Application of In-Feed Advertisements on Social Media - Taking RED as an Example

1. Introduction

In the context of the rapid development of big data computing, its optimal application in product promotion has become a key focus for major brands. Therefore, in-feed advertising was born. The combination of digital media platforms and in-feed advertising has gradually become a new type of promotion method. Unlike Instagram or Twitter, which can only share life experiences, and unlike Amazon or eBay, which can only sell products, RED stands out. It is not only a social media platform, but also provides e-commerce services, which greatly increases the entertaining features of RED. Meanwhile, RED is the largest platform for sharing lifestyle content among young people in China, and has now developed into an important platform to support new consumption and brands. Many articles focus on big data policies and applications such as transportation, healthcare, or food [1]. At the same time, many scholars have discussed the marketing strategies of social platforms such as Instagram or Twitter regarding their impact on their lives in the field of new media. When it comes to operational methods, many articles have studied the operation and marketing methods of social media, and some have studied the marketing methods of RED, but there is no mention of in-feed advertisement. Therefore, this article studies the impact of in-feed advertisement on RED. The article analyzes the application of in-feed advertisement in RED, which the usage of basic orientation and behavioral orientation to target users and disseminate products precisely. Besides, search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and the process of dissemination traffic on RED are recorded, helping brands in promotion.

2. The Concept of In-Feed Advertisement

In-feed advertisement refers to the personalized push of a large amount of user information collected and analyzed by various platforms and the backend searches for similar user characteristics and preferences based on calculations [2]. It mainly achieves marketing goals by inserting advertising content when users browse social media and read information. Compared to traditional banner advertisements and pop-up advertisements, in-feed advertisements focus more on the user's reading experience and enhance their interest. The feed embedded in social media is its main form [3].

2.1. Basic Orientation

Basic orientation refers to targeting based on the basic attributes of the audience, usually targeting a more targeted audience, suitable for brand penetration, product awareness, etc. There are 4 categories: regional orientation, age orientation, gender orientation, and device orientation. Regional orientation represents the precise positioning of products and services by enterprises based on population structure, consumption habits, and consumption ability in different regions, and the development of marketing strategies targeting their target markets. Location Based Services (LBS) is a basic service that provides information to devices by using mobile Internet and location services. In general, social media platforms use LBS to locate users and prioritize nearby posts to help businesses directly reach potential customers and improve promotion effectiveness. At present, the location, offline movement trajectory, and network behavior are the ways in which programmatic purchasing platforms locate users [4]. Age and gender orientation are preliminary advertising recommendations based on the characteristics and preferences of users' age groups and genders, respectively. Device orientation stands for the precise advertising placement based on the target audience of the device, such as different prices and functions. Table 1 below displays four types of basic orientation.

Table 1: Four types of basic orientation.

2.2. Behavioral Orientation

Behavioral orientation refers to the use of big data to target user behavior, which is more precise and suitable for product sales. Behavioral orientation can usually be divided into the following three categories, search, interactive and turn-back orientation respectively.

Search orientation refers to the use of keywords searched by users and intent tags for targeting, more accurate visitors are captured. For example, Google and Baidu are typical search engines where people usually use them to hunt for basic knowledge they do not understand. Interactive orientation, one of the orientations, targets specific groups of people through user interactions such as likes, shares, and comments on social media platforms. For instance, Wuling Hongguang Mini became popular due to the makeover made by the RED blogger, with 1.35 million views and 28000 favorites and likes [5]. Therefore, these people who like and bookmark will become the target of the next related car product advertising promotion. Turn back orientation is a targeted advertising strategy that involves following the blogger's channel.

3. The Marketing Strategies of RED

RED is a social platform for contemporary young people to share information including recommended items, travel guides, and beauty and fashion. It is also a very useful community e-commerce platform that can help consumers find their desired products through blogger recommendations. By 2024, RED already has over 80 million users and monthly active users (MAU) exceeding 300 million. The first and second tier cities account for 50% of the total users [6].

3.1. Long Term Traffic Push

For those businesses that want to promote their products in the long term, RED would be a good choice. The following chart shows the compares the likes of RED and article views of WeChat. It can be concluded that WeChat content only received significant traffic on the day of its release, and the promotion almost ended on the seventh day. In contrast, for RED, there is second traffic wave after a week and more exposure in second and third week. Even after one month, RED still receives traffic from 5 to 150 units of traffic [6].

3.2. Search Methods and Search Engine Optimization Suggestions

RED is a social platform with a high proportion of searches. There are two main ways for users RED obtain information: passive browsing (homepage feed push based on the "guess what you like" recommendation mechanism), and active search. Due to the "recommendation" attribute of RED, users need to find products of interest on this platform for evaluation, so the search function is very important. In order for the notes to appear at the top of the search results for relevant keywords, it is necessary to use the idea of SEO. The basic function of SEO is crawling, indexing, sorting, measuring importance, and searching make website rating and ranking data and design more optimized [7]. Here are some reference methods for optimization. Firstly, publishers can add core keywords in the title, first paragraph, and last paragraph of their notes, so that users can point out the topic in the first place. Next, spaces or separators can be used in the title to highlight key points, and publishers need to place core keywords as early and straightforward as possible. Besides, it is a good choice to ensure that the original content ratio takes more than 80%. Finally, adding hashtag topics containing core keywords at the end of the notes can also increase page views.

3.3. Creating High-quality Content, Rather Than Winning with Quantity

The content of RED is not as timely as that of TikTok. High quality content is continuously recommended for a long time, so it is very important to create high-quality content. For example, those long-lasting and valuable topics such as beauty tutorials, skincare tutorials, and skill learning, high-quality content will significantly increase traffic. In addition, online experimental research on Chinese consumers has shown that native advertising in soft articles has a stronger ability to induce users to purchase [8]. As a result, promoting products from the perspective of customers may be a more effective method.

3.4. Traffic Dissemination Process in In-Feed Advertisement and Its effect

When a new user registers on RED, the platform will automatically show a pop-up window with complete information. By checking the user's gender, age, and various interest areas, a preliminary understanding of the user will be obtained, and a large amount of relevant content will be pushed for selection. Unlike Instagram or Twitter, which can only be viewed on a single page, RED recommends 2 to 4 contents that users may be interested in based on the size of their device screen. This allows users to directly create character portraits through their clicks. In addition, when users search, follow, like, or comment, they trigger behavioral orientation, and the RED platform will recommend relevant products for them. Figure 1 illustrates the traffic dissemination process.

Figure 1: Traffic dissemination process.

Due to the strong promotional power of the RED platform, collaborating with the platform has become a choice for many businesses. As a mid-range beauty brand in China, Perfect Diary is one of the beneficiaries. The RED platform utilizes influencers' promotion and advertising cooperation to easily achieve huge commercial benefits for this beauty brand during the "Double Eleven" shopping festival [5]. The target audience by in-feed advertisements is an important reason for its success. Many studies have shown that social interaction between consumers is more effective for brand promotion compared to direct advertising [9]. The sense of brand identity will be enhanced in user communication, so embedding in-feed advertisements on social media like RED can more effectively engage a large number of potential consumers. The long tail theory suggests that even for non-mainstream products with low demand, as long as they are provided with convenient and smooth channels and have sufficient potential consumers, the sales of this product should not be under-estimated [10]. Thus, by using advertising promotion reasonably to increase potential customers, non-mainstream products can also achieve hot sales.

4. Conclusion

The development of big data has enabled digital media platforms to incorporate in-feed advertising technology. The article analyzes the definitions and functions of in-feed advertisement. There are two types of advertising methods, basic orientation and behavioral orientation respectively, which the former one can be divided into regional, age, gender and device orientation. Behavioral orientation is the mechanism that run through users’ searches, comments, likes, and deeper engagement with bloggers. Moreover, the importance of search and its keyword improvement methods are mentioned. Last, the article elaborates the advertising process. It concludes that RED is a high-quality in-feed advertisement platform suitable for long-term use. The limitation of the article is lack of data analysis, models, user tracking, and further analysis on the impact of in-feed advertisement on social media. In the future, researchers can conduct exclusive interviews with some major bloggers or track their behavior changes for a long time to provide deeper suggestions for social media as a sales platform for promotion.