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Gen Alpha stake their claim on RedNote
In China, the way people use the internet is changing dramatically.
Instead of starting with a search engine like Google (search-and-browse), they are now discovering new sports content, new products, and new ideas directly within their social media feeds. In 2023, daily searches on an app called Xiaohongshu (RedNote) were around 300 million. By Q4 2024, the number had doubled to 600 million.
Authors: Denis Green & Michael Lin
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Just as Gen Alpha is using TikTok and Instagram as search engines in the West, this is being matched in China with RedNote as the primary search engine for Gen Alpha across the region. RedNote is leading this shift by blending social media with content, shopping guides and lifestyle suggestions. RedNote has evolved from a general fashion community into the primary search engine for sports and lifestyle.
Sports fans have benefited from RedNote to help navigate logistics at sports events, discover the best place to take photos, and learn top 10 tips for getting the most out of a day at the tennis.
Crucially, users now trust its authentic, user-generated content for everything from buying event tickets and medical advice to investment strategies, making it the go-to for how-to and where-to queries.
This behavioral revolution is driven by explosive growth, with MAUs surging from 280m in 2024 to 350m in 2025.
The TikTok refugee movement and a professional creator boom were pivotal in accelerating this landscape transformation – athletes like the NBA’s Jalen Williams and, more recently, legends such as David Beckham and Shaquille O’Neal have diversified their audience beyond the initial female-dominated user base.
Global brands have also responded decisively. 2025 was a watershed, with all 30 NBA teams, European football giants like PSG, Manchester United and FC Barcelona, and a who’s who of luxury brands launching official accounts. They recognize that the entire marketing playbook for China is being rewritten around this discovery behavior.
RedNote is no longer a complementary channel but the critical ecosystem for building brand relevance and trust, making an authentic presence on the platform an absolute necessity for survival and growth.
Walk before you run – navigating the ecosystem
RedNote is no longer an option but a prerequisite for brand relevance in China. Its shift from a discovery platform to a primary search and decision-making engine demands a foundational, not experimental, strategy. Success requires a meticulous approach from day one.
To successfully launch your brand in China, start by creating an official account on RedNote to build trust and a direct line to your audience. Next, partner with a mix of influencers: use relatable, everyday creators to generate authentic content and trusted reviews, while also collaborating with bigger celebrities to quickly reach a massive audience.
Most importantly, all your content must feel native and helpful – focus on educating users, solving their problems, or entertaining them, rather than using hard-sell advertising, to seamlessly fit into their digital lives.
From advertising to discoverability engineering
RedNote is weaving AI – from smart search to instant image creation – so deeply into the app that it’s shifting from a place you idly scroll through to a tool you actively use to figure things out. Think of it less like a magazine and more like a savvy friend who helps you decide what to buy, where to travel, or how to style your home.
This turns the old marketing playbook on its head. It’s not just about shouting your message with ads anymore. The game now is about making sure your brand is the one that gets found when someone asks that AI for help.
To win, you need to bake your brand into these new, intelligent conversations. It means understanding the real, often unspoken, questions people have and making sure your content is the natural, helpful answer that the platform serves up.
The imperative of authentic community building
The ascendancy of RedNote signals a profound consumer shift: the demand for peer-driven validation has decisively eclipsed the power of traditional branded messaging. The platform’s culture is inherently engineered to reject overtly commercial content, favoring instead genuine, user-centric storytelling and niche community engagement.
This cultural norm fundamentally rewrites the rules of brand-building, necessitating a strategic pivot from broadcast marketing to community cultivation. Success is no longer measured by reach, but by resonance and relational equity. This requires brands to move beyond mere presence and instead foster genuine, two-way dialogue, empowering a network of creators and everyday users to become organic brand advocates.
The ultimate goal is seamless integration into the platform’s social fabric, where the brand becomes a valued participant in the conversation rather than an interruption. Failure to master this nuanced, community-first approach will result in brand invisibility or, worse, active rejection by a discerning user base.
