News Reporter |
News Editor | Wen Shuqi
Xiaohongshu is officially sprinting into a whole new phase of community growth.
On May 28, Xiaohongshu announced it’s now an official rights-holding broadcaster for the 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada, and Mexico, as well as a top-tier live event strategic partner of China Media Group. Users can watch every match live and on replay for free right on Xiaohongshu. That makes it the only short-video platform with live streaming, rebroadcast, and short-video rights, besides China Media Group and China Mobile’s Migu.
Also this week, during its first-ever creator event, Xiaohongshu rolled out some major community-level strategies, with a big focus on mid-to-long-form video creation.
Whether it’s the World Cup push or the mid-to-long-form video play, it all points to one thing: bigger user numbers and richer content formats. Right now, Xiaohongshu has over 400 million monthly active users and more than 170 million daily active users. According to LatePost, Xiaohongshu is hoping the World Cup live streams will help it chase that 200-million DAU mark.
Snapping up live event rights is a classic growth hack for content platforms — yeah, it costs a ton, but it’s killer for attracting new users and keeping existing ones active. Last time Xiaohongshu shared its user split, male users only made up 30%. So it’s pretty obvious why they went after the World Cup this time.
Palu, head of Xiaohongshu’s community, said landing the World Cup rights is a big milestone in the platform’s sports content push. He said they hope this mega IP will bring in a more diverse crowd. News learned from insiders that Xiaohongshu was actually the first platform to start talking with China Media Group about World Cup rights, and the deal price wasn’t higher than previous years.
From its early days as a shopping guide app to today’s “interest-based community,” Xiaohongshu has been through tons of makeovers. Content-wise, it now covers fashion, knowledge, food, travel, and more — totally shaking off that one-dimensional beauty label. And format-wise, it’s gone from photos-and-text notes to videos and even audio.
But outside its core user base, male users remain a tough nut to crack. Xiaohongshu has tried before — back in 2021 it started building up sports content, bringing in creators from verticals like tech, fashion, sports, and cars. But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. The clash between its core female users and these new groups once made the team pretty cautious.
Becoming the “exclusive” short-video live-streaming platform at this moment shows Xiaohongshu’s renewed determination to pull in fresh users. Since 2021, Xiaohongshu has gotten way more mainstream, with monthly active users climbing steadily. New categories it’s introduced include gaming, entertainment, tech, and more. Platform data shows that football-interested users on Xiaohongshu have surpassed 100 million. In the past year, engagement and discussions around football content grew over 100% year-over-year.
If the World Cup investment is a no-brainer strategy, Xiaohongshu’s push into mid-to-long-form video needs a bit more context — both internal and industry-wide.
At this week’s creator event, Yunfan, head of Xiaohongshu’s community operations, said their goal is to become the world’s best creation community. And looking at the new generation of creators, Xiaohongshu’s insight is that “mid-form video” — anything over two minutes — might be the direction to bet on.
Back in August 2020, founder Qu Fang declared the company’s “second startup,” saying Xiaohongshu wants to become a “more diverse video content community.” Then in 2023, they updated the app to boost the weight of video in the bottom navigation bar. In August 2024, Xiaohongshu once againencouraged creators to post videos, noting that video and live streaming are driving community content growth. Recently, several creators from different fields told News that photo-and-text notes are finding it really hard to get traffic support on Xiaohongshu these days.
And this fresh push for mid-to-long-form video might seem to go against the industry trend of “making everything shorter,” but it actually fits Xiaohongshu’s current vibe pretty well.
This April, user consumption time for videos over two minutes on Xiaohongshu shot up 43% year-over-year. Nearly 100 million users watch mid-to-long-form videos on the platform every day. Xiaohongshu didn’t share specific numbers for short-form video growth, but if we’re being honest, short content isn’t exactly their strongest suit.
In an interview, Baiban, the initiator of Xiaohongshu’s RED New Generation Creator Contest, said they’re not chasing mid-to-long-form video because they’re bad at short-form. It’s because they’ve spotted a shift in user content consumption — Xiaohongshu users tend to be more knowledgeable and have higher aesthetic standards. Besides short clips, they also crave quality content with more information density.
Looking at the whole industry, mid-to-long-form video is also where many platforms are placing their bets. News reported that Douyin has been pushing its Douyin Select feature in recent years, which focuses on mid-to-long-form videos.
More importantly, Xiaohongshu’s top priority right now is growth — so why say no to richer content? Besides the mid-to-long-form video incentive program, Xiaohongshu recently launched three new product capabilities: long-form image posts, podcasts, and 4K video.
Also,following Xiaohongshu’s philosophy that “business should grow out of the community,” once the community expands, monetization will follow. Right now, Xiaohongshu’s revenue streams include product seeding, store visits, super player programs, live streaming, blue links, and shop windows. Xuan Shuang, GM of Xiaohongshu creator marketing and business services, said a new Dandelion video revenue-sharing program is also being tested in a small scale.
Compared to other platforms’ growth and user acquisition pace, Xiaohongshu has been pretty conservative for a long time. But now, at 12 years old with 400 million users, Xiaohongshu is also at the doorstep of an IPO. It urgently needs to prove its community growth and monetization potential.
Right now, Xiaohongshu’s three core business units are community, e-commerce, and commercialization.On April 30 this year, Xiaohongshu sent out an internal letter announcing a new round of organizational upgrades, integrating the three major businesses and the tech system to boost core business operations. It also set up a new AI department called Dots and a corporate intelligence department. Kenan was appointed president, in charge of the company’s core business operations.
