How to Successfully Market Healthcare on Xiaohongshu

Today’s consumers are prioritizing health and wellness more than ever. However, busy schedules and budget limitations can make it difficult for people to focus. That’s where Xiaohongshu comes in. This unique platform thrives on a blend of professional and user-generated content, offering inspiration and practical tips for health-conscious individuals.

This guide takes you through Xiaohongshu’s user base, explores trending search terms, and equips healthcare brands with winning strategies to expand their reach. Before delving into specific tactics, let’s establish some key background information.

Why Should You Consider Xiaohongshu to Market Healthcare?

The healthcare industry is experiencing rapid growth. With an increasing number of young people becoming health-conscious, the “health and wellness” topic on Xiaohongshu has attracted 12.8 billion views.

Health concerns surged online in 2023, with searches spiking 128% year-over-year. This trend extended to specific categories, with searches for health supplements growing by 70% and over-the-counter medications increasing by 74%.

This overall health trend has extended from traditional practices to a strong interest in various healthcare products. The platform’s community-focused nature brings strong user engagement, making Xiaohongshu a hub for discussing and cultivating a healthy lifestyle.

Who is Interested in Healthcare on Xiaohongshu?

As detailed in Xiaohongshu’s February Healthcare Industry Report, the profile of a Xiaohongshu user who is interested in healthcare typically includes younger females aged 19 to 30, residing in first and second-tier cities, who are increasingly focused on wellness.

Xiaohongshu identified seven profiles among this demographic in the Xiaohongshu Healthcare Marketing Solution 2024: wellness-minded millennials, health-conscious office workers, fitness enthusiasts, burned-out students, upscale trendy ladies, new moms, and lifestyle wellness practitioners. Let’s explore their attitude, major considerations, and preferences for healthcare products in detail.

Wellness-Minded Office Workers

• User profile: These individuals are highly disciplined. They actively exercise and maintain control over their carbohydrate and sugar intake.

• Attitude towards healthcare products: For them, staying healthy is a lifestyle; consuming supplements is a symbol of active living, though they don’t believe strongly in the effectiveness of these products. They are open to both traditional Chinese tonics and Western health supplements.

• Reasons for consuming health supplements: Influenced by lifestyle and fitness KOLs.

• Key considerations: ingredients, brand reputation, and brand credibility.

• Preferred health products: superfoods, vitamins, and routine wellness maintenance.

Health-Conscious Office Workers

• User profile: These individuals typically work in high-stress industries such as technology, finance, and health. They have irregular routines, long working hours, high stress, and occasionally need to stay up late for overtime work.

• Attitude towards healthcare products: They have a specific purpose in consuming health supplements, hoping to prevent health problems caused by work fatigue. They have clear expectations of the product’s effect and are very focused on the ingredients.

• Reasons for consuming health supplements: They turn to health supplements when feeling worn out or noticeably unwell, or when health issues are spotted during health screenings. They often follow recommendations from colleagues or results online.

• Key considerations: Ingredients, effectiveness, and brand reputation

• Preferred health products: Performance-enhancing products such as liver protection tablets, fish oil, and COQ10, as well as vitamins to boost immunity.

Fitness Enthusiasts

• User profile: They go to the gym at least two to three times a week and are highly conscious of their diet, paying a lot of attention to the proportions of nutrients they consume.

• Attitude towards healthcare products: They believe that consuming supplements can enhance their fitness results, including muscle growth, fat burning, and better recovery from exercise.

• Reasons for consuming health supplements: They are either influenced by fitness KOLs or recommendations from gym instructors and peers.

• Key considerations: The effectiveness of active ingredients and brand credibility.

• Preferred health products: Muscle-building products like protein powder, fat-reduction aids like L-carnitine, and energy boosters like creatine.

Burned-out Students

• User profile: These students struggle with irregular routines and frequently stay up late. They rarely engage in regular exercise or control their diet.

• Attitude towards healthcare products: Although many of them do not have specific health issues, they consume health supplements to reduce the damage caused by poor lifestyle habits, hoping to improve their physical condition.

• Reasons for consuming health supplements: They are influenced by peer recommendations and their own current needs, and are willing to try products if prices are reasonable to see if there are benefits.

• Key considerations: They are price-sensitive and prefer gummy-type supplements.

• Preferred health products: vitamins, melatonin, lutein, and weight loss products.

Luxury Wellness Ladies

• User profile: These ladies are part of a high-income group. They love luxury goods and plastic surgery, and focus on thorough self-care to look flawless from every angle.

• Attitude towards healthcare products: These products are part of their daily beauty routine. They love to invest in self-care and prefer dietary nourishment. Instead of supplements, they tend to favor high-end traditional Chinese tonic products.

• Reasons for consuming health supplements: They are likely to be influenced by trendy products online as well as KOL recommendations.

• Key considerations: High-end quality, brand reputation, and ingredients

• Preferred health products: collagen, peach gum, and vitamins.

New Moms

• User profile: These are typically women who are planning to conceive or are breastfeeding, and they prefer to follow scientific approaches.

• Attitude towards healthcare products: They consider these supplements essential for balancing their body’s needs and providing the necessary nutrients for their babies. They also find such products helpful in addressing postpartum issues like hair loss, which can result from hormonal changes or lifestyle factors.

• Reasons for consuming health supplements: They often rely on recommendations from doctors or experienced parents, but they may also be influenced by other mom KOLs when learning about childcare.

• Key considerations: Safety of ingredients, professional endorsements, and product reputation.

• Preferred health products: They look for products for themselves and their babies. For themselves, they look for nutrients needed during and after pregnancy, such as calcium, iron, and vitamins, as well as supplements for postpartum recovery. For their babies, they look up products containing vitamins, probiotics, calcium, and DHA.

Lifestyle Wellness Practitioners

• User profile: These individuals are financially secure and have plenty of leisure time.

• Attitude towards healthcare products: They believe that supplements are somewhat effective and are open to both traditional Chinese medicines and modern health supplements.

• Reasons for consuming health supplements: They are influenced by recommendations from peers, discoveries on Douyin or Kwai livestreams, or endorsements by KOLs they follow.

• Key considerations: word-of-mouth reputation, ingredients, and effectiveness.

• Preferred health products: vitamins, collagen, and fish oil.

What Are the Top Search Keywords in Healthcare?

According to Xiaohongshu’s search keyword analysis, the top keywords focus on components like vitamins, probiotics, fish oil, calcium, collagen, and lutein, indicating a need for products that align with their specific life stages and professional demands.

Among the popular social platforms in China, users often go to Xiaohongshu and Weibo for product discovery and review reading, Bilibili and Zhihu for a deeper understanding of the ingredients and benefits, and Douyin for price comparison and facilitating the final purchasing decisions. For brands aiming to reach their target audience, consider Xiaohongshu as your first step to cultivating interest.

Best Practice for Health-Related Notes on Xiaohongshu

In this section, we provide practical tips for creating standout notes for brands looking to promote their healthcare products. (“Notes” is a term for posts in the Xiaohongshu community). Instead of emphasizing specific categories as in our other guides, this section introduces tips on the most common note formats.

1. Educational Content: Educational content is the most prevalent type of content in the healthcare sector. Generally, this type of content is presented in video format, featuring industry professionals such as nutritionists or doctors. Such notes begin with an explanation of health symptoms and highlight the importance of everyday health. After, they dive into the underlying causes and logic to offer a clear understanding, followed by recommending products to address these symptoms. It is important to support these recommendations with a detailed explanation of product features to guide the viewers toward informed purchasing decisions.

2. Age & Identity Resonance: Many people experience considerable daily pressure and are concerned about their health. To resonate with these audiences, consider collaborating with KOLs from different social backgrounds to share their personal experiences and worries. Offer solutions, such as supplements or any wellness-related services that align with their identities or life stages. In this way, brands can both increase product visibility and demonstrate a better understanding of user needs, making the content more persuasive and relatable.

3. Seasonal Illness: Each season brings various prevalent diseases, making it helpful to share preventive tips based on the current time of year. These notes can feature KOLs discussing recent infections, such as the flu, and elaborating on why prevention is important. They can offer solutions that align with the audience’s needs; in this way, they not only raise awareness of the disease but also seamlessly introduce products designed for prevention, making it easier for the audience to accept these solutions.

4. Product Reviews: Users often turn to Xiaohongshu to seek reviews when exploring or searching for specific types of products. To capture the attention of your target audience, it would be helpful to identify the product type right in the title. The content copy can emphasize the unique ingredients and benefits in detail, compare and contrast with other products to nurture interest in viewers and guide purchasing decisions.

5. Addressing Pain Points: Highlighting real-life pain points can effectively resonate with users experiencing similar health issues or symptoms, prompting them to click on and continue reading the content. These notes can list out symptoms first, and then recommend products to address specific needs, enhancing relevancy and fostering more user engagement.

Market on Xiaohongshu with Nativex

Businesses must be mindful that the review standards for healthcare products and services on Xiaohongshu are stringent. It is essential to comply with the National Medical Products Administration’s standards as well as relevant platform regulations.

If you are uncertain, have questions, or wish to learn how to market your healthcare products and services compliantly while making your campaigns appealing, reach out to us today. As an official Xiaohongshu Cross-Border Marketing Agency, we specialize in media strategy, creative production, ad campaign management, social media optimization, and influencer marketing. We can provide solutions that resonate with Xiaohongshu’s unique user base, ensuring your campaign has a meaningful impact.

If you’re looking to gain a more comprehensive understanding of Xiaohongshu, don’t miss our guide, ‘What is Xiaohongshu?‘ to learn about this thriving social platform and the opportunities it offers.