The correct way to open Zhihu promotion marketing

Zhihu 's algorithm is designed to help high-quality content gain more exposure. Among them, the like rate (note that it is not the number of likes) is one of the indicators that we should pay most attention to.

Wilson algorithm on Zhihu

Horsepower_Possibilities and Grand Design

u represents approval, v represents opposition, n represents the total number of votes, p represents the approval rate, z is the quantile (parameter) of the normal distribution, and S represents the final Wilson score.

(1) When the total number of votes is small, the score of the answer that receives approval will increase rapidly. The more votes there are in total, the smaller the impact of the approval votes on the score. At the same time, the number of votes

When an answer with a large number of negative votes starts to receive negative votes, its score will drop rapidly. The lower the score, the slower the decline.

(2) The value range of score is (0,1) and is independent of the total number of votes. (In the old algorithm, score = weighted approval - weighted disapproval. The scores of different questions vary greatly and cannot be compared horizontally.)

(3) The smaller n is, the stronger the correction effect of the Wilson algorithm is.

The weight of Zhihu

The value Z mentioned earlier is the important influencing coefficient of weight - weight.

At present, it is known from practical experience that weight will affect the ranking of answers with the same number of likes and dislikes. For answers with the same number of likes and dislikes, the higher the weight, the faster the likes ranking will rise, and the slower the dislike ranking will fall. Important factors affecting weight: collection, thanks, etc.

At present, the official calculation formula for weight has not been announced. In addition to the influence of collections and thanks, the weight of a user in a certain professional field may also be affected by becoming an excellent respondent, increasing the salt value, and real-name authentication.

Of course, this has little impact on the recommendation of questions. Even a small account without weight can still get high exposure and high praise under Zhihu's mechanism.

At present, the official calculation formula of weight has not been announced, but after many tests, we found the factors that affect the weight.

There may be:

• Collection • Thanks • Salt value • Become an excellent answerer • Become a paid member • Increase salt value • Real-name authentication

ps: The weights are divided by field.

For example, if you often answer topics in the field of anime and receive many likes in this field, the weight of the anime topic may increase to 100 (hypothetically).

But the weights of other areas such as reading, finance, etc. that you have not answered may still be 0.

Salt value

The Zhihu salt value distribution range is between 0 – 1000. A high score indicates that the user is professional, friendly and trustworthy. Depending on the completeness of the information at the time of registration, the user will receive an initial salt value between 260 – 300.

Subsequent increases and decreases in salt values ​​are accumulated based on user behavior and updated weekly.

Zhihu's salt value is calculated comprehensively based on five dimensions: "basic credit", "content creation", "friendly interaction", "compliance with regulations", and "community building".

The index calculation principle of each dimension can be found at: https://www.zhihu.com/term/credit

Why do Zhihu answers or articles need cold start/mutual likes and help?

Within 2 hours after your answer is published, Zhihu will conduct a small-scale test on your content (for example, 50 people). Maybe these 50 people were too busy with work, sleeping, or other reasons to like your content, resulting in this answer not getting enough likes.

Then this answer is likely to be a failure. Cold start/mutual likes is "cheating", which helps you get more user likes and increase exposure within a certain period of time.

Is it okay to ask for likes after 2 hours?

Can't. We used 100 small accounts to conduct a test. After the cold start time, even if the article received 70+ likes, the Zhihu recommendation rate was not high.

However, after your answer is ranked in the top 5 under a question, and the question is on the hot list (even if it has been more than 2 hours since the answer was posted), asking for 30-50 likes will allow your answer to get a better ranking and more exposure.

Please note that Zhihu's anti-cheating mechanism monitors very strictly the requests for likes for popular answers. Once you are found to be cheating with likes, the answer will be deleted at the very least. At the worst, all your previous likes will be reset to zero, and your account may even be banned for a few days or even blocked.

ps: Zhihu will generally limit the traffic of accounts that have been punished.

Why is the answer ranked higher with the help of Launch Likes, but the number of likes is still very small?

Cold start likes are like a stimulant, which can only temporarily put your answer at the front so that you can get more views. But your answer is of poor quality, and many users don’t buy it after reading it. Do you think they will give you a thumbs up?

So it won’t be long before your answer is squeezed out by other high-quality answers, and you will have basically no chance of turning around. Therefore, remember that quality content is key.

I have to say a few more words about this. Many friends' answers were ranked in the top 3 for a certain question, but soon ranked 5-10. This phenomenon is most common on the hot list. It may be due to malicious stepping down, but it is more likely that your answer is not attractive enough, because the top 3 answers and the question form a complementary relationship, bringing each other views.

People who want to maliciously downvote generally won't downvote these answers. After all, after downvoting, the number of views may be greatly reduced and the question will be removed from the hot list.

If I am very busy during the day and only have time to browse posts and like them at night, are these likes useful?

If an answer to a question with a particularly large number of views, such as one currently ranked in the top 20 on the hot list, does not receive 10-20 likes within 2 hours of being published, or even fails to exceed 50 likes within 5-10 hours, then the answer is basically dead and there is little point in getting more likes.

There was a very good answer in the past, but it did not have enough likes to start with. Can it be revived by likes?

Zhihu super Vs in the same field can "revive" previous answers by giving likes, catching up with the hot list, and recommending content themselves (a privilege of Zhihu V5).

In addition, only content that evokes users' emotions is high-quality content. Just because you spend several days writing an answer doesn’t mean it’s high quality.

Summarize:

Cold start actually takes advantage of the loopholes in Zhihu's small-scale testing. In a short period of time, the answer reaches a certain number of likes, which meets the requirements of Zhihu's recommendation mechanism for the number of likes. Zhihu will then push the answer to more users.

As for whether your answer will receive high likes later, it depends on whether the content of your answer is high-quality and whether you are good at guiding users to like it.

It is recommended not to post answers after 10 pm.

Zhihu Anti-Cheating Mechanism

Design intention:

Zhihu has designed a cheating mechanism to purify the community and prevent interest groups from exploiting loopholes in the recommendation mechanism to play dirty tricks, such as maliciously stepping on other people's answers or reporting them.

Zhihu's anti-cheating mechanism and common pitfalls: Zhihu will temporarily block newly posted answers for 10 minutes. That is, within 10 minutes of posting an answer, if other people click on the link you shared and give you a like, a 404 error message may appear on the webpage.

Zhihu uses this method to prevent others from quickly gaining likes. Zhihu will record cheating behaviors such as brushing likes. The official punishment for cheating is very severe.

Once discovered, your answer will be deleted (if the salt value is higher than 500 or you are a Zhihu celebrity, you will have one chance), but generally your account will have all the likes it received previously cleared, i.e. the likes will be removed. In serious cases, your account will be directly blocked.

Can I just like it? Under what circumstances will the like be cancelled?

It is best for the person seeking likes to share the answer in the form of a link to the like group 10-15 minutes after posting the answer (if the answer has a video, you must wait until the video is reviewed, which is another 10-15 minutes).

When the liker clicks the link and enters the answer page, it is best to stay on the page for 60 seconds before liking it. This is a normal browsing action. If you like it too quickly, it will easily be detected by Zhihu's cheating mechanism and will be judged as brushing likes.

If you frequently like each other, it will be easily detected by Zhihu's cheating mechanism, and Zhihu will remove the likes from you or even ban you.

Since the companions in the likes group are fixed, it is necessary to control the frequency and interval of posting answers to collect likes to avoid the same group of people liking multiple times frequently and being detected by Zhihu's cheating mechanism.

If the number of likes in the group is less than 100, it is recommended to send only the link of 1 answer to this group within 2 days. If the number of likes in the group is more than 200, it is recommended to send no more than 2 links to the answer to this group within 1 day.

1. Don’t like the same account continuously and frequently. Frequent mutual likes on Zhihu are a relatively dangerous behavior and may be judged by the official as brushing likes.

High-frequency mutual likes refers to liking multiple contents within a short period of time. For example, like 3 Zhihu answers or articles within 1 minute.

2. Don’t ask for likes immediately after writing an answer using a brand new account. At the same time, you should also avoid having the same group of people always like your posts! ! !

3. When clicking “like”, pay attention to the time you finish reading and stay on the post. It is easy for a new account to lose likes, so don’t like the link you share immediately, as the system will judge it as an immediate like and result in point deduction.

4. New accounts should not have external links. (This includes accounts with hundreds or even thousands of followers). If reported or detected by the system, the answer will be deleted and the account will be banned for a few days at the very least. In serious cases, the account will be directly blocked.

5. Do not log in multiple accounts with the same IP. If one account is hit, others will be hit as well.

6. You cannot directly post the official account QR code link or official account article link. By default, Zhihu allows traffic to public accounts, but does not allow external links. Zhihu big Vs or highly praised answers that are recognized by the majority of users "have to" put links to public account articles. Even if they are reported, Zhihu will "turn a blind eye."

7. Buy a Zhihu Yanxuan membership. In addition to being able to listen to a lot of live performances, it also gives you a greater sense of security.

8. Stay active on Zhihu. Browse more, follow more, collect more, thank more, and write more answers without conversion settings.

9. Register several small accounts and maintain them. The main account was blocked and the secondary account took over.

The account should be positioned in a vertical niche as much as possible, which will help accumulate weight under the topic and increase the number of recommendations. The account name, cover, introduction, and personal profile should be as complete as possible. Establish a set of standardized personalities.

There are two main purposes for operating Zhihu: to build personal IP and to attract traffic to the official account. But no matter what the purpose is, you must have your own positioning.

For example, positioning psychology, military, fitness, etc. The more answers you give in this field, the more likes, collections, and thanks you receive, the higher your weight in this field will be. On the contrary, if you always answer casually, don't blame Zhihu for always giving

You recommend some random questions. If you have browsed or answered military or political topics, even once, then Zhihu’s backend will think that you like military affairs, and will try their best to push military-related questions to you, hoping that you will spend more time on Zhihu and increase the so-called retention rate. If you want to know whether your Zhihu positioning is clear, you can take a look at the recommendations on your Zhihu homepage.

It is difficult to follow the hot list, but is it possible to find potential questions that have the chance to be on the hot list?

Yes, most of the questions that have just become popular are very new. Therefore, the more recent new issues are, the greater the probability of them being on the hot list. In particular, for questions with around 50 answers and 100-500 followers, focus on the changes in popularity of such questions (number of followers, number of views).

The specific situation depends on the field. Some fields are very vertical, so an ambush approach is OK; some fields are too broad, and it is difficult to predict which issue will be on the hot list in the near future.

How to find potential new problems ?

Search for a topic, enter the topic, and look at the questions that appear in the discussion area. After clicking in, look at the related questions on the right, pay attention to the creation time, number of answers and views of the question, and focus on the changes in views and number of answers, especially the number of answers from Zhihu big Vs in this field.

How to find hot questions that are currently receiving a lot of attention and views? (It is recommended to answer this type of questions first)

A can use an Excel table to locate relevant topics, filter according to changes in page views, and record the changes in page views within 8 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours. This is the most direct way to determine the true popularity of a question.

The advantage of doing this is that it eliminates some questions that have a large number of followers but have actually received very little attention recently. Filter out popular questions and prepare high-quality answers for them.

High-quality content + likes can more easily trigger Zhihu's push mechanism to push high-quality new answers to followers.

(The above is an example of a question with a high number of views but low actual popularity, meaning the question has become obsolete)

The browsing time can be set according to your needs. For example, I recently changed it to: 9:00, 16:00, 21:00, and 9:00 the next day. Make it a priority to answer questions that tend to be on the hot list almost every month.

The popularity of hot issues is very high. Should we give priority to them?

Hot issues do not necessarily mean high-profile issues. You can click on any of the 30 questions ranked on the hot list and see that some of the questions on the hot list have less than 200 likes for their top-rated answers, which proves that some of the questions on the hot list are not as popular as those that are not on the hot list but have very high popularity.

What to do if output is difficult?

Recommended reading. By using the method of breaking down a book, you can start writing after reading one or two pages, recording the points that make you feel empathy, and then looking up some information, you can output an article. It is quick, easy and easy to get started.

In fact, when we read articles of the same type on public accounts, we can also break them down, look at the viewpoints, and then add cases. The most important thing is that you have to add your own ideas, otherwise it will really become plagiarism.

Resource inventory type questions (typical format: What are they)

Popularity: High Accuracy: High Traffic-generating effect: Good Difficulty: Average The core provides users with more convenient solutions.

Key points for answering questions

A more complete solution (count all the books with the most likes in the answers), and then filter out the ones with the most recommendations (to help users save time). More authoritative solutions (recommended by professors from XX University, recommended by TED, etc.)

Argumentation (sharing) type questions? (Typical format: how)

Popularity: High Accuracy: High Traffic-generating effect: Good Difficulty: High The core provides logically rigorous solutions and can convince users.

Key points for answering questions

Establish your own authority, have clear viewpoints, self-consistent logic, and appropriate case examples. (Brief description: The content is readable and better than others)

The central idea is pointed out at the beginning, but the expression ability is not enough, which is mainly due to the poor thinking ability. The argument goes on step by step to prove your point, and the sub-arguments are sublimated layer by layer, from the lack of structure in thinking to the language being the mouthpiece of thinking, so the language has no structure. Finally, a solution is proposed: you need structured thinking, and use cases to demonstrate each sub-argument to enhance persuasiveness.

The summary is sublimated and the whole article is completed. Through further induction of structured thinking, guide users to pay attention to columns and public accounts. Each step is closely linked to the next, making it a very classic argumentative essay with a general-to-specific-general structure.

Author: Thirty years of professional life

Source: Thirty Years of Professional Life