Zhihu Marketing Methodology in 2019!

According to the data from the "iiMedia Report | 2018-2019 China Knowledge Payment Industry Research and Commercial Investment Decision Analysis Report" released by iiMedia Consulting, the scale of China's knowledge payment users is growing rapidly. In 2018, the scale of knowledge payment users reached 292 million, and it is expected that the scale of knowledge payment users will reach 387 million in 2019.

With the development of mobile payment technology and the urgent demand for knowledge in the whole society, the knowledge payment market continues to expand, and users gradually develop the habit of paying for knowledge. Zhihu, with the slogan "If you have any questions, go to Zhihu", strongly echoes its leading position in the field of knowledge.

According to official data from Zhihu, as of January 2019, Zhihu has 220 million users, 380,000 topics, and 130 million answers. It has to be admitted that Zhihu is an excellent product serving the C-end. Just recently on August 12, Zhihu announced the completion of its F round of financing with a total amount of US$434 million. Investors include Kuaishou, Baidu, Tencent, etc. This is the largest investment Zhihu has received to date.

It should not be difficult for anyone with a discerning eye to discover that Zhihu is a "treasure land" with three main characteristics: in-depth communication with users, long-term influence, and wide dissemination. Especially after financing, capital cooperation with giants can help Zhihu connect upstream and downstream and integrate resources with platforms such as Baidu, Tencent, and Kuaishou, allowing Zhihu's combined product layout to have a broader prospect.

So in such a great environment, how to seize traffic share on Zhihu and help brands expand their influence is a workplace skill that every new media marketer should master. Next, we will share two parts about Zhihu's daily operations and marketing promotion.

Zhihu Daily Operation Tips

1. Understand Zhihu's operating regulations and avoid stepping on minefields

First of all, if you want to continue operating in a community, you must know what the community’s norms are, so that you don’t get stuck when your account is blocked. Understand the community norms and don’t try to cross the line:

• Answering a question that is not asked

In order to get on the hot list, many people put all kinds of irrelevant content on it. Trying to get on the hot list by force can easily cause users to be disgusted.

• Multiple submissions

Posting an answer under many questions is also not in line with Zhihu community norms.

• Copy and Paste

Nowadays, people are paying more and more attention to intellectual property rights, so don't copy and paste from everywhere and post it on Zhihu. It's best to have your own thoughts and ideas (if you copy, you need to indicate the source, and of course you can also try pseudo-originality).

• Put WeChat ID or mobile phone number

This is a violation of Zhihu community norms and is likely to be reported and deleted.

2. Determine the account positioning, plan the content matrix in multiple dimensions around the positioning, and publish content in the corresponding sections

The role of positioning is that when users see the content of your account, they can quickly perceive the value they will gain from it.

First of all, we need to understand what group the account is targeting, and portray the core users, target users, potential users and all users respectively; then determine the account style. The atmosphere of Zhihu community is serious, professional and friendly. It is not recommended to choose the ruler type and entertainment type. It is recommended to take the brand tone as the foundation, integrate the value of products/services, and output content in styles such as opinion output/dry goods sharing/brain hole creativity.

So how to plan the content matrix? Let’s take Weishidun’s Zhihu institutional account as an example, as follows:

Industry knowledge: such as information on industries or companies such as education, e-commerce, tourism, and technology.

Corporate culture: such as outputting corporate culture walls, T-shirts, team building, recruitment and other related content

Product information: such as outputting customer service cases, introductions to new products, etc.

Workplace skills: such as new media operations, marketing methodology, communication skills improvement, thinking training, etc.

Currently, Zhihu's content ecosystem is very rich, covering interesting, diverse and professional content tracks such as technology, workplace, education, food, games, home, etc.

After selecting the target track, our next step is to understand Zhihu’s product ecosystem and know what form of content should be distributed in which section. Community products include Q&A, articles, columns, ideas, and roundtables; knowledge market products include Zhihu Bookstore and Zhihu Live.

For Zhihu operators, the content sections that must be understood are articles, Q&A, ideas and columns. These are the content distribution paths that must be mastered.

3. Pay attention to Q&A editing skills to improve answer quality

• Selection Questions:
• The quality of the answer is related to the quality of the question. You can choose to post questions with high page views and fewer answers, so that your content will be easier to be discovered. In addition, the content of the answer should be rigorous. Don't force an answer if you don't know the answer.
• Length suggestion:
• The answer should be moderate in content, not too long or too short, preferably around 1,500 words
• Answer structure:
• It is recommended to equip one picture for every 300-500 words to avoid full text, which will make the reading experience poor. The configuration of pictures is very particular. You can make a summary of each paragraph such as a mind map, and sometimes insert interesting emoticons. It is recommended to give a conclusion first and then analyze the conclusion. Zhihu users like to read stories. Story + experience sharing is a good choice. Avoid nonsense.
• Content style:
• Enrich your professional qualities, focus on one or two areas of expertise, answer questions in a targeted manner, focus on practical information, be witty and have an interesting writing style, and have unique and novel insights to attract users to read among similar answers.
• Guided interaction:
• Good answers need to increase interactivity with users and guide users to like or comment on your content. For example, you can insert a phrase at the beginning or end of your answer: "Thank you for the invitation!" "This answer is divided into X steps, I suggest you save it" "It's not easy to organize, I need a little red heart from you, my friends~" etc.

I would also like to add that good questions and good answers complement each other. An answer written by a PU with hundreds of thousands of followers is not necessarily a good question, as only a small number of people may discuss it; an answer written by an ordinary person that has no agreement or reads is not necessarily spam.

4. Grasp the rhythm of content release, operate continuously, and maintain activity

In the early stages of operation, you will go through a cold start phase, which is the early stage of publishing content. It is recommended that after decorating the homepage, you should combine your own operation plan and target audience analysis to interact with friends, questions, topics, roundtables and columns, and perform other interactive behaviors such as following and liking them.

This allows the Zhihu platform to understand you more quickly and match more content and traffic that suits you. You can also keep up to date with the dynamics of the accounts you follow and get the information you may need more quickly.

In terms of update frequency, it is recommended to publish 5 Q&A articles per week, with a structure of 3 professional knowledge articles + 2 life knowledge articles, to avoid the account content being too boring. In the content section, the output of answers is the main focus, supplemented by articles and ideas as embellishments, interspersed throughout.

Although you don’t need to update content every day, you need to keep your account active. Don’t forget that Zhihu also has a [Salt Value] function. The higher the salt value, the higher the weight. Therefore, it is recommended to check the hot lists/recommended/follow sections every day and interact with the content related to your own account by liking and commenting on it.

Zhihu Marketing Promotion Tips

Regarding the marketing and promotion methods on Zhihu, this time we will discuss two types: content marketing and information flow delivery.

1. Content Marketing

To do content marketing, you must first understand these four points:

• Understand Zhihu content distribution path and obtain more high-quality traffic
• Explore user psychology and plan topics that attract audience attention and discussion
• Able to create high-quality articles, the content of which can resonate and be recognized by friends
• Select appropriate and sufficient PU resources, grasp the rhythm of delivery, and help the dissemination of content

So how does Zhihu content dissemination actually work?

• Hot list planning and communication

Planning the right topic is the key to spreading the hot list. Here are some examples:

Hot topics: How do you evaluate Xiaomi executive Wang Teng’s remarks in the WeChat group about the rush to buy Xiaomi phones?

Brain-opening topic: What would it be like if your home appliances could talk?

Experience-based question: How to get 90 points in the postgraduate entrance examination English?

Summary and weird questions: Don’t kangaroos hurt their knees from hopping all day?

Weishidun Zhihu content marketing team takes the following three steps to ensure the communication effect:

S1: Release the topic on the platform, observe the traffic changes within 48 hours, and determine the best topic through A/B testing

S2: Answer the selected topic, embed brand content and product introduction

S3: Promote the answer to keep it in the top position during the ranking period and obtain more traffic

• Column article published

Articles are a powerful outlet for brand endorsement. Column articles written by professionals are more convincing; the articles have a greater influence and relatively higher weight; the forwarding and collection rate is high, making them easy to spread in other media.

We write professional copy by taking side jobs and talent as breakthroughs; we take stock of existing columns and select expert resources that match the industry field to publish and submit articles; we weight the included articles by likes and collections to give them higher weights.

• Problem soft article implantation

Soft text answers are the key to changing user attitudes. They change consumers’ views through emotional expression, encourage users to take action by sharing their own experience and knowledge, and convey objective information to establish a brand image.

Regarding the implantation of soft articles, our approach is: screen relevant questions and implant soft articles; select fresh questions on the hot list and implant answers; maintain data to ensure long-term effects.

• Create brand buzz

Keyword searches increase brand exposure and raise questions related to the brand name; the questions are positively oriented; they arouse user debate and collect user opinions.

When we plan brand topics, we will use third parties to create topics; ask questions under brand topics to create interesting and professional questions related to the brand; and maintain data to ensure that questions under brand topics are ranked high for a long time.

2. Information flow delivery

Information flow advertising is also a promotion method that many advertisers are keen on. The sections that Zhihu’s performance advertising can involve include: recommendation page, follow-up page, question page and question-and-answer page.

Users browse diverse information on the recommendation page, focus on their interests on the follow page, post their needs and questions on the question page, and read in depth on the answer page. Zhihu is a question-and-answer community, so the traffic in these locations is also very popular.

A variety of advertising formats are used to guide users to download mobile applications, receive discounts, etc.

Large pictures : good visual effects; text links : more native, not common on other platforms, but effective on Zhihu, in line with the reading habits of Zhihu users; videos : strong impact; small pictures : text + picture combination, more vivid; picture gallery : multiple pictures showing a variety of products.

Author: Mengbao

Source: Weishidun Mobile Marketing