RedNote searches spike 99X+ in 3 months but TikTok is back in the US already

Searches for the Chinese social media app RedNote have shot up 99X+ in the last 3 months.

The surge in interest came in response to a TikTok ban in the US. 

TikTok briefly "went dark" on Saturday, January 18, but service was being resumed within 24 hours. That came amid assurances from incoming president Donald Trump.

Even so, RedNote has seen greatly elevated global interest, particularly among American users. The Chinese app, known natively as Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), has over 300 million monthly active users.

Much like TikTok, RedNote allows users to post short-form video, and it also supports text and image-based posts. It moved to the top of the free download charts in the Apple Store in the US.

Exploding Topics data shows that RedNote searches skyrocketed in the past 3 months, as the TikTok ban moved closer to becoming a reality. In the space of three months, searches are up 99X+, with monthly search volume now in the region of 550,000.

Semrush is tracking search volume for the "RedNote" brand.

“RedNote” searches are up 99X+ in 3 months, from little over 1K per week to around 128K.

Initially, TikTok was given a deadline to sell or shut down in the US by January 19, amid concerns over links to the Chinese government. The Supreme Court heard arguments against the ban, and upheld it — but president Trump has signalled his intention to delay implementation of the law while he works on a “political solution”.

What is RedNote?

RedNote is a Chinese social media platform. It's an alternative to TikTok (or Douyin, as the native version is known).

It has been described as a cross between TikTok and Instagram. There have also been comparisons to Pinterest, X and even Tripadvisor.

An image from the Play Store shows the RedNote interface.

Much like TikTok, it has evolved far beyond its original vision. The app was initially named “Hong Kong Shopping Guide”, designed to serve recommendations to domestic Chinese tourists visiting the region.

Since then, RedNote has become a destination to trade lifestyle tips and short videos. It is particularly popular among young women, with beauty, fashion, food and travel among the most-discussed topics on the app.

Major tags on posts (translated) include “new mom”, “skin protection party”, “house lover enthusiasts”, and “makeup lover party”. The “makeup sharing” tag has been used in almost 1 billion posts.

Beauty and skincare posts are popular on RedNote.

Unlike TikTok, RedNote is not split into Chinese and global versions. RedNote and Xiaohongshu are different names for the same app, with one unified user base.

How many people use RedNote?

Per the most recent estimate, approximately 300 million people use RedNote. That figure is now likely to be even higher.

The bulk of users are from China. The app has approximately doubled its domestic user base since December 2020.

As of September 2024, RedNote (Xiaohongshu) had 218.11 million monthly active users in China.

More than 3 million US users have signed up amid the threat of the ban on TikTok.

“TikTok refugees” has become a trending topic on RedNote. A live chat with that title recently attracted more than 50,000 users from both the US and China.

In December 2024, Semrush traffic data showed that users spent an average of 17 minutes and 45 seconds per visit on RedNote, accessing an average of 7.71 pages.

RedNote users by age

RedNote, much like TikTok, is favored by younger users. Just 8.2% of users are aged 45 or older.

The biggest age group on the app is 18-24. This slice of Gen Z makes up 39.21% of all RedNote users.

RedNote is also popular with Millennials. 38.65% of users are aged between 25 and 34, and 13.92% are aged 35-44.

RedNote users by gender

In China, RedNote is heavily favored by women. At one stage, the user base was 90% female.

As of last year, 79.1% of all users were women.

It will be interesting to see how the influx of US users affects this balance. The TikTok user base skews in the other direction, where 54.8% of users are men.

Who owns RedNote?

Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao founded RedNote in 2013. Qu is its current president, and Mao is the CEO.

According to Forbes, Qu and Mao each own an estimated 10% of RedNote.

RedNote has numerous external investors. They include Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent.

Questions have been asked about national security in the US. The Chinese government has previously taken “golden shares” in subsidiaries of both Alibaba and Tencent, although neither company is state-owned. Likewise, there is no indication of any state involvement in RedNote.

However, there is no doubt that RedNote has been aimed at a primarily Chinese audience up to now. Most of the content is in Mandarin — the language has even seen a noticeable search spike following the influx of US users on the app.

“Mandarin” searches are up by 47% in the last 3 months, spiking to a 15-year high.

The most recent funding round valued RedNote at $17 billion. Revenue in the first quarter of last year topped $1 billion, representing a profit of more than $200 million.

Social commerce on RedNote

According to Reuters, the prevalence of aspirational, luxury-focused posts on RedNote has made it fertile ground for social commerce, where users make purchases directly from the app.

(That’s also been a significant trend on TikTok, where over $1 billion of monthly revenue could be wiped out by a US ban.)

“TikTok Shop” searches are up by 79% in the last 2 years.

Companies like L'Oréal have set up stores on RedNote, and over 170,000 brands have a presence of some sort on the platform. One estimate suggests global gross merchandise value on the social app will exceed $100 billion in 2025.

Hangzhou Onechance Tech Corp, a Chinese e-commerce services provider, has seen its stock soar amid the surge in popularity of RedNote in the US.

Why did TikTok get banned?

There is more than a hint of irony in the fact that the TikTok ban is pushing users toward RedNote. The US sought the ban in the first place over fears about Chinese involvement.

Indeed, it seems likely that the surge in RedNote interest is at least partly a kind of protest against the ban, with US users deliberately seeking out another Chinese platform.

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which has consistently denied links to the Chinese government. It has also argued that closing down the app would affect the free speech rights of its US users, a point supported by numerous content creators.

The bill requiring ByteDance to sell by January 19 was signed into law by Joe Biden last April. Congress included the condition as part of wide-ranging legislation that determined foreign aid packages for Ukraine and Israel.

“TikTok ban” search interest has spiked as the deadline has drawn nearer.

Will TikTok get banned again?

US TikTok users did see service to the app cut off for a matter of hours. It had been speculated that the ban would only initially impact the availability of TikTok on the App Store and Google Play, but ByteDance shut it down entirely.

However, service was restored very quickly, with the app displaying a message that thanked Trump by name. Despite initially supporting a ban, he has indicated his intention to keep TikTok operational in the US.

It is not entirely clear how the president will block the implementation of a law that has been passed by Congress and backed 9-0 by the Supreme Court. But his assurances have convinced ByteDance to make the app available in the US again.

Even so, with the law now technically operational, another TikTok ban cannot be completely ruled out. If Trump's "political solution" drags on, pressure may increase to enforce the ban.

How popular is TikTok in the US?

A potential TikTok ban in the US is highly significant. The social video app has risen to rival Instagram in terms of popularity.

TikTok currently has over 1.5 billion users. The US accounts for more than 400 million monthly visits.

There are 137.9 million American accounts on TikTok. That’s slightly less than Instagram (165.75m), but still equates to more than half of the US adult population — although not every individual account is necessarily a unique user.

And TikTok users are highly engaged when compared to social media users more generally.

Active Instagram users in the US average 11 hours and 55 minutes on the platform per month. Active TikTok users average 41 hours and 42 minutes.

Americans are way above the worldwide average when it comes to spending time on the TikTok app.

It’s the same story, albeit less stark, when it comes to monthly app sessions. TikTok users in the US average 238.1 monthly sessions, compared to 202.1 average monthly sessions for Instagram users.

And while the Asian market is still more mature when it comes to social commerce, TikTok Shop sales in the US reached $100 million on Black Friday alone last year, up 179% year over year.

There’s no denying that a US ban on TikTok would be highly significant, both culturally and economically.

Bluesky, Pixelfed and other “alternative” social platforms

A nationwide ban on a major app like TikTok would be unprecedented. But this is not the first time that US users have found themselves looking to alternative social platforms.

Pixelfed is a decentralized alternative to Instagram. The social network runs on independently run servers, rather than a centralized server owned by a specific entity, and its code is open-sourced.

There has been a recent spike in “Pixelfed” search interest.

In terms of features, Pixelfed operates a lot like Instagram. So much so, in fact, that Meta (owners of Facebook and Instagram) have started blocking links to it.

Meanwhile, there has been something of an exodus from X (formerly Twitter) since Elon Musk took over the platform.

In the year leading up to September 2024, the number of daily active X users in the US fell by around 20%. In the UK, that figure was close to 33%.

Bluesky has proved a highly popular alternative. Like Pixelfed, it is decentralized.

“Bluesky” searches are up 2800% in the last 5 years.

It was founded by Jack Dorsey, a Twitter co-founder. It began life as an internal Twitter project before being spun off, and operates similarly to the pre-Musk version of the platform.

Bluesky now boasts over 25 million users. A new user joins every 2 seconds. And Bluesky is due to get its own photo sharing app, Flashes, which could provide an Instagram alternative.

In January 2025, Bluesky launched its own video feed feature.

Is RedNote the new TikTok?

US social browsing habits clearly can and do change. And a TikTok ban would be a pretty significant catalyst.

Even so, all things considered, I think RedNote is unlikely to capture vast swathes of the US TikTok user base in the long term. But it’s fascinating to see users migrating to the platform amid the threat of a ban.

At the moment, the app is still geared firmly toward a Chinese audience. It will need to adapt quickly if it wants to attract and retain “TikTok refugees” from the US.

RedNote is also not a completely obvious alternative to TikTok in terms of functionality. There are definite similarities, especially when it comes to elements like the integration of social commerce, but the platform was more frequently being compared to Instagram until very recently.

Bluesky looks and functions almost exactly like X. Pixelfed is highly familiar to Instagram users. But RedNote is not trying to “replace” TikTok in the same fashion, so users looking for a direct alternative might be disappointed.

Finally, and most crucially, TikTok’s fate in the US is far from sealed. The app appears to have some more time to find a resolution under a sympathetic Trump administration.

But the TikTok ban has cast a spotlight on RedNote, which was already a major player on the Chinese social scene in its own right. It will likely continue to grow, perhaps even with an increased US and global user base.

Whatever happens with TikTok in the US, RedNote is certainly a platform worth keeping an eye on in the coming years.