Brand monitoring on Chinese social media: Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu (2026)
Four steps, on one key for all 3 platforms: search Weibo, Douyin and Xiaohongshu for your brand terms on a schedule; pick out the posts with the most engagement; read their comments for what people say; raise an alert when something moves. With DataXAPI, 10 brand terms checked daily on all three come to $12.60 a month. The free trial covers up to 333 calls; a failed call is not charged.
Updated 2026-11-06
Which endpoint does each step?
All three return the same kind of post object, so one table compares them.
| Step | Douyin | Xiaohongshu | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search brand terms | weibo.posts.search (newest first) | douyin.videos.search (newest available) | xiaohongshu.notes.search (newest available) |
| Read comments | weibo.posts.comments.list | douyin.videos.comments.list | xiaohongshu.notes.comments.list |
| Watch heat | weibo.trends.list hot searches | douyin.index.brands.history brand index | xiaohongshu.pgy.keywords.history search index |
What does a month cost?
10 brand terms, one page a day on each platform: Weibo 300 × $0.0020 = $0.60, Douyin 300 × $0.0200 = $6, Xiaohongshu 300 × $0.0200 = $6: $12.60. With Xiaohongshu every 3 days instead, about $8.60. A failed call is not charged.
Can I do it without code?
Yes. The ready-made Skill, Keyword search and mentions, searches several platforms at once. Or connect DataXAPI to Claude or ChatGPT and say: “Every day, check Weibo, Douyin and Xiaohongshu for new posts about my brand, take the 10 with the most engagement and sum up the negative comments.” The AI calls these endpoints itself.
Why DataXAPI
- Steady: endpoints were available 99.9% of the last 30 days, on a public status page you can check.
- Fast: a paid call took 2.5 seconds at the median over the last 7 days (counted 2026-11-06).
- Fewer tokens: across 226 endpoints, one recorded real response each, the platform's own JSON comes to 9.2M tokens and what an AI reads through DataXAPI's MCP server to 452k, 95% fewer; the JSON of a direct API call is 90% fewer too (counted 2026-11-06). Every platform answers in one shape: the author in
author, counts inmetrics, the next page inpage.next_cursor, so another platform needs no new parser. - See before you pay: every endpoint's page shows a recorded real response, field by field.
- Spending you control: a failed call is not charged; each key can have a limit,
X-Max-Pricecaps one call, and the sameIdempotency-Keywithin 24 hours is never charged twice. - Ready for AI: a remote MCP server listed in the official MCP registry as
com.dataxapi/mcp, usable from Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT. - Free trial of up to 333 calls, no card.
Endpoints
Each with its price; every page has the parameters, the fields and a recorded response.
Start with one key.
230 endpoints on 21 platforms, from $0.0003 a call. Errors and timeouts are not charged.