How does Zhihu monetize? Zhihu monetization skills!

I wrote the first answer on Zhihu , which unexpectedly received 2K likes and N private messages from netizens, and I was pleasantly surprised to earn 3,000 yuan in consulting fees on Zhihu.

From then until today, I have earned more than 1 million in net income from Zhihu alone. I have been writing on Zhihu for some years. Although I am not a big V, I can barely be considered one of the top 0.1% of Zhihu users. I have used 2 accounts in total, with nearly 30,000 fans, 20,000 likes, 70,000 collections, and 6 million readings. These are my data on Zhihu.

I have always believed that Zhihu is one of the outstanding marketing platforms. This is indeed the case. Zhihu brings together the backbone groups of netizens in first- and second-tier cities with paying potential, so it has become a battleground for strategists in various industries. There is no doubt that this is a potential gold mine.

However, doing well on Zhihu is not an easy task. Many people's articles and questions that they actively answered were killed in the cradle with zero likes, zero collections, and zero comments.

Before I officially start sharing the practical tips on how to make money on Zhihu, let me first inform you of my attitude in advance. There is no script, and there are no loopholes in the rules. Those who want to cut corners on Zhihu can close the article. Those who cannot abide by the rules of the platform are destined to not go far on Zhihu.

Everyone says that it is important to create high-quality content on Zhihu, but what kind of content is considered good content?

1. Avoid marketing advertising articles, such as hard advertisements that are filled with the purpose of promoting business.

2. Maintain a neutral stance and state the facts truthfully from a personal perspective.

3. The answer must be interesting, informative, practical, profound and authoritative.

4. Focus on creating in one field and avoid answering questions that are not related to the account positioning.

5. The word count should be more than 300 words, with clear paragraphs, clear content structure and clear content theme. It should not be confusing or a running account after reading it.

What is high-quality content? It is not actually the same as gorgeous writing. In my opinion, high-quality content is whether you can move people's hearts or touch human nature.

When I write articles about projects or technologies, it doesn't require me to write in an interesting or beautiful way. As long as I write clearly, I'll pass, because this is the core of writing such articles. In most industries that do marketing on Zhihu, as long as I write clearly, I'll pass. If I can touch people's hearts, it will become popular. It's often that simple.

But writing content is still a long-term project. I have published a total of 340 answers, articles, and ideas on Zhihu before I got today's data. Therefore, if you want to do Zhihu marketing, persistence is also very important.

So, what should we do specifically? Let me share my experience.

1. Search for keywords related to the industry on Zhihu, select highly-watched questions under those topics, and answer them one by one.

To give a simple example, I mainly write articles about projects and making money, so I will search for related topics such as "making money, side job, project, entrepreneurship" on Zhihu, and look for questions with high attention and views under these topics to answer, because attention and views determine whether Zhihu users are interested in this topic, and also determine what kind of data results can be achieved after answering.

Zhihu has always been a question-and-answer community, so what kind of questions you answer is far more important than what kind of content you answer.

Zhihu's traffic is mainly divided into two parts. One is long-tail traffic, which comes from Zhihu's in-site search and external search engine traffic. This part of the traffic is what I value the most. I answer popular questions one by one by searching keywords, occupying every place where users may find me. Although there will not be explosive traffic growth in the short term, it will bring me traffic continuously in the future.

The other part is the traffic actively distributed by the platform, that is, the traffic from home page recommendations and message notifications. Home page recommendations are distributed based on user likes, favorites, and comments, and the traffic from message notifications means that as long as you answer under this topic, Zhihu will recommend your answer to users who follow this question. This is another reason why we want to answer under high-profile questions.

If you search for "Zhihu mutual likes group" on QQ, you will find a large number of Zhihu mutual likes groups. This is another method that I do not recommend. You can get more views in the short term through mutual likes, but this is just a painkiller. Even if low-quality content can quickly increase traffic in the short term through this method, it will not be popular. Therefore, the key is to create content carefully.

2. Give priority to answering questions. New accounts should avoid posting articles and answering popular questions.

This is one of the valuable experiences I have gained on Zhihu over the past two years. When a new account has zero fan base and a low salt value, it will be difficult to obtain good data results when publishing articles and answering hot questions. The way for a new Zhihu account to stand out is to search for keywords and find answers to hot questions under the topic, as I shared above.

3. The issue of maintaining an account on Zhihu.

A common mistake made by newbies is to think that no matter which platform the account is on, they need to maintain it first. You are neither a robot nor are you raising cattle, so why do you need to maintain an account? There is no need to maintain an account on Zhihu.

This issue is also what most people are concerned about. How to correctly leave advertisements on Zhihu. If the operation is wrong, it may seriously lead to account suspension. Regarding this issue, this paragraph should be the second most valuable content in this article.

1. Do not leave any advertisements or contact information on a new account before it has significant traffic. That is to say, if your account has only dozens of followers in the early stage, or the number of likes is only a few, then you can leave advertisements. If you are reported, your posts will be deleted or banned directly.

2. After the article becomes popular, you can add your advertisement at the bottom of the answer by modifying the answer, but the number of words should not exceed two lines. This method is safe, but it is taboo to guide private messages. For example, if you want to know about xxx, you can directly send me a private message. If this advertising method is reported, the Zhihu administrator will also prompt you to modify the article. The way to stand out is to leave a soft advertisement, such as "I woke up and found that Zhihu is popular. I am flattered. I have received many private messages from Zhihu friends. If you want to find me, you can directly add xxxx and note Zhihu."

3. You can leave an advertisement in the signature of your personal profile, but to stand out, do not include the keyword "WeChat". It can be a personal introduction + VX: XXXX, but the prerequisite is that you must first complete your personal profile, including avatar, nickname, region, gender, age, job, etc.

4. Do not leave advertisements in the comments of popular content, otherwise you will be folded, blocked, and reported. The idea of ​​trying to intercept traffic is naive.

An outstanding way to evaluate the weight of a Zhihu account is to look at your salt value. My salt value is 767, which is a very high standard on Zhihu. An account with a score of 600 or above is considered a high-weight account. Whether you publish articles or answers, you will get a relatively high recommendation volume, and you will have the opportunity to be invited to open a creator center, where you can actively recommend answers to more users, with 2 to 5 opportunities each month.

So, what are the ways to improve Zhihu’s salt value?

1. Avoid violations and have no violations within 30 days.

2. Complete personal information and bind mobile phone number or authenticate.

3. Actively answer questions, post ideas and articles, and ask questions.

4. Report spam content accurately. You cannot report it casually. There is a pass rate in the background of the reporting center. If the pass rate is too low, it will have a negative impact on the salt value.

There are some privileges for those with a Zhihu salt score of 750 or above. For example, if you are reported, your report will be handled with priority and a specialist will be in charge. You can also get feedback from Zhihu administrators and weighted opposition to your articles within 12 hours (reducing the recommendation volume of low-quality content).

The above are some of my real experiences in Zhihu in the past two years. I hope it will be helpful to you.

Author: Black Hat Planet Community

Source: Black Hat Planet Community (ID: yunyingshizhan)