Zhihu Live Product Analysis

2016 is known as the first year of knowledge payment, and a nationwide learning craze has emerged. At the same time, a product called Zhihu Live was launched and caused a sensation, and Zhihu CEO Zhou Yuan even personally showed his support! Today, although Zhihu Live exists, its fame has long been lost.

Why has Zhihu Live caught up with the trend of paid knowledge, but cannot fly like a pig? This article will make a comprehensive analysis based on the current situation and characteristics of Zhihu.

This article mainly focuses on the following aspects:

1. Product functional architecture
2. Market Analysis
3. User Analysis
4. Functional analysis
5. Commercialization Analysis-Zhihu Live
6. Summarize

1. Zhihu product functional architecture

1.1 By function

Figure 1-1 Product functional architecture

1.2 By module

Figure 1-2 Product module architecture

1.3 User flow chart

Figure 1-3 User Path 1 (Find answers to questions)

Figure 1-4 User usage path 2 (asking questions)

1.4 Flowchart of some functions

Figure 1-5 Searching for relevant content in the recommended section

Figure 1-6 Searching for relevant content in the Follow section

Figure 1-7 Paid consultation usage flow chart

2. Market Analysis

2.1 Introduction to Zhihu

Figure 2-1 Zhihu’s major iteration records

With the development of the Internet, the surge of smart phones and mobile Internet, various community social products have emerged one after another. Zhihu, a community APP, was officially launched on February 23, 2013.

This community social software, which is mainly a question-and-answer community and supplemented by a paid community, entered the knowledge payment market early with its keen "sense of smell", invited a large number of celebrities to share knowledge, and successively launched commercial products such as "Zhihu", "Private Lessons" and "Live Lectures", opening the road to commercialization.

At the same time, social products such as "Ideas" and "Square" were launched one after another, starting the exploration in the social field.

2.2 Market Opportunities

2.2.1 Scale of paid knowledge users in China

Figure 2-2 2015-2019 China’s paid knowledge user scale Data source-iiMedia Research

According to iMedia Research data, the number of paid knowledge users in China reached 292 million in 2018, and it is expected that the number of paid knowledge users in China will reach 387 million in 2019. Although the user growth rate is slowing down, the user scale is growing rapidly. In 2018-2019 alone, there will be an additional 90 million knowledge payment users. The knowledge demand brought by these 90 million new users will greatly promote the development of the knowledge payment industry.

By the end of 2018, the number of Zhihu's paid knowledge users had exceeded 6 million. The ceiling is quite high, and it is expected that there will be a market space of 300 million users.

2.2.2 Market size of paid knowledge industry

Figure 2-3 China's paid knowledge industry market size forecast Data source-iiMedia Research

According to iResearch Consulting's "China Online Knowledge Payment Market Research Report", the market size of China's knowledge payment industry reached 4.91 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach 23.51 billion in 2020. The huge market demand will attract more entrepreneurs and investment institutions to join, which will in turn give rise to more paid knowledge products;

Zhihu's revenue mainly comes from advertising and knowledge payment. The booming market size of the knowledge payment industry is conducive to promoting Zhihu's knowledge commercialization.

2.2.3 Zhihu app market performance

Figure 2-4 Community social APP rankings Data source-iiMedia Research

In iResearch's monthly independent device list for community dating, Zhihu is often ranked second, which is a remarkable performance. Compared with the products ranked higher on the list, Zhihu maintains a strong growth momentum.

With a huge user base and the ability to maintain such positive growth, Zhihu is expected to occupy a more mainstream position in the future.

Figure 2-5 Data source of independent device scale of community dating industry APP in June-iiMedia Research

Figure 2-6 Data source of independent device scale of community dating industry APP in July-iiMedia Research

Figure 2-7 Data source of independent device scale of community dating industry APP in August-iiMedia Research

In June, Zhihu's monthly number of independent devices was 48.81 million; in July, Zhihu's monthly number of independent devices was 50.13 million, a month-on-month increase of 2.7% from June; in August, Zhihu's monthly number of independent devices was 50.26 million, a month-on-month increase of 0.3% from July. The monthly active users of Zhihu APP continued to increase.

The author believes that the main reasons are:

1) Time nodes such as the college entrance examination and new student registration have given rise to a large number of knowledge demand scenarios. The number of applicants for my country's college entrance examination in 2019 has exceeded 10 million, and the number of university admissions is expected to exceed 8.2 million.

Against this backdrop, demands for knowledge on filling out applications, choosing majors, getting along in dormitories, starting school essentials, and university training continue to emerge, and most of the users in need are young people with an educational background. The notable feature of this type of user is their strong curiosity. So they chose Zhihu, a knowledge question and answer platform.

2) Zhihu launched the "College Entrance Examination Volunteer" function, and the platform operators promoted topics related to university and major selection, attracting a large number of students to join.

2.2.4 User stickiness

Figure 2-8 Zhihu user stickiness data source-iiMedia Research

Figure 2-9 Monthly usage time share of community dating industry apps Data source: iiMedia Research

Zhihu APP accounts for 0.12% of the total monthly usage time of APPs, far exceeding other APPs in the same industry. At the same time, the single-machine effective time reaches 111.6 minutes, ranking among the top APPs in the community dating section.

The author believes that the main reasons are:

1. The high-quality questions and answers accumulated in the Zhihu community are a key point in attracting users.
2. Good interaction. In the community, users can discuss with authors and other users.

2.3 Summary

Zhihu still has a fairly large market space and has strong user stickiness. The market performance is still quite good!

3. User Analysis

3.1 Number of users

Figure 3-1 Age distribution of Zhihu users Data source: Baidu Index

Figure 3-2 Gender distribution of Zhihu users Data source: Baidu Index

According to data from Baidu Index, the ratio of female to male users on Zhihu is roughly 3:7, and the users are mainly under 35 years old. Young people under the age of 35 have a stronger thirst for knowledge! Some of them are college students who have just entered society; some are people in society who are looking to change careers; some are confused people who have encountered problems and want to seek advice from professionals.

Most of these people have received higher education, have complex behavioral trajectories, and rich life scenarios, and their content needs are stronger than those of people in other age groups. At the same time, young people have relatively strong creative enthusiasm and have the basic conditions to output certain PUGC content.

Figure 3-3 Distribution of Zhihu users Data source: Baidu Index

Zhihu users are mainly concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, with a large number of users in super first-tier cities, first-tier cities, and second-tier cities. In addition to the fact that users in large cities are naturally more receptive to Internet products, this may also be related to the living conditions and scenarios of users in these cities.

In addition to relatively higher salaries and benefits, big cities are often also accompanied by a faster pace of work and greater life pressure. Especially for the large number of "empty nest youth" in these cities, the faster work pace requires a rapid improvement in their own work ability; greater life pressure will cause them confusion and anxiety, and then cause some confusion in life. Therefore, they need a platform to help them quickly improve their abilities in all aspects and solve the confusion they encounter in life!

Figure 3-4 Typical characteristics of Zhihu users Data source: iiMedia Research

From the figure we can know:

1. Zhihu users pursue fashion, value brands, love life, and are the pursuers of quality life;
2. Zhihu users focus on self-improvement and maintain good reading habits, and are the knowledge-based middle class;
3. Zhihu users have diverse interests, like new things, and pay attention to social networking. They are the new group of this era.

3.2 Usage scenarios and motivations

The main usage scenarios of Zhihu are divided into three categories: content production, content consumption, and interactive social interaction. Each usage scenario is analyzed to obtain the user usage trends in different scenarios, which are summarized as follows:

Figure 3-5 Usage scenarios and motivations

3.3 User Profile

User type: Xiao A, male, 20 years old, a junior student majoring in computer science, hopes to work in a large company after graduation and wants to keep abreast of the latest developments in the industry. Therefore, he follows many industry experts on Zhihu and often reads their answers and columns to learn and supplement his knowledge at any time.

User type: Xiao B, male, 29 years old, an Internet product manager, wanted to promote and attract traffic for his product training courses and WeChat public account, so he carefully answered many questions about product job hunting topics and left his personal public account at the end of his answers.

User type: Xiao C, female, 29 years old, a private high school teacher in the United States, who understands American culture and matters related to studying in high schools in the United States. I want to help people who want to study or travel in the U.S. to better understand the U.S. by answering questions, hosting Lives, publishing articles, and live broadcasts. And by sharing knowledge, Xiao C also made some money.

User type: Xiao D, male, 24 years old, just graduated from university and works in Shenzhen. He has a long commute to get off work and is quite bored, so he opens Zhihu to check out the trending searches, to find out what hot events happened today and what people think about them, and to browse entertainment topics and witty answers to kill time.

4. Functional Analysis

4.1 User Research

In order to study users’ experience with Zhihu’s paid knowledge product, the author interviewed 4 users. Based on the interview results, the author found that:

1. Before purchasing Zhihu Live, users pay more attention to the speaker's fame and the outline of the content.
2. Since Zhihu Live sessions are very short, most of the things the speakers talk about are theoretical and difficult to put into practice.

4.2 Optimization Suggestions

4.2.1 Optimizing the commercial product Zhihu Live

4.2.1.1 Zhihu Live Product Elements (Commercial Products)

Figure 4-1 The flow of money in Zhihu Live product elements:

Figure 4-2 The flow of money and content

Figure 4-3 Content flow

The measures that Zhihu platform must take are to optimize each link of the above process, including:

1. Help content producers output professional content (product design of the creation interface)
2. Provide content producers with some marketing tools (special promotion packages)
3. Provide content producers with a good place to interact with users (design of interactive area)
4. Improve the accuracy of recommendation algorithms and truly realize "information finds people"
5. Provide content consumers with certain reference materials to promote consumption (order process optimization and interface design)
6. Let users get the most valuable playback experience, form a good reputation for courses and products, and let users spread it spontaneously

4.2.1.2 Optimization of live lectures at the entrance of search results

Figure 4-4 Live lecture at the entrance of search results

Figure 4-5 Live lecture optimization and function description at the search result entrance

4.2.1.3 Live details page optimization

Figure 4-6 Live details page

Figure 4-7 Live details page optimization and function description

4.2.1.3 Optimize the evaluation page in the live details - add the question function (optimize the process)

Clarify the purpose of the function - ask the function

Sort out the function logic-ask function

Figure 4-8 Question function flow chart

List the functional solutions - Listening function

Figure 4-9 Question function - add a question button

Prototype drawing and PRD-ask function

Figure 4-10 Interaction process of the Q&A function

Figure 4-11 Detailed description of the Ask function

The above is the entire idea of ​​the Ask function, including the function purpose, function logic, function plan, interaction and function description.

4.2.1.4 Optimization of the evaluation page in the live details - re-comment function (optimization process)

Clarify the function purpose-review function

Sorting out the function logic-re-comment function

Figure 4-12 Flowchart of re-comment function

Figure 4-13 Flowchart of re-comment function

List the functional solutions - then comment on the function

Figure 4-14 Comment function solution

Prototype drawing and PRD-review function

Figure 4-15 Process and function description of the re-comment function

The above is the whole idea of ​​the re-comment function, including the function purpose, function logic, function plan, interaction and function description.

4.2.2 Unable to find relevant questions on the question page in paid consultation - add search function to the question interface

Clarify the purpose of the function - listen in function

Sorting out the function logic - listening function

Figure 4-13 Flowchart of the audit function Listing of functional solutions - audit function

Figure 4-14 Adding search function to draw prototype and PRD-audit function

Figure 4-16 Process and function description of adding search function

The above is the whole idea of ​​adding a search function to the question interface, including the function purpose, function logic, function plan, interaction and function description.

5. Commercialization Analysis-Zhihu Live

5.1 Introduction to Zhihu Live

Zhihu Live is a real-time question-and-answer interactive product launched by Zhihu and was launched on May 14, 2016. The answerer can create a Live, which will appear in the news feed of followers.

After the user clicks and pays the ticket price (set by the answerer), he or she can enter the communication group, share professional and interesting information through voice, and improve the efficiency of information exchange through instant interaction.

5.2 Data related to Zhihu Live and Himalaya Boutique

5.2.1 The penetration rate of paid knowledge on Zhihu Live and Ximalaya in a certain month of 2017 and August 2019

Figure 5-1 Sources of some data on Zhihu Live and Himalaya Premium from launch to the end of 2017 - Zhihu official, Analysys, Himalaya official

Figure 5-2 Source of Monthly Active Users of Paid Knowledge Apps in February 2017 - Analysys Data

From its launch to the end of 2017, the number of paying users of Himalaya Premium reached 35 million. Combined with the monthly active data of Himalaya in February 2017, it can be concluded that the penetration ratio of Himalaya Premium in a certain month in 2017 (number of paying users: monthly number of independent devices) was 1.12.

From its launch to the end of 2017, the number of paying users of Zhihu Live reached 5 million. Combined with the monthly active data of Himalaya in February 2017, it can be concluded that the penetration ratio of Zhihu Live in a certain month in 2017 (number of paying users: monthly number of independent devices) = 0.46.

Figure 5-3 Himalaya's monthly independent device scale in September 2019 Source: iResearch

From its launch to the end of 2017, the number of paying users of Himalaya Premium reached 35 million. Based on the forecast of user growth in the knowledge payment industry market mentioned above (the scale of knowledge payment users increased by 200% year-on-year in 2019 compared with 2017), it can be estimated that the number of paying users of Himalaya Premium in 2019 will be about 150 million.

Combined with Himalaya's monthly independent device scale data in September 2019, it can be concluded that the penetration ratio of Himalaya's boutique products in August 2019 (number of paying users: monthly number of independent devices) = 1.27.

From its launch to the end of 2017, the number of paying users of Zhihu Live reached 5 million. Based on the forecast of user growth in the knowledge payment industry market mentioned above (the scale of knowledge payment users increased by 200% year-on-year in 2019 compared with 2017), it can be estimated that the number of paying users of Zhihu Live in 2019 will be about 15 million.

Combined with the monthly independent device scale data of Zhihu in September 2019, it can be concluded that the penetration ratio of Zhihu Live in August 2019 (number of paying users: monthly number of independent devices) = 0.29.

5.2.2 Estimated number of Zhihu Live and Ximalaya premium courses and revenue scale in 2020

Figure 5-4 Source of Zhihu Live’s monthly revenue and number of sessions from June 2016 to April 2017 - Curiosity Daily

From June 2016 to the end of April 2017, Zhihu Live has held 2,900 events, with an annual revenue of 65.0816 million. According to the forecast of the development scale of the knowledge payment industry mentioned above (the scale of the knowledge payment industry will increase by 380% year-on-year in 2020 compared with 2017, and the annual income and related indicators are proportional to the growth rate of the industry scale), it can be estimated that the number of Zhihu Live events in 2020 will be about 13,920, and the annual income scale will reach 310 million .

According to data officially released by Himalaya, the ARPU value of paying users has been around 90 yuan since 2017. From its launch to the end of 2017, Himalaya Premium has had 35 million paying users and 10,000 paid courses, with revenue of around RMB 5.67 billion. It can be further estimated that from its launch to the end of April 2017, Himalaya Premium's revenue will reach around RMB 3.78 billion.

According to the aforementioned forecast of the development of the knowledge payment industry scale (the scale of the knowledge payment industry increased by 380% year-on-year in 2020 compared with 2017, and the annual revenue scale and related indicators are proportional to the growth rate of the industry scale), it can be estimated that by the end of 2020, the number of Himalaya boutique courses will be around 32,000, and the annual revenue scale will reach about 18.1 billion .

5.3 Comparison with Himalaya Boutique - Himalaya strikes hard | Zhihu small steps trial and error

Figure 5-5 The penetration rate of paid knowledge on Zhihu Live and Himalaya

Compared with Himalaya Premium, Zhihu Live's knowledge payment penetration rate has always been low.

The author speculates that the reasons are as follows:

(1) Analysis from the perspective of operations - Xima strikes hard | Zhihu takes small steps to try and fail

Himalaya Premium: It launched "66 Membership Day", "123 Knowledge Payment Festival" and "Premium Program" successively to promote the premium payment area. Meanwhile, the sales of premium products lived up to expectations. "66 Membership Day" and "123 Knowledge Payment Festival" alone created 250 million in revenue.

Zhihu Live: In the early stage, we invited Zhihu celebrities with their own fan traffic to participate in the live Q&A session to answer questions for users. The live host can send tickets to friends and invite them to join his live. The live viewing and application entrances were gradually opened later.

(2) From the perspective of content production: the number of content producers on Xima is much higher than that on Zhihu

Himalaya - Strengthening the training of anchors - As of the end of August 2018, Himalaya already had 5 million anchors.

In addition to celebrity endorsements, Himalaya also provides audio entrepreneurship opportunities for some potential people. In recent years, Himalaya has increased its efforts in anchor training, established Himalaya University, and launched the Ten Thousand People and Ten Billion Plan and the Ace Anchor Plan, all of which aim to help some young people with potential and dreams stand out. As of the end of August 2018, Himalaya already had 5 million anchors.

Zhihu - the creation plan is launched one after another - but at the end of 2018, Zhihu only had more than 5,000 professional content producers.

According to the data officially released by Zhihu, at the end of 2018, Zhihu had only more than 5,000 professional content producers. However, at the same time, the number of registered users of Zhihu was 220 million, and the number of daily active users reached more than 50 million. The content producers: content consumers = 1:10,000 (production-consumption ratio).

(3) Analysis from the perspective of promotion - Xima sharing makes money | Zhihu word-of-mouth drive

Himalaya: If others purchase premium paid products through the link shared by user A, user A will receive a 5% commission. The establishment of a user distribution mechanism has made users more aware of sharing and encouraged more users to pay.

Zhihu Live: It relies more on platform traffic recommendations and user word-of-mouth recommendations, and its sharing awareness is weaker than Himalaya.

5.4 Zhihu Live’s own development

Figure 5-6 The penetration rate of paid knowledge on Zhihu Live and Ximalaya

Figure 5-7 Revenue scale of Zhihu Live and Ximalaya Premium

Himalaya Boutique: In a certain month in 2017, the knowledge payment penetration ratio of Himalaya Boutique was 1.12. In August 2019, the figure was 1.29. In 2020, the estimated annual revenue scale of Himalaya Boutique's paid area will reach 18.1 billion.

Zhihu Live: In a certain month in 2017, the knowledge payment penetration rate of Zhihu Live was 0.46. In August 2019, the figure was 0.29. In 2020, Zhihu Live's estimated annual revenue scale will reach 310 million .

2016 is known as the first year of knowledge payment, and a nationwide learning craze has emerged. At the same time, Zhihu Live and Himalaya's premium paid area were launched almost at the same time. The difference in their revenue scale today is so huge that it is thought-provoking.

Why has Zhihu Live caught up with the trend of paid knowledge, but cannot fly like a pig?

The author believes the reasons are as follows:

(1) It is difficult for content producers to realize commercial value - many influencers leave the company

In March 2017, Wukong Q&A, a question-and-answer platform under Toutiao, signed contracts with 300 Zhihu influencers.

In early 2019, the big V "Tu Siji" joined hands with hundreds of KOLs to enter the Weibo Q&A platform.

The fundamental reason for the departure of many big Vs from Zhihu is the disagreement between the platform and content creators on money. Big Vs hope to gain economic benefits by taking on advertisements and relying on fan economy, but Zhihu prefers to rely on knowledge payment to meet the creators' monetization needs. Maintaining high-quality content output solely through enthusiasm is an idealized result , especially for answerers with a smaller fan base, it is inevitable to want to get monetary incentives.

Zhihu has successively launched knowledge payment projects such as Zhihu, Live, private lessons, and e-books to help outstanding creators earn income. Zhihu is doing its best to help content creators monetize their knowledge; however, judging from the hosting situation, the revenue of Live shows a 28th rule, with 20% of the speakers earning 80% of the revenue, and the income of most Live speakers is not as good as rumored by the outside world. This still proves the saying that maintaining high-quality content output solely through passion is an idealistic result .

(2) Content producers have weak professional output capabilities and long monetization cycles

From June 2016 to the end of April 2017, Zhihu Live has held 2,900 events. Each Zhihu Live speaker has held a total of 4.58 live events, which means about one live event every 2.5 months. With the development of the Internet and the optimization of tools, a live lecture is now estimated to take one and a half to two months (even with the assistance of some tools, the essence is still the output of content).

Therefore, a live lecture is expected to take one and a half to two months from the generation of ideas to the production, launch and completion of the course. The frequency of live lecture content output is low and the monetization cycle is long. This reflects the weak professional output capabilities of content creators.

(3) Content “sinks” - causing users to “escape”

Under the overall environment, the platform needs to grow and commercialize, and it is inevitable to move from a niche to the mainstream.

The transformation from a niche elite community to a knowledge sharing platform for the general public has also caused Zhihu to become increasingly controversial. As the number of users continues to grow, a large amount of pan-entertainment content has poured into Zhihu. Joking content such as "I'm in the United States, just got off the plane", "The average annual salary of people on Zhihu is one million", "Share the story you just made up with the world" also appeared one after another.

When you open Zhihu, you will no longer see some professional, high-quality answers, but some witty and random replies that are at the top of the list. During the transformation process, the change in product tone also took away a large number of early seed users and big Vs.

Looking back at Zhihu Live, the content quality of Zhihu LIve in recent years is quite worrying!

Figure 5-5 An author on Zhihu answers questions about Zhihu Live

The prevalence of headlines such as "How to get into XX University in a few months", "How a poor student gets into 985/211/Top 10", and "How I got the offer of a product manager at BAT in 3 days". Some Zhihu Lives simply translate books into audio and then put them online, madly harvesting leeks (marketing party).

According to user survey results, most Zhihu Live content lacks practical methods and is just empty talk of methodology, giving users a high perceived value but low practical value. The prevalence of these low-quality Lives has increased consumers’ usage costs to a certain extent and seriously undermined consumers’ trust in Zhihu Live.

(4) Improper operational strategy - Zhihu’s credibility is in danger

The launch of the "Zhihu Live Unlimited Plan" annual pass at the end of 2017 led to a lot of criticism. Here are the reasons:

1. Because Zhihu had distributed annual membership coupons to most users in the months before the end of 2017, the launch of the unlimited plan at this time dealt a heavy blow to loyal old users who had previously paid due to the coupons.
2. The use of text in the promotion caused a lot of misunderstanding among users. "Voucher" = "Discount coupon"; Free listening to thousands of Live courses = Scope of application: all completed Live courses with a rating below 4.2. If you want to listen to high-scoring Live courses, you need to pay extra.

The launch of the annual unlimited card plan has dealt a heavy blow to users' trust in the Zhihu platform. Zhihu is facing the pressure of commercialization at this time. If it fails to deliver good revenue results, it will inevitably affect its financing situation, but it would be too ugly.

VI. Conclusion

The dilemma encountered by Zhihu LIve is also the dilemma encountered by the Zhihu platform in its journey to commercialize knowledge!

1. It is difficult for content creators to realize commercial value

Zhihu has successively launched knowledge payment projects such as Zhihu, Live, private courses, and e-books to help outstanding creators earn income.

Zhihu is doing its best to help content creators monetize their knowledge; however, the revenue situation of most products shows the 80/20 rule, where 20% of creators earn 80% of the revenue. It is an idealistic result to maintain high-quality content output solely by relying on enthusiasm.

In addition, Zhihu strictly prohibits big Vs from accepting advertisements. They hope that Zhihu big Vs will pin their hopes of monetization on their own high-quality content output, thereby maintaining the content quality of the community.

1. The quality of content in paid knowledge products is difficult to control

Zhihu currently has more than 15,000 paid knowledge products. With such a large amount of content, how can we filter out the high-quality content and present it to users? How to improve user experience? Instead of making users feel that they are being "charged an IQ tax" or "being ripped off."

Zhihu has also made many attempts at commercial monetization. From the knowledge payment field to the short video track, to e-commerce, and now to joining the live broadcast war. Which business is more suitable for Zhihu? In what form will the accumulated high-quality content and cultivated high-quality content creators eventually be commercialized? We don't know yet.

Author: Brave Look at Keng

Source: Brave Look at Keng