Chances are you’ve heard of RedNote. Maybe a colleague swears by it for travel tips. Open it and it looks familiar: A feed of photos and short videos, a bit like Instagram. But it isn’t the same, and that difference is exactly why brands in Australia and New Zealand should get started, and why many start in the wrong place.

Search RedNote for ‘Sydney’ and you’ll find five-day itineraries, CBD shopping maps and brutally honest “go here, skip that” lists, many saved thousands of times.

So, what makes RedNote different?

RedNote (Xiaohongshu) has all the likes, follows and endless scrolling of social media, but people use it like a search engine. People post ‘notes’: Honest reviews, practical guides and itineraries planned down to the coffee stop. Everyone else searches, saves and grills them before spending a cent.

If WeChat is for chatting with people you know and Weibo is for catching the news, RedNote is for deciding. Still fuzzy? Let’s take it to the pub, where the best explanations happen.

If social platforms were people at the pub, Facebook is the old mate you keep catching up with, even though neither of you remembers why. Instagram is the stylish friend whose weekend always looks better than yours. TikTok is the funny stranger who keeps ordering another round. RedNote is the friend you ask before spending money: Honest advice, real photos, receipts included.

Why should brands here care?

Because it’s not just a Mainland China platform. RedNote has become a go-to for Chinese-speaking communities in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, and for the ones living right here.

In Australia, more than 730,000 residents were born in Mainland China, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Tourism Research Australia’s latest China profile adds: “China was Australia’s 2nd largest inbound market. In 2025 China saw a 17 per cent year-on-year increase in visitation, and a 39 per cent increase in spend in Australia.” That’s A$11.2 billion. And 24 per cent of Chinese visitors come for education, against 7 per cent across all markets. They’re staying for a degree, which means years of rent, groceries, phone plans and weekend trips.

Same story in New Zealand. Tourism New Zealand’s work with RedNote generated more than 500 million impressions and a 127 per cent jump in searches for New Zealand travel guides.

It’s not Instagram with Chinese captions

On Meta and TikTok, comments are sparse, ads are polished, and every journey ends with a tidy ‘Shop now’ button. RedNote users ask questions in the comments, slide into your DMs and trust content that looks real over content that looks expensive. It’s where people decide, not necessarily where they check out.

So the job shifts from announcing to answering. Instagram says, “Our new collection has arrived.” RedNote asks, “Okay, but what size should I actually order?”

Getting started: Think like a search engine

Because people search RedNote the way they search Google, start with questions, not campaigns. Map every way people search your category, nail the big questions, answer the ones competitors missed, and get in early on rising terms.

Paid media flips too, like an inverted funnel: find the notes people already save and talk about, then put money behind what’s proven.

What it looks like in real life

At Prizm, our team runs RedNote programs for brands across Australia and New Zealand. Two recent examples:

For BridgeClimb Sydney, we stopped thinking like an advertiser and started thinking like a traveller, with content on hidden ways to experience the bridge, creator climbs and a Q&A series on Mandarin sessions, routes and family options.

What came back were genuine, lead-generating conversations. Under one creator’s climb video, users asked whether photos were included, how photo pricing worked, whether to book a Chinese or English session and how much it cost. The creator answered each one and pointed people to BridgeClimb’s official account. That’s people with their wallets out.

For JD Sports in Australia and New Zealand, local creators brought the brand to the RedNote community over Lunar New Year, with an exclusive code linking content to online and in-store sales. The biggest lesson? Creator tiers look different here. A ‘mega’ creator in Australia might have 50,000 to 200,000 followers. In China, that barely gets you into the mid tier.

The short version

Three shifts: From broadcast to search, from selling to solving, and from reach to trust.

RedNote was made in China, but it’s proving surprisingly handy wherever Chinese-speaking customers live, study and travel. Be the brand with the helpful answer today, and you’ll be the one they trust tomorrow.

About the author: Jeffrey Hau is CEO of Prizm Group, a digital marketing agency specialising in RedNote, CRM and digital marketing strategy, operating across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.

• Learn more at prizmdigital.com.au.