.

34. Although Tencent and Alibaba are investors, Rednote App strictly limits the appearance of "WeChat ID," "Public Account," and "Taobao Store" in the content and comment sections.

(Of course, those in the business of driving traffic use homophones or graphics to lower the chance of being detected).

35. You cannot send WeChat IDs through Rednote App direct messages, but there are ways to bypass this rule, though it's a bit more complicated.

36. You can’t include a WeChat account in your Rednote App one-line bio, but you can use your email address.

The response rate from most KOLs via email is significantly higher than via direct messages.

37. Rednote App hot searches differ based on user tags, with the main difference being in the top three results.

The same hot searches may differ for you and others. For example, since I'm a sports fan, my first hot search is NBA trades. My colleague's hot search is about work bags.

(Rednote App recently made UI changes for some users. The image below shows different versions).

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

38. Hot searches are a great source of traffic for content creators. Just like with any social media platform, "riding the trends" is an essential skill.

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

39. Compared to recommendation traffic, search traffic is another important element to consider when operating your Rednote App account.

Rednote App's keyword system is similar to Google SEO. Using the right keywords can further increase your post's views.

40. Keywords are like the central idea of your post. Producing content centered around keywords and embedding appropriate keywords in the title and body will help your post’s traffic.

41. For content producers, Rednote App's monetization methods primarily come from two avenues: advertising (the brand partnership system) and traffic directing to personal accounts or public accounts.

42. Brand partnership rules. Content creators who meet certain standards can apply to become a Rednote App brand partner.

After the update, Rednote App has three hard metrics that need to be met to become a brand partner:

● Complete personal verification ● More than 5000 followers ● An average post reach greater than 10,000 in the last month

43. Content creators can see the number of views (represented by a little eye icon) on their posts within the back end. It's important to note that the reach required by Rednote App is different from the number of views.

Reach is the system's recommendation number, which non-brand partners cannot see. The number of views is the number of clicks that can be seen in the back end. The reach requirement is also an average. Therefore, one post getting recommended to the traffic pool in a given month will significantly drive up the average reach.

44. In the Rednote App brand partnership back end, you can see the sources of followers: search, recommendation, and others. Search and recommendation are easy to understand and generally involve on-platform traffic. The "others" category comes from off-platform forwards and shares.

45. About follower growth.

Some friends who build accounts might share that they have had a viral video, but their follower growth didn’t correspond with that virality.

This is similar to how it works on TikTok. Generally, follower growth is ordered like this: copied account (non-original, no character) < copied (non-original, with character) < original character.

Similarly, in the same type of accounts, educational accounts (e.g., how to use Office, makeup tutorials) will grow followers faster than others.

Generally, follower growth is influenced by multiple dimensions simultaneously. There isn't one single factor.

46. Issues with forbidden words.

When posting on Rednote App, you need to be aware of potentially violating rules. You can search for a “Rednote App Forbidden Words Tool” to check for forbidden words.

47. A case study from another friend who builds accounts. A team uses Rednote App to get a large number of followers in the "wallpaper" vertical.

A Guide to Operating Your Personal Rednote App Account

After speaking to them, I found that they had a very streamlined process. They target female followers by posting lots of “fresh” wallpaper photos. They encourage users to interact with comments and leave "hooks" that will direct people to their public account. They get lots of traffic and quite good readership.

48. Uniqlo and Zara fashion posts are popular ways to grow accounts on Rednote App. The content is very similar to street style accounts on TikTok.

This content isn’t hard to produce and is a decent way to enter Rednote App.

49. On recommendation-based traffic platforms, don't expect that one account will be enough. You need the ability to build an account matrix to truly survive.

50. Information about operating and advertising on brand accounts will be included in the second part.

Overall, the traffic on Rednote App is still good, but some users have left after recent updates.

I really hope Rednote App doesn't become just another clone of Kuaishou and TikTok. Right now, Rednote App has partnered with a large number of MCN companies, and this has led to a lot of TikTok and Kuaishou content being moved over to Rednote App, which has impacted the platform's content. The best content is still the old content being put out by long-term users.

I believe Rednote App’s most beautiful period was back when talking to your female friends, and asking "do you use Rednote App?", you'd be met with a knowing smile, as if you'd been let in on a little secret.

At that time, men knew very little about this platform, giving it an air of mystery. I believe Rednote App can grow to be a "mini-Google" for fashion and beauty and really forge its own path.