RedNote Recruited US Influencers to Promote App Amid TikTok Ban Uncertainty

As TikTok’s future hangs in the balance, Xiaohonghshu, better known as RedNote in English, is trying to capitalize on its newfound popularity by partnering with US influencers who can help promote the company and bring more Americans onto its platform. The Chinese lifestyle and travel app, which has over 300 million mostly monthly active users, surged to the top of US app store charts last week as the TikTok ban approached.

In a campaign brief obtained by WIRED, Solare Global, a New York City-based marketing agency, pitched creators on making sponsored posts for RedNote, featuring videos of themselves telling their followers about the Chinese app’s sudden rise in the US. The brief asked creators to describe “how fun and engaging the app is” and “emphasize its user-friendly design and international appeal.” It also instructed them to share their own RedNote accounts and encourage their followers to join them on the platform.

Xiaohongshu did not return a request for comment sent to its official WeChat account. Solare Global also did not respond to a request for comment asking how many influencers they contacted or how much the company expected to pay per post.

The brief viewed by WIRED required creators to turn their videos around on a 24-hour timeline to ensure they went up by January 17, the same day the Supreme Court was going to decide whether the TikTok ban would go into effect two days later. It also stipulated that influencers must leave their videos up for a minimum of six months.

Xiaohongshu was founded in 2013 and has long mostly focused on courting domestic audiences in China, particularly young women who live in major cities. Like TikTok, it revolves around a central algorithm that recommends users an endless stream of posts based on their interests and behavior. But instead of showing people one video at a time, Xiaohongshu presents photo slideshows, text posts, and videos in a grid format.

But perhaps the biggest difference between the two apps is how they handle content moderation. Because it’s accessible in China, Xiaohongshu is required to adhere to strict censorship rules dictated by Beijing. (WIRED previously reported that Xiaohongshu was scrambling to hire English-speaking moderators to help manage the flood of content being posted by Americans.) TikTok, on the other hand, isn’t available in China. Its parent company, ByteDance, operates a separate video app there called Douyin.

The influx of Americans on Xiaohongshu provided a rare opportunity for people in the US and China to connect on a shared social media platform. Some users spent hours asking their new overseas pen pals questions about their respective countries and cultures, ranging from what school lunch is like in Wisconsin to what a typical apartment looks like in Chengdu. It now appears that Xiaohongshu is trying to capitalize on those sentiments to promote itself as a positive, global platform.

“The warmth of normal people being kind and curious about one another is the core sentiment there at the moment,” the influencer brief said. “And we think it’s a beautiful thing.”