Chinese apps devour Xiaohongshu’s double waterfall methodology - PingWest
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Chinese apps devour Xiaohongshu’s double waterfall methodology
Chinese apps devour Xiaohongshu’s double waterfall methodology
posted on April 27, 2023 8:11 amEditor : Wang Boyuan
More Chinese apps adopt Xiaohongshu UI or simply clone it to foster a social media marketing sensibility.
In the fiercely competitive world of social media apps, the fight for the top design is never ending. With the market already saturated with key players, new entrants face a daunting challenge as the stakes are higher than ever.
In recent years, Xiaohongshu has become one of the most popular platforms in China. The app's popularity can be attributed to many factors, including its user-friendly interface, engaging UGC (user-generated-content) ecosystem, and integrated shopping experience.
Xiaohongshu owes much of its success to its ingenious double waterfall design, which has even been replicated by prominent shopping apps like Taobao, Xianyu, and Jingdong. The "double waterfall flow" refers to a striking layout that showcases content blocks in each column flowing downward like a waterfall.
In simpler terms, the design of the Xiaohongshu-inspired app captures the attention of users and competitors alike, thanks to its unique “zhongcao” (种草) or “planting grass” feature. This refers to the phenomenon where users form an interest in products and services not through traditional advertisements but through the organic sharing of lifestyle content.
This quality holds great potential for e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and social apps with e-commerce features like Douyin, particularly in the midst of steady growth in the e-commerce industry. In 2021, the added value of the digital economy accounted for nearly 40 percent of China’s GDP, and according to Statista, China's e-commerce market size is projected to reach 20.2 trillion yuan ($3.1 trillion) by 2024.
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, where users are easily distracted, the double waterfall design has emerged as a winning formula for Xiaohongshu, and other apps have taken notice. One such instance is Lemon8, a social app launched globally by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, which has deployed the same design with great success. According to Apptopia, Lemon8, formally known as Sharee, has been downloaded a remarkable 17 million times worldwide since its launch, with Japan accounting for the largest percentage at 36.5% of the total. The app has also gained a significant following in Southeast Asia and the U.S., which may have emboldened ByteDance to implement a similar strategy in the Chinese market.
The social media giant is now poised to emulate Lemon8’s success to China with a new app called Youshi (有柿). The app has been adapted from ByteDance’s “Toutiao Search” (头条搜索), a news and knowledge platform. Youshi, which is currently available only on Android and not yet on iOS, boasts a double waterfall layout and emphasizes user-generated content. The app has been officially described as a community sharing platform designed to “help users discover more authentic and useful experiences, offering an enhanced product experience that includes food recipes, life experiences, practical skills, and other real-life content.”
ByteDance has been experimenting with community-based apps for some time now. Prior to Youshi, the company had launched an app called “Kesong” (可颂), meaning croissant, which is no longer operational but was seen as benchmarked against Xiaohongshu, given their similarity.
The company’s ambitions for a UGC community platform can be traced back to the Toutiao Life Conference in December last year. At the event, Zhang Chao, the new head of Toutiao, stated that in 2023, Toutiao will increase the display volume of high-quality graphic and text content by 200 billion on the existing basis. "In terms of high-density and long-lasting information precipitation, graphics and text still have advantages."
Following the underwhelming response to Kesong, which pulls content from Douyin, the TikTok sister app with over 600 million daily active users (DAU), ByteDance has now set its sights on Youshi. Youshi is the company’s latest attempt to combine advanced recommendation algorithms with the coveted "zhongcao" ecosystem. Although the overseas success of Lemon8 has helped to restore confidence in the company, it remains to be seen whether Youshi can effectively combine the "zhongcao" phenomenon with e-commerce to achieve the desired impact. Only time will tell.
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