雪球 (Xueqiu)
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
雪球 (Xueqiu, literally "snowball") is a Chinese community of retail investors that has grown into a financial platform. People publish company deep dives here, keep feeds, assemble model portfolios and discuss quotes; on top of the community run fund unit sales, brokerage access and asset management.
The operator describes itself this way: «雪球公司成立于2010年，以“资产配置、长期持有”为理念， 从投资社区出发，现已成为极具影响的集投资交流交易于一体的在线财富管理平台» — the company was founded in 2010 and grew out of an investment community into an online wealth management platform. The legal entity in the user agreement is 北京雪球信息科技有限公司 (Beijing Xueqiu Information Technology Co., Ltd.).
For an outside author this is a platform with a very narrow entrance: the language is Chinese, the subject is markets and nothing else, and the rules prohibit almost everything normally counted as promotion. This article describes how the platform is built and what its publishing rules are; it contains no investment advice.
Who's here
The platform reports more than 78 million users. In its product section it gives its own set of community figures: 7800万 users, about 10亿 (1 billion) interactions, 3亿 (300 million) published investment opinions and more than 12万 (120 thousand) leading authors. All these figures are the company's own statements about itself, with no measurement period stated and no independent verification.
The make-up of the audience is described in the same place, qualitatively: retail investors, fund managers, financial institutions, listed companies and specialist media. The platform publishes no country breakdown.
The language is Chinese: the markup of the "About" page states lang="zh-Hans", that is, simplified script. We found no interface language versions on the pages we checked.
Getting started
Registration goes by phone number or through a third-party account. The authenticity requirement is worded strictly: you need a number issued in your own name, or a WeChat, QQ or Weibo account that has passed real-name verification. In practice this means that without a Chinese number or a verified Chinese social account the door is closed.
The platform lists the registration methods in its account management guide: «手机号、QQ、微信、微博等方式注册» — phone, QQ, WeChat, Weibo.
The next step for an author is the "original column", 原创专栏 (yuánchuàng zhuānlán). The conditions for opening one are stated plainly: at least 3 original titled articles, no rule violations over the last 90 days, one column per account; an application is reviewed within 3 working days. Only your own material counts as original — copy-paste and re-uploads of material downloaded from other sites are prohibited.
Account verification exists for companies and professionals. The rules warn: you may not call yourself an official company account or state professional titles without confirmation by the platform.
What you can publish
The formats are feed posts, titled articles, comments, broadcasts and taking part in activities; when publishing you can attach stock tickers and topic tags to a post, as the account management guide explains. Model portfolios are a separate format: you can keep up to 20 portfolios at once, no more than 30 securities in one portfolio, and the minimum position share is 1%.
The prohibitions are collected in the community rules, split into 14 sections — from politically harmful information to abuse of AI services. The ones that matter for an author:
- Market rumours. It is prohibited to «编造或传播股市小作文» — to invent and spread 小作文 (xiǎozuòwén, literally "little essays"): unverified rumours and false information about the market.
- Paid stock recommendations. It is prohibited to provide other users with 诊股、解股、解盘 services (analysis and "diagnosis" of securities) for unlawful income, and to take users off to outside platforms such as WeChat, QQ, Weibo or Zhishi Xingqiu for paid reading.
- Pornography, harassment, disclosure of personal data — listed in the same rules.
How to grow
The platform names the mechanisms for getting shown itself: system recommendation and manual recommendation by editors. It does not disclose its ranking formula, so we can make no claims about what exactly lifts a post in the feed.
Advertising exists on the platform, but not as self-service for an author: publishing advertising yourself is prohibited, and commercial cooperation goes through the address [email protected]. What exactly is sold, the company describes in its 广告合作 section: tailored marketing solutions for management companies, banks and brokers, plus services for listed companies covering the A-share, Hong Kong and US venues — from IPO to reporting support.
The outright ban on any external contacts in publications makes the usual "post → link → landing page" funnel unworkable: you may not add external contacts to your nickname, description, avatar or the content of posts — phone numbers, QR codes, links to third-party platforms, links to e-commerce and paid courses.
Path to monetization
The platform describes no regular payouts to authors for publications. The original column agreement mentions neither remuneration nor a revenue share; what the author gets in exchange is rights protection: 雪球公司代表作者维护原创文章的网络传播权, that is, the company itself and at its own expense pursues those who reprint and distort original articles.
Money on the platform flows from reader to author through "additional services". The rules list them: 打赏功能 (dǎshǎng — tips), 悬赏功能 (xuánshǎng — a bounty for an answer) and direct messages. There is a caveat in the same place that matters for planning: not everyone has access to these functions by default, some require an application or an invitation, rights are granted dynamically and may be restricted or withdrawn.
A paid question works as prepayment with a refund: the user picks a recipient, states an amount and sends the question; if there is no answer within the allotted period, the money comes back automatically.
A separate layer is the financial product storefront, but that is the company's own business, not an author's earnings: 雪球基金 obtained a fund distributor licence in 2016; the balance of non-monetary funds exceeds 400亿元 (40 billion yuan), more than 17,000 public funds are on sale, and there are more than 140 management companies as partners.
Tools and automation
The platform has no open API on the pages we checked: we found no mentions of an API, automation or scraping in the community rules, and the user agreement directly prohibits unauthorised collection and circumvention of technical measures, as well as the use of automation tools without permission. This means scheduling and external analytics are unavailable through supported means, while home-made workarounds breach the agreement.
The internal tools the platform writes about: attaching tickers and tags, model portfolios, red envelopes, questions and bounties — all of them are listed in the account management guide.
Content rights are worth taking into account in advance: by publishing, you grant the company a free, non-exclusive, revocable licence with the right to sublicense, to use the content in its products and services.
Limits and rules
- Account. You may not give away, lend, rent out, transfer or sell an account; the data given at registration must be truthful.
- Nickname and profile. Prohibited: impersonating state bodies and companies, professional titles without confirmation, advertising information and contacts. For personal accounts, avatars with state symbols and other people's logos are prohibited.
- Sanctions. The measures are listed without time limits: removal of content, restriction of account functions up to closing the account; serious cases are passed to regulators.
- Portfolios. Up to 20 portfolios, up to 30 securities in one, minimum position 1%.
- Legal. The platform operates under Chinese regulation; the rules separately prohibit breaches of securities and fund legislation, set out in a separate section of the community rules.
Who it's for
It suits Chinese management companies, brokers and listed companies that need contact with retail investors inside the country: for them the platform has a dedicated advertising line and support services. It suits authors who write about markets in Chinese and are ready to earn a reputation with texts rather than links.
It does not suit outside promotion: the ban on any external contacts and links in profiles and posts strips the platform of any role as a traffic channel. It does not suit non-financial brands. It does not suit automation: there is no API and automated data collection is prohibited by the agreement. And it does not suit anyone without a Chinese phone number or a verified Chinese social account — registration without them is not described.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
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