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source | bohu finance (bohufn)

author | ning chengque

since crossing over from the talk show industry to live streaming, li dan unexpectedly became the "no. 1 live streamer" on xiaohongshu, and his live streaming room often ranks first on the buyer's list.

in a recent live broadcast, he invited talk show colleagues such as xu zhisheng and hu lan to participate, attracting nearly 900,000 viewers. the peak number of viewers reached 37,000, which significantly exceeded the peak number of 19,300 in the last live broadcast of "no. 1 sister of xiaohongshu" dong jie.

unlike traditional anchors who are eloquent and passionate, li dan's live broadcast style is unique. he sits in front of a simple background, shares readers' letters in a leisurely manner, and comments on various interesting things. even so casually, the number of viewers in his live broadcast room is still rising steadily, and some people jokingly call him "winning by lying down."

xiaohongshu is not li dan's first live broadcast. in 2022, li dan switched from douyin to taobao, and his first broadcast achieved a record of over 32 million viewers. however, li dan's debut was the peak, and he lacked a stable output afterwards.

at a time when the growth rate of live streaming e-commerce is slowing down, why can li dan stand out in the live streaming on xiaohongshu?

01 why did li dan become so popular on xiaohongshu?

rather than saying that li dan is a sales anchor, it is better to say that he is an emotional anchor. the audience comes to his live broadcast room, mostly to listen to stories or talk shows.

when faced with audience submissions about emotional issues, li dan always responds in a humorous and sincere way. for example, someone asked, "i used the cold and violent method on my partner, and now i feel bored and want to get back together. what does this mean for me?" li dan replied, "it's his bad luck."

a contributor asked: "what should i do if i always like ugly men?" li dan laughed: "don't ask me, i have a vested interest." such interaction makes the audience feel very close, and they even regard him as an "electronic male best friend" or "electronic spiritual boyfriend."

li dan's success is largely due to his accurate grasp of the preferences of xiaohongshu users. as a platform with a majority of female users, xiaohongshu users are more inclined to pay for content and emotional value.

li dan has successfully created his own "electronic bestie" persona with his sincerity and understanding of women's hearts. coupled with his unique personal charm and experience as a talk show actor, he has become a "natural live broadcast saint". his sad and funny dan-style philosophy has brought comfort to countless audiences.

in addition to the live broadcast content itself, li dan also cleverly used sliced ​​communication. sliced ​​accounts named with keywords such as "dan zong", "shop", and "shop story" have emerged one after another, which not only spread his live broadcast content, but also brought him more traffic and purchasing power.

looking at the previously popular anchors on xiaohongshu, such as dong jie, zhang xiaohui, and wu xin, it is not difficult to find that they all have their own distinctive personalities or labels. dong jie is "relaxed", zhang xiaohui is a "senior buyer", wu xin is a "common girl", and li dan is a "electronic male bestie" and "love mentor".

instead of selling products in a hoarse, oppressive, or marathon-like manner, they prefer to share their life experiences and convey a real lifestyle in a leisurely manner. this style is highly consistent with the aesthetics and needs of xiaohongshu users, and is also the key to their standing out on xiaohongshu.

xiaohongshu's e-commerce model is defined as "lifestyle e-commerce", and people who understand lifestyle and have supply chains are called "managers". on this platform, anchors have won the love and trust of users by creating high-quality content and cleverly combining it with products in the highly interactive form of live broadcasting.

xiaohongshu has always been known for its high quality and high aesthetics, and the average customer unit price of anchors who sell goods is also relatively high. take dong jie, wu xin, song yanfei, etc. as examples. the products they sell are mainly designer brand clothing and bags, with an average customer unit price of 300-400 yuan. although li dan's live broadcast room mainly sells snacks and drinks, the overall customer unit price is also around 80 yuan, which is much higher than other platforms.

xiaohongshu’s community atmosphere catalyzes a completely different e-commerce environment.

02 e-commerce path for community products

recently, xiaohongshu held a creator event - "300 familiar creators annual meeting", which was the first time the platform held a creator open day event five years ago.

during the event, xiaohongshu officially awarded 16 awards to outstanding creators of the past year for the first time, including "aesthetic frontier familiar" and "love is more than heaven familiar", covering multiple vertical fields such as fashion and beauty, home, travel, life records, photography, games, and art. well-known bloggers such as @葵灵感世界 and @jin小菌 won the awards.

at the scene, xiaohongshu also released the "2024 xiaohongshu creator trend report", which included a set of data. in the list of "300 familiar people", more than 90% of the creators' video notes accounted for more than 30%.

it is worth mentioning that these 300 people are not the leaders in their respective fields like the top 100, and the number of fans of some creators does not even reach 100,000.

at the same time, xiaohongshu also proposed the concept of "individual video creators", emphasizing that whether or not they are professional creators, as long as they sincerely show their lifestyle and attitude towards life, they can become creators of xiaohongshu, and encourage individual creators to create content through videos and live broadcasts.

the frequent appearance of the keywords "video", "live broadcast" and "vertical category" demonstrates xiaohongshu's strategic ambition: if high-quality graphic creation and sunny traffic distribution logic have led to xiaohongshu's unique grass-planting logic, then enriching video and live broadcast content is expected to expand xiaohongshu's e-commerce plate from the bottom up.

first, xiaohongshu e-commerce has always faced the problem of scale. although well-known anchors such as li dan and dong jie have emerged under the platform's tone, their sales are still far behind those of the platform's big anchors, and are even lower than li dan's previous sales performance on taobao and douyin.

in terms of product categories, xiaohongshu also has limitations. it currently focuses on high-end, differentiated or lifestyle products, while daily necessities and food that emphasize cost-effectiveness are not suitable. although niche businesses have their own unique charm, they are difficult to support the long-term development of e-commerce.

xiaohongshu has also made a lot of efforts. for example, last year, merchants with low customer orders below 100 yuan were not encouraged to open stores by xiaohongshu, but this year it has begun to welcome products with a unit price of less than 80 yuan to be listed.

the sustainability of content creation is another key issue. it is not easy to continuously create interesting or valuable video content, especially for hosts who can tell good lifestyle stories, but may not necessarily be good at live broadcasting stories and private domain business. by encouraging the creation of video and live broadcast content, it is conducive to cultivating the e-commerce ecosystem without changing the tone of the community.

secondly, both taobao and jd.com have tried to solve the dilemma of content e-commerce by introducing big anchors. in terms of corporate development and strategic planning, xiaohongshu is also facing the problem of strategic vacillation.

the commercialization process of xiaohongshu has been full of twists and turns. even in the field of lifestyle e-commerce, it was only after the success of dong jie that the company realized the problem and made positive adjustments. in the past six months, xiaohongshu has made several large-scale organizational adjustments, including layoffs, recruitment freezes, and structural reorganizations. these changes not only reflect the huge pressure faced by the company, but also highlight its difficulties in finding new growth points.

but even so, xiaohongshu does not intend to use the proven path to do e-commerce. according to the report of "mirror observation platform", xiaohongshu's management relies more on intuition rather than data to make decisions. to put it bluntly, xiaohongshu's unique ecology is not calculated by algorithms, but grows naturally in the soil of the community. this is the vitality of xiaohongshu, and it is also the reason why li dan can be at ease in xiaohongshu.

however, live streaming e-commerce has also entered a deceleration zone. whether it is the cultivation of the video ecosystem or the commercialization process, xiaohongshu has to make a choice that cannot be slow but cannot be fast either. this obviously poses a new challenge to xiaohongshu e-commerce.

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