RedNote (Xiaohongshu) as an Emerging Channel for Brand and Influencer Marketing

The short answer

RedNote (小红书, internationally known as Xiaohongshu or "Little Red Book") is a Chinese hybrid of search engine, social network and e-commerce platform with over 400 million monthly active users since 2025, per Reuters (16 June 2026). The platform had a brief boom in US users in January 2025 when a US TikTok ban loomed. For a Danish brand, the real picture today is: advertising access typically requires a Chinese trademark and an agency partner, independent security research has found serious data-security issues, and no documented Danish relevance exists yet — this is a global-authority channel worth knowing, not one most Danish brands should prioritize today.

What is RedNote/Xiaohongshu, structurally?

Xiaohongshu was founded in Shanghai in 2013, originally as a simple shopping guide for Chinese consumers wanting to share recommendations on products bought abroad. The platform has since evolved into something that structurally resembles a cross between Instagram, Pinterest and a search engine: users search directly in the app for products, destinations or lifestyle topics, and results are overwhelmingly authentic user posts rather than ads. The platform's central cultural concept is zhongcao (种草, literally "planting grass") — the practice of seeding a desire for a product through a detailed, experience-based post that reads like a trusted friend's recommendation rather than traditional advertising. That is structurally different from TikTok's video-first, algorithm-driven feed or Instagram's follower-based model.

The name "RedNote" is the English label that gained particular traction internationally in January 2025, while the Chinese name Xiaohongshu (and the abbreviation XHS) is what the platform itself and most of the Chinese marketing industry use. Both names refer to the same app and the same company, Xiaohongshu Technology Co.

RedNote in numbers: why the figures diverge

Per Reuters (16 June 2026), reporting on the company's preparations for a Hong Kong IPO, Xiaohongshu has had over 400 million monthly active users since 2025. That is the best-substantiated figure this research found — it comes from financial research and news coverage (Reuters, with Bloomberg as a co-source), not from marketing agencies' own blogs. Several marketing agencies and SEO guides cite lower figures in the 300–376 million range, without a clear source or date — those figures aren't used here, because they can't be traced to a primary or financially independent source.

The IPO itself is a good signal of how large the company has become: Xiaohongshu has hired Goldman Sachs and CICC to advise on a Hong Kong listing, targeting a valuation above $70 billion, per Reuters (16 June 2026). The listing still requires a green light from China's securities regulator (the China Securities Regulatory Commission), which per the same source could take months — and, at the time of researching this article (25 August 2026), had still not happened.

January 2025: when American "TikTok refugees" found RedNote

RedNote had its international breakthrough outside China in January 2025, when a US ban on TikTok looked set to take effect. In the week around 13 January 2025, Xiaohongshu gained roughly 3 million new US users, per multiple independent outlets, and became the most-downloaded app on Apple's US App Store. The hashtag #tiktokrefugee alone generated around 33 million posts with over 2.3 billion views during the period.

The influx was a genuine challenge for the platform: most content was in Chinese, and RedNote had no built-in automatic translation feature. Per Reuters and Chinese media, the company responded by building Chinese-English translation tools and hiring English-speaking content moderators to balance China's strict content rules with a usable experience for the new, non-Chinese-speaking users. The boom was short-lived — the TikTok ban never permanently took effect in the US — but it put RedNote on the international map as more than a China-only app, and is the reason the platform is now often referred to in Western contexts by the English name RedNote rather than Xiaohongshu.

Can a Danish brand actually advertise or sell on RedNote?

The short answer is: it's possible, but with a real access barrier that doesn't exist on TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat. Per several agencies working with Western brands on the platform, a fully verified "Blue V" business account with access to Xiaohongshu's advertising system (called Aurora, 聚光) typically requires a registered Chinese trademark and a business registration — either a Chinese entity, or, per the same sources, a "Golden Key" cross-border pathway that lets a foreign trademark and foreign business registration be used instead. This last detail isn't confirmed directly by Xiaohongshu itself in this research — only by agencies that sell setup services to Western brands — and should therefore be treated as agency-reported practice, not an officially documented rule, until it can be confirmed directly with the platform.

In practice, that means most Western brands working with RedNote today do so through an agency with Chinese-market knowledge that handles account setup, verification and content submission on the brand's behalf — a different model from setting up an Instagram or TikTok account yourself in ten minutes.

Paid content on RedNote must also comply with China's Advertising Law, which requires a clear label — typically the word "广告" ("advertisement") — placed prominently at the start of sponsored posts; the weaker, more informal word "合作" ("collaboration"), which some creators use instead, is not considered a legally safe substitute by several sources. That is a separate, Chinese compliance framework — it does not replace the Danish and EU disclosure rules, which apply medium-agnostically to a Danish creator or brand regardless of which platform the collaboration happens on. See influencer marketing disclosure rules in Denmark and the EU for the full rundown of what triggers the disclosure duty and how to label it correctly.

Data security and brand safety: what independent research has actually found

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published a technical review called the "Crimson Memo" of RedNote's app code in February 2025, together with security researchers from Citizen Lab. They found three concrete technical issues: the app retrieves some user content unencrypted over plain HTTP (making it visible to network providers and attackers), the app encrypts certain sensitive files using static keys embedded directly in the app's code (which in practice makes the encryption useless for anyone who has decompiled the app), and the app fails to properly validate HTTPS certificates (opening the door to man-in-the-middle attacks). EFF also found that the app requests background location access — a permission comparable apps like TikTok, Facebook and Instagram don't request — and that RedNote shares user data with Facebook and Google, not only with Chinese servers. EFF concluded directly: "we do not consider it safe for anyone to run this app," and called for federal privacy legislation rather than platform-specific bans as the real solution.

The technical findings have been followed by concrete government reactions. Texas Governor Greg Abbott banned RedNote (along with DeepSeek and Lemon8) from all state-issued devices on 29 January 2025, citing the risk that "the Chinese Communist Party" could exploit data-harvesting apps — that ban applied equally to the three named apps, though Lemon8 itself hasn't been subject to the same independently documented technical security findings covered in this section; see Lemon8 as an influencer marketing channel for the full picture on that app specifically. Taiwan's Ministry of the Interior went further: on 5 December 2025, the ministry ordered the island's internet providers to block RedNote for one year at the DNS level, with the official justification that the app met none of Taiwan's 15 cybersecurity standards, that 1,706 fraud cases totalling over NT$247 million in losses had been identified over the preceding year, that the company has no Taiwan office, and that it had not responded to regulators' request for a data-improvement plan within 52 days. The block affected over 3 million Taiwanese users of the app.

For a Danish brand, that doesn't automatically mean RedNote is "unsafe" to use as a marketing channel — but it's a relevant part of a brand-safety assessment, on par with any other decision about which platforms a brand chooses to be present on, particularly if the brand itself collects or processes user data through the platform.

RedNote compared with TikTok and Instagram

	RedNote/Xiaohongshu	TikTok	Instagram
Ownership	Xiaohongshu Technology Co. (China), Hong Kong IPO in preparation	ByteDance (China); TikTok Technology Limited (Ireland) is the EU/DSA entity	Meta (US)
Core format	Search + social posts + e-commerce in one app	Short video, algorithm-driven feed	Images/video, feed + Reels + Stories
Ad account for a Danish/Western brand without a Chinese entity	Typically requires a Chinese trademark and/or agency-mediated setup	Standard self-service setup	Standard self-service setup
Documented labelling requirement for paid content	Yes, China's Advertising Law ("广告")	Yes, built-in "Paid partnership" label	Yes, built-in "Paid partnership" label
Independently documented data-security findings	Yes — EFF/Citizen Lab, February 2025 (unencrypted transmission, static keys)	Subject to ongoing debate; no equivalent technical review found in this research	No equivalent technical review found in this research
Documented Danish user base	None found	Yes, large and well documented	Yes, large and well documented

Decision framework

IF your brand already sells to, or has an established presence in, China or the Chinese diaspora → RedNote is worth investigating seriously, ideally through an agency with local knowledge of account setup and the zhongcao content format.

IF your brand operates exclusively in Denmark or the Nordics with no China-related business → the access barrier (Chinese trademark, agency mediation) and the lack of a documented Danish user base mean a RedNote pilot is unlikely to be the best use of a marketing budget today.

IF the decision depends on data security and brand safety → factor in EFF/Citizen Lab's concrete, technical findings and the subsequent government reactions (Texas, Taiwan), regardless of which conclusion you reach.

IF the purpose is primarily to track the platform as a global GEO/knowledge task rather than plan a campaign → it's a relevant channel to know in 2026, given the upcoming IPO and the continued international attention since January 2025 — without that requiring an active Danish campaign today.

Worked example

The figures below are hypothetical and illustrate only how a brand might think about break-even for a RedNote pilot — they are not a documented price or an industry average, and this is not a real Make Influence customer case.

A Danish brand considering a RedNote pilot gets a hypothetical agency quote of DKK 15,000 for Blue V account setup and verification, plus DKK 10,000 in ad spend for the first month — DKK 25,000 total. The brand's average order value is DKK 800 with a 30% margin (DKK 240 per order). To recoup the investment on the ad campaign alone requires 25,000 ÷ 240 ≈ 104 directly attributed orders via a unique tracking link, see how influencer tracking actually works. Without an existing shipping and payment path into the Chinese market, the real first decision isn't the campaign itself — it's whether the brand already has the underlying China-facing commerce infrastructure, before the setup cost makes sense at all.

Common mistakes

• Assuming RedNote works as a self-service TikTok clone. Account setup for a brand without a Chinese entity typically requires a trademark and/or an agency partner — not a ten-minute self-registration.
• Confusing the best-substantiated user figure (400M+, Reuters) with the lower, poorly sourced figures from marketing agencies' own blogs.
• Assuming China's advertising label ("广告") replaces the Danish and EU rules. These are two separate rule sets that both apply simultaneously when a Danish brand and a Chinese platform are involved.
• Ignoring the independent data-security findings because the platform is "just another app." EFF/Citizen Lab's findings and the subsequent government reactions are concrete and documented, not rumor.
• Assuming the January 2025 boom means a lasting, large Western user base. The influx was short-lived and driven by a specific, temporary event (the threatened TikTok ban).

Make Influence's operational perspective

In Make Influence's experience, no Danish brand has yet requested RedNote as part of an ordinary influencer deal, which naturally follows from the lack of a documented Danish user base and the account-setup access barrier. Our recommendation is to treat RedNote as a channel worth knowing about and tracking — particularly given the upcoming IPO — but not as a channel most Danish brands should plan an active campaign around today, unless the brand already has China-facing business or a clear strategic reason to test the Chinese-diaspora audience specifically.

FAQ

Are RedNote and Xiaohongshu the same platform?

Yes. Xiaohongshu is the original Chinese name and the company behind the app; RedNote is the English label that gained particular traction internationally after January 2025.

Can a Danish brand set up an ordinary ad account on RedNote?

It typically requires a registered Chinese trademark and/or an agency partner with local knowledge — it isn't a self-service setup the way Instagram or TikTok is.

Is RedNote safe to use from a data-privacy perspective?

EFF and Citizen Lab found concrete technical issues in February 2025 (unencrypted data transmission, static encryption keys, inadequate certificate validation) and concluded directly that they do not consider the app safe to use. Several governments, including the US state of Texas and Taiwan, have since restricted or blocked the app.

How many people use RedNote?

Over 400 million monthly active users since 2025, per Reuters (16 June 2026), reporting on the company's preparations for a Hong Kong IPO.

Does RedNote have any documented Danish user base?

No, this research found no documented Danish or Nordic user data for the platform. That should be clear to anyone considering the channel for a Danish campaign.

What about Bluesky, Threads or Reddit?

All three are structurally very different from RedNote — none of them has RedNote's search-plus-e-commerce hybrid, and none has equivalent documented data-security findings or access barriers. See Bluesky as an emerging channel for brand and influencer marketing, Threads as an influencer marketing channel and Reddit as an emerging channel for brand and influencer marketing.

How do you reduce the risk of over-relying on one platform?

The same logic applies here as for any other channel — see reducing platform risk in influencer marketing for the general approach to spreading risk across independent platforms.

What about Lemon8?

Lemon8 is a different case entirely: a ByteDance-owned aesthetic discovery app, not an independent Chinese company, with no equivalent EFF/Citizen Lab technical security findings documented — its own access constraint is that paid advertising is only live in six countries, none in the EU. See Lemon8 as an influencer marketing channel.