Brands are among the ‘TikTok refugees’ flocking to RedNote
As TikTok barrels toward a U.S. ban, American users, or so-called “TikTok refugees,” are piling into another Chinese short-form video app. Some of those expats include brands.
RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, which means “little red book” in Mandarin, became the most downloaded iPhone app in the U.S. this week because TikTok is days away from being banned in the U.S. (As of Jan. 16, RedNote still holds the top spot.) The influx has spawned a flurry of videos from American users attempting to introduce themselves in Mandarin, the app’s default language. Duolingo, the popular language learning app, said on Jan. 15 in an X post that it has seen a whopping 216% uptick in people learning Chinese compared to the same period a year ago.
Founded in 2013, RedNote is one of China’s most popular social media apps, used by 300 million users per month in the country. Like TikTok, RedNote features short videos. Users can like, share, comment on and save videos. It’s also a shopping platform, which is where brands come into play.
Gabriella Scaringe, founder of the New York City-based underwear brand Cherri, which has more than 700,000 followers on TikTok, was one such brand that joined RedNote earlier this week. In a video posted to TikTok on Jan. 14 with the tongue-in-cheek caption, “So I’m not quite sure the concept of Cherri undies is going to translate well,” Scaringe recorded herself pitching RedNote’s users on her brand in Mandarin. The video has racked up more than 800,000 likes as Scaringe struggles her way through the language barrier, particularly the Mandarin word for “coochie.” A user commented on the video, “I’m Chinese and I was today years old when I learned little sister=coochie.”
She isn’t alone.
Lisa Guerrera, founder of TikTok-viral beauty brand Experiment, signed up for RedNote on Tuesday. Guerrera, who said she had previously never heard of RedNote, said the move was largely driven out of curiosity. Still, she made her account under her brand name, carving out space for Experiment in the future if RedNote turns out to be a legitimate sales venue. As a social media alternative to TikTok, Guerrera said she sees RedNote as a possibility. “The community there’s kind of fun because you can post photos in the comments,” she said. “There’s ripe potential for memes.”
As a sales and advertising channel, however, Guerrera is more skeptical.
“I would have no idea how to formally sell anything on RedNote, and I imagine we’re probably not even capable of doing so, frankly,” she said. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”
Scaringe agrees.
“I decided to join RedNote after encouragement from friends and engaged followers,” she said. “I was trying to follow the trend to see where TikTokers may be navigating, if not the Meta platforms, after the ban.“
But upon joining, she realized that RedNote might not be the platform for her.
“My experience on RedNote hasn’t been great. Besides the language barrier, as most of the app is not translated, it is not a place where I can advertise my business based on the terms and conditions,” she said. That’s because of the nature of her product, which is underwear, as well as her typical video content, which focuses on sex education and body positivity. It’s already difficult to market and sell Cherri’s product on other social platforms, and the strict rules on RedNote make it especially difficult, she said.
As such, RedNote is probably just a cultural blip, at least where brands are concerned, according to Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder of Marketplace Pulse.
“RedNote is a blink of a moment, like a small, knee-jerk reaction thing,” he said. “It’s not going to be the place for TikTok users to go and somehow continue doing their thing.”
Indeed, RedNote, as a foreign-owned app, could very well be subject to the same divest-or-ban law that currently threatens TikTok if it’s deemed to be a threat to national security, according to an unnamed U.S. official cited by CBS News.
The Supreme Court is poised to issue a ruling on the law that would require TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to sell the app by Jan. 19 or face a ban in the U.S. TikTok made its case against the legislation before the Supreme Court last week, but the justices did not seem very sympathetic to TikTok. Legal experts who have spoken to Modern Retail expect the Supreme Court to uphold the law. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to delay the ban next week when he takes office, per Bloomberg.
In the meantime, brands are in limbo.
As a small business owner, Scaringe said TikTok has been Cherri’s biggest sales driver since the brand was founded in 2018. Scaringe said 76% of her website traffic comes from TikTok. “If TikTok gets banned, I project over a 50% revenue loss, and therefore I have concerns that I will not be able to continue my business,” she said.
Throughout 2024, Scaringe said she has been trying to lead her followers to other social media platforms, primarily YouTube and Instagram, in anticipation of a TikTok ban. “It’s been very difficult trying to navigate people off the platform,” she said. “People who like TikTok stay on TikTok.”