The Post Is Just Bait. The Real Marketing Happens in the Comments.

You’ve just spent $10,000 on a beautifully produced influencer post. The lighting is perfect. The script is tight. The product placement is subtle. And you get exactly 47 likes and zero comments. Meanwhile, a random account with no profile picture, a plain background, and one sentence gets 2,000 shares. Welcome to the big poster revolution.

On Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), a new type of content is cannibalizing the polished influencer posts you’ve been betting on. It’s called a dazibao note — a single bold sentence on a solid background. No graphics. No transitions. No CTA. Just a raw, opinionated, often unfinished thought. And it’s winning. Hard.

Why? Because the more polished your ad, the faster users scroll past it. Every production value screams “I’m selling you something.” The big poster whispers “I’m just like you — and I’m angry about the same thing.” The emotional hook is frustration — with over-produced, fake-looking content — and relief at finding something that feels real.

But here’s the twist that most marketers miss: The big poster itself is just a decoy. The real value is in the comments. A single comment thread can tell you more about your target audience than a year of focus groups. What are they arguing about? What questions keep coming up? Which objections are getting the most upvotes? That’s where your next campaign lives.

Brands are spending millions trying to manufacture authenticity. They hire expensive agencies, brief influencers, and A/B test headlines. But the most authentic thing you can do is stop talking and start listening to the conversations your customers are already having. They’re fighting in the comments of your competitor’s posts. They’re asking the same question for the hundredth time in your product reviews. They’re typing “does this work for oily skin?” under a sponsored post that doesn’t even mention texture.

One brand I worked with was stuck. Their influencer campaigns were flatlining. We mined the comment section of a viral post about “honest luggage reviews” — the top comment was a war about front-opening vs. top-loading suitcases. The brand made a single big poster: “Front-opening luggage is a scam. Change my mind.” It got 8,000 comments in three days. The conversion rate from that post was 12% — because the product was the answer to the argument they had just started.

The golden rule: Every 200–300 words, drop a sentence that someone would screenshot and send to a friend. Here’s one: “The post is the bait. The comment section is the product placement.” If you’re not using your own content to surface unresolved conflicts, you’re paying for reach but buying silence.

Now, the execution. Do not start with a word. Start with your customer service inbox. Collect the top 10 questions that keep coming up. Look for disagreement — not “how do I use this?” but “is this better than X?” That’s your big poster. Then, in the comments, let the product appear naturally. Someone asks “which one did you use?” You answer. That’s not fake; that’s useful.

But be careful: this only works if you commit to one emotional lane. Don’t try to be funny and informative and inspirational. Pick one: anger at a common problem, surprise at a hidden truth, or dark humor about a shared frustration. The big poster that says “I’m tired of pretending that [product] is worth the price” will get more engagement than a neutral comparison chart.

What about the risk? Yes, big posters can look lazy. If you just copy the format without the psychological insight, you’ll be noise. The real work is in the 30 minutes of comment mining before you write the sentence. Low effort production demands high effort insight. That’s the paradox.

So here’s the contrarian truth: stop trying to make your content look like a magazine ad. Make it look like a fight at a bar. People don’t share ads; they share arguments. They share the line that makes them nod and say “finally, someone said it.” Your next campaign is not in a creative brief. It’s buried in a comment thread, waiting for someone to read it.

Go read the comments. Then write one sentence. That’s your new strategy.