"Do image notes or video notes get more reach on Xiaohongshu?" It's one of the most common questions we get from brands entering the platform — and it's the wrong question.

The usual answers ("video gets more reach" or "image notes are easier to go viral with") are both true and both useless, because they're answering two different questions at once. The better question is: is this piece of content meant to be read, or meant to be watched? Once you know that, the image-vs-video decision mostly makes itself.

Below, we break the two formats apart across six metrics, then give you a decision rule and a way to stop choosing between them altogether.

Image and video aren't two formats — they're two ways of consuming

The most fundamental difference between the two isn't production; it's who controls the pace.

With an image note (图文), the pace belongs to the reader. They can skim the cover in two seconds, stop on the third image for ten, screenshot the one slide that matters, and flip back and forth twice. That makes image notes ideal for anything information-dense that people want to compare or come back to: room-rate breakdowns, amenity lists, itineraries, packing checklists, "what's included" bundles, fee comparisons.

With a video note, the pace belongs to you. You decide what's said first, where the pause lands, when the payoff arrives. Skipping ahead is annoying for the viewer; re-watching a specific line is worse. That makes video ideal for process, transformation, emotion, and people: a property walkthrough, a spa treatment start to finish, the arrival ritual at a resort, the tone in a founder's voice.

Get this one idea straight and a lot of the agonising disappears: forcing reference content into video punishes the viewer; turning content that lives on emotion and human presence into a static carousel wastes it.

The six metrics that actually matter

Comparing "reach" in the abstract is meaningless, because reach bundles together impressions, clicks, saves, and follower growth — and the two formats are strong in different columns. Here's the honest breakdown for a brand account:

Read the table and the point becomes obvious: "which gets more reach" is a false question. The real one is — does your brand right now need reach, or need a following? In the early, still-finding-your-angle phase, image notes let you iterate far faster and cheaper. Once you have proven topics and want to convert passers-by into a community, video's ability to build brand memory is something image notes simply can't match.

One more factor most people overlook: Xiaohongshu is a search engine as much as a feed. A large share of your traffic won't arrive the day you post — it'll come months later when someone searches. Image notes carry more searchable, specific language in the body copy, which gives them a structural edge on discovery. For hospitality and travel brands especially — where people search destinations, "best hotel in [city]," "[resort] worth it?" — that long-tail search traffic is often the most valuable of all. It rewards keyword-considered titles and body text far more than a video caption does.

What to post as image, what to post as video

Skip the guesswork. Judge by the subject of the content:

• When the subject is information → image note. Rate comparisons, amenity breakdowns, itineraries, "what's included," seasonal price bundles, do's-and-don'ts. The audience wants to save it for later, not spend three minutes with you.

• When the subject is a process → video. How the room reveal unfolds, how a treatment progresses, how a signature dish comes together, the before-and-after of a redesign. Flatten these into photos and you lose half of it.

• When the subject is a person → video. A GM's or host's point of view, a staff story, a guest's experience in their own words. This rides on tone and pauses that text can't carry.

• When the subject is emotion → either; play to your strength. One line that lands over a genuinely atmospheric image can hold its own against video.

While we're here, one rule of thumb to separate mechanism from myth: format should fit content is a real, mechanism-level truth. But claims like "Xiaohongshu only pushes video now and has abandoned image notes" are almost always one person's observation from one moment mistaken for a platform rule. The platform does shift how it distributes different formats over time, but it doesn't abandon a format wholesale. If your note isn't getting reach, the format is rarely the culprit — the content usually is. Diagnose that first.

The better move: one topic, two versions

Past a certain volume, you'll notice image and video aren't competitors. Splitting one topic into two notes costs far less than producing two topics, and often doubles the return:

• Image first, then video. Use a cheap image note to test the topic. If the numbers are strong, expand the winner into a video. You're letting the market pre-screen your ideas, so your scarce video production never gets spent on topics nobody wanted.

• Video first, then image. Take the method you explained in a video and turn the key steps into an image note as the "archivable version." People who watched come back to save it; people with no patience for video still get caught.

• Give each version a different job. Let the video explain why; let the image note lay out how. Point to each other in the comments, and a single topic earns two waves of traffic.

The one thing not to do: copy-paste the same content across both formats. Rebuild the cover, the title, and the opening line each time — otherwise a reader who scrolls to your second note just skips it. And a duplicate video script pasted verbatim as an image note (or the reverse) reads as filler.

Action checklist: changes you can make this week

• Split your last 20 notes by format and calculate average impressions, saves, and follower gain for each — you'll almost certainly find they're strong in different columns.

• Test new topics as image notes first; invest video time only in the ones that perform.

• Keep information-dense content as image notes. Don't force it into video to chase a format.

• If growing a following is the goal, reserve at least one video a week for building brand personality.

• Run both formats so the account keeps a steady posting cadence.

• Don't kill the image notes you're good at just because "video gets more reach."

• Don't reuse a video script as image copy, or vice versa, without a real rewrite.

• Don't judge a note on impressions alone — saves and follower growth are entirely separate ledgers.

• Don't ask one note to both explain a method and build personality. One note, one job.

FAQ

Which is more likely to go viral for a brand — image or video? Image notes more often produce high impressions; video more often produces high follower conversion. Image notes only have to clear the cover, are fast to make, and let you iterate often, so hits come from volume. Video has to clear both the cover and the opening seconds — but once it runs, audiences remember a person far more vividly than a single image. It depends on whether you define "viral" as reach or as followers.

We're launching a new Xiaohongshu account — image or video first? Image first. A new account's scarcest asset isn't followers; it's certainty about which topics people actually want. Shipping a dozen image notes in two weeks teaches you more than agonising over three videos in the same time. Once two or three topics are validated, turn them into video to start building brand personality.

How many images should an image note have? As many as the content needs — don't pad. Step-by-step content works best one step per image; comparisons need two or three; round-ups can run longer. Remember the first image carries all the click responsibility, while the second image carries "don't scroll away" — so the second slide often matters more than the last. Many brands pour everything into the cover and phone in the second image, then watch people leave within two seconds.

Can we post the same content as both an image note and a video? Yes — if the cover, title, and opening are genuinely rebuilt for each, the two are usually treated as separate notes. The real risk is posting identical images and copy in a short window, which looks like spam. Space them out by a few days and give each version a distinct job rather than a new shell.

Does the image-vs-video calculus change for luxury and hospitality brands? The framework holds, but the weighting shifts. Luxury audiences over-index on atmosphere and trust, so video's ability to convey space, texture, and human warmth is disproportionately valuable for property reveals and guest experience. At the same time, high-consideration purchases (a suite, a multi-day itinerary, a wealth product) generate heavy pre-booking search — which is exactly where keyword-rich image notes quietly win the long-tail. Most strong hospitality accounts run both, deliberately.

Brands Without Borders helps luxury hospitality, travel, and fintech brands reach Chinese consumers through Xiaohongshu (RedNote) and WeChat. If you'd like a read on where image notes and video should sit in your own content mix, talk to us — we'll pull apart a few proven notes in your category and show you where each format is actually winning.