Chinese Social Media and Social Commerce Glossary

What this is: short definitions of the Chinese terms that appear in Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Weibo and Bilibili data, with the English field name they map to in our tools where there is one.

Content and engagement

笔记 (bǐjì), note. A Xiaohongshu post: images or a short video with text. Field: records of type note.

种草 (zhòngcǎo), planting grass. Recommending a product so that others want it. A 种草 note is a product recommendation.

拔草 (bácǎo), pulling grass. Either finally buying the thing you wanted, or being talked out of it. Context decides.

收藏 (shōucáng), save. Saving a post to come back to. On Xiaohongshu it is the strongest buying signal. Field: collects.

点赞 (diǎnzàn), like. Field: likes.

转发 (zhuǎnfā), repost. Field: reposts or shares.

评论 (pínglùn), comment. Field: records of type comment.

弹幕 (dànmù), bullet comments. Comments that fly across a Bilibili video at the moment they were written. Field: records of type danmaku.

一键三连 (yījiàn sānlián), triple tap. Bilibili viewers liking, giving a coin and saving a video at once, the highest compliment.

投币 (tóubì), coin. Bilibili's paid-feeling like: users have a few coins a day to give. Field: coins.

话题 (huàtí), topic. A hashtag page that collects posts. Field: hashtags, topic records.

IP 属地 (IP shǔdì), IP location. The province, or the country for users abroad, that Chinese platforms show under posts and comments. It is coarse and comes from the network, not GPS. Field: ipLocation.

Trends and rankings

热搜 (rèsōu), hot search. Weibo's live list of the most searched topics, the fastest read on what China talks about.

热榜 (rèbǎng), hot list. The same idea on Douyin, Zhihu and other apps. Field: rank, hotValue.

热度 (rèdù), heat. The platform's own popularity score for a topic. It is not a view count and is not comparable across platforms.

上热搜 (shàng rèsōu). Making it onto the hot search list.

爆款 (bàokuǎn). A breakout hit, usually a product or a post.

Creators and marketing

KOL. Key opinion leader: an influencer with a large following.

KOC. Key opinion consumer: a small creator whose reviews read like a real customer's. Brands on Xiaohongshu often use many KOCs instead of one KOL.

达人 (dárén). Creator or influencer, the usual word in Douyin's marketing tools.

博主 (bózhǔ). Blogger, the usual word on Xiaohongshu and Weibo.

UP主 (UP zhǔ). A Bilibili creator, from "uploader".

粉丝 (fěnsī), fans. Followers. Field: followers.

MCN. An agency that manages many creators. Field: mcnName in Xingtu data.

蒲公英 (Pugongying). Xiaohongshu's official creator marketplace, where brands book creators and see their rates. Pugongying API.

星图 (Xingtu). Douyin's official creator marketplace, run by Ocean Engine (巨量引擎). Xingtu API.

花火 (Huahuo). Bilibili's official creator marketplace. Huahuo API.

报价 (bàojià), rate. What a creator charges for a post or video. Field: rate card records.

CPM / CPE. Cost per thousand views and cost per engagement, how Xingtu and Pugongying compare creators.

Commerce

直播带货 (zhíbō dàihuò). Selling in a live stream. Douyin and Taobao are the biggest arenas.

带货 (dàihuò). Driving sales: a creator who "带货" moves product.

佣金 (yòngjīn), commission. What a creator earns per sale. Fields: commissionRate, commissionAmount in Douyin Shop data.

月销 (yuè xiāo), monthly sales. The sales count shown on product pages. On Taobao it is often shown in ranges such as 1000+. Field: salesText, salesCount.

天猫 (Tmall). The brand-store side of Taobao. Field: isTmall.

自营 (zìyíng). Sold and shipped by JD.com itself rather than a third-party shop.

旗舰店 (qíjiàndiàn), flagship store. A brand's official shop.

闲鱼 (Xianyu). Alibaba's second-hand marketplace, also called Goofish. Xianyu API.

国补 (guóbǔ). Government trade-in subsidies shown on some electronics listings in 2025 and 2026.

Units and prices

斤 (jīn). 500 grams. Fruit and vegetables are priced per 斤, which is why a price per kilo looks twice as high.

元 / 块 (yuán / kuài). Chinese yuan. Prices in our data are in yuan unless the field says otherwise.

万 (wàn). Ten thousand. 1.2万 likes means 12,000. Our tools convert these to plain numbers.

亿 (yì). One hundred million.