# Category content intel: what TikTok and Xiaohongshu are saying about a product category

Give your agent a category keyword and get back the top posts on TikTok and Xiaohongshu (RedNote) with engagement, plus the follower counts of the creators behind the TikTok hits. 3 steps through one olywork.com key. Low frequency, high decision value.

## Try it

Setup line (paste into any agent): `set up olywork — https://olywork.com/llms.txt`

Then ask: "Using olywork, search TikTok for 'protein powder' sorted by likes and Xiaohongshu for '蛋白粉' sorted by popularity. Show me the price first. Return a CSV with platform, likes, comments, plays, caption and posted date, sorted by likes. Then pull the profiles of the top 10 TikTok creators and add their follower counts."

- **Search both platforms** TikTok shows Western demand, Xiaohongshu shows Chinese consumer behaviour. One prompt, two markets.
- **Use the native language on Xiaohongshu** Search the Chinese term. An English keyword returns a thin, unrepresentative page.
- **Sort by engagement** Both routes accept a sort. Likes-first surfaces what resonated, not what was posted last.
- **Profile the creators behind the hits** Follower count tells you whether a hit came from reach or from resonance.

## The steps

| # | Step | What the agent asks | Provider used | Price | Success rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Search TikTok | keyword search with sort and publish-time filters, 20 videos per page | TikHub (`tikhub.tiktok.search.videos`, 4 providers, https://olywork.com/use-cases/search-posts-by-keyword) | $0.001 per found | not yet measured |
| 2 | Search Xiaohongshu | keyword search with popularity sort and a publish-time window | Just One API (`justoneapi.x.xiaohongshu-search-note-v2`, 2 providers, https://olywork.com/agents/chatgpt) | $0.0221 per found | not yet measured |
| 3 | Profile the top creators | follower count and video count for one TikTok handle | TikHub (`tikhub.tiktok.user.profile`, 6 providers, https://olywork.com/agents/chatgpt#social-listening) | $0.001 per found | not yet measured |

- Search TikTok: One page per call. Region defaults to US.
- Search Xiaohongshu: Billed only on success; errors are free. Returns 20 notes per page.
- Profile the top creators: Runs once per creator you keep. Charged on 2xx only.

At the rates above, 10 rows where every call hits comes to $0.03. The receipt below is what it actually cost, and why it differs.

## What it actually cost

Run on 2026-09-14.

- TikTok: 20 videos for 'protein powder', top post 719,160 likes
- Xiaohongshu: 20 notes for '蛋白粉' in the last six months, top note 48,588 likes
- Creators profiled: 10 of 10 TikTok creators, 11,500 to 11,000,000 followers
- Total metered: $0.032: $0.001 TikTok search, $0.022 Xiaohongshu search, $0.01 profiles

Twelve calls. The two searches returned 40 posts; the ten profile pulls added follower counts to the TikTok hits. The spread is the finding: the same category's top TikTok post has fifteen times the likes of the top Xiaohongshu note, and the creators behind the TikTok hits range from an 11k-follower account to an 11M one, so reach alone does not explain the ranking. The Xiaohongshu search is the expensive call; everything else is TikHub's per-success rate.

Download the CSV of this run: https://olywork.com/workflows/category-content-intel-tiktok-xiaohongshu.csv

## Why go through olywork.com

- **One key, not 9 accounts** olywork.com holds the provider keys. Neither you nor the agent sees them.
- **Price before the call** The provider's own rate, $0.000 markup, from a prepaid balance.
- **No subscription, no seats** Charged per call. $1.00 free per new team, no card to start.
- **Your own keys are free** Already pay Hunter? Register it and those calls are never metered.
- **Switch by changing a word** Another provider is a different word in the prompt, not a new integration.
- **Nothing to integrate** No SDK, no OAuth dance per vendor, no seats.

## Where it goes wrong

**No results for a niche keyword** One platform may return nothing. Try a broader term or the category's native-language phrasing.

**Xiaohongshu is in Chinese** Captions come back in Chinese. The agent translates; check nuance with a native speaker before acting on it.

**Time window is approximate** Xiaohongshu's publish-time filter is documented as approximate and can include older notes.

**Region shapes the TikTok page** TikTok search is regional. Pass the region you sell in.

**Homegrown scrapers rot** TikTok and Xiaohongshu change signed endpoints often. A script that worked last month can return empty pages this week. Prefer a maintained catalog route over owning the signer.

**Xiaohongshu is not TikTok with Chinese text** There is no public developer API. Signed headers and captchas are normal. Expect thinner coverage and higher maintenance than TikTok on the same vendor.

**Hours of scrolling is the silent cost** Manual category research feels free until you count the hours. Batch keyword search on both platforms and keep the CSVs so you can diff week to week.

## Before you start

**What does the dual-platform search cost?** The receipt above is one real run. The Xiaohongshu call is the expensive one; the TikHub calls are the cheap ones.

**Can I get transcripts?** Yes. The catalog has TikTok transcript routes; add them as a step for the posts you shortlist.

**What about Instagram or YouTube?** Add those searches to the prompt. The catalog has keyword search on both.

**How do I track this over time?** Run the same prompt weekly and keep the CSVs. The agent can diff the top posts between runs.

**Why did my DIY TikTok scraper die?** Endpoints and anti-bot checks move. That is expected. This workflow uses maintained providers so the maintenance sits with them.

**Can one scraper cover both TikTok and Xiaohongshu?** Often not well. Many social scrapers are TikTok-first and lag on RedNote. Treat them as separate steps with separate failure modes.

## Related

- Search posts by keyword: https://olywork.com/use-cases/search-posts-by-keyword
- Search videos and channels by keyword: https://olywork.com/use-cases/search-videos-and-channels-by-keyword
- Find creators by keyword: https://olywork.com/use-cases/find-creators-by-keyword
- A channel's profile and lifetime stats: https://olywork.com/use-cases/youtube-channel-stats

HTML version: https://olywork.com/workflows/category-content-intel-tiktok-xiaohongshu