2019 Zhihu product operation analysis!

“Q&A community + knowledge payment” How does Zhihu use the huge traffic of the Q&A community to serve the knowledge payment business? As a newcomer to knowledge payment, how should Zhihu provide user conversion and retention? How is Zhihu's knowledge payment different from other platforms such as Get, Qianliao, and Himalaya? How can Zhihu develop a knowledge payment route that is unique to it? This article will make a comprehensive analysis based on the current situation and characteristics of Zhihu.

This article will analyze from the following aspects:

1. Product function structure
2. Market Analysis
3. User Analysis
4. Positioning analysis
5. Functional analysis
6. Summarize

1. Zhihu product function structure

Product Architecture

Product Usage Process

(1) When you have nothing to do, just browse the Q&A community to kill time:

(2) I have a problem that needs to be solved/I want to learn about a field that I have never been involved in, and I want to hear the advice and experience of people who have experienced it:

(3) To improve your knowledge in a certain area, you want to systematically study a certain type of course:

2. Market Analysis

With the development of the Internet, the production and dissemination of information has accelerated, and the amount of information has grown exponentially. With the diversified development of media, information has gradually become fragmented and the quality of information has declined rapidly.

Due to the overload of information and the low quality of information, people need to spend a lot of time and energy to select valuable information.

Therefore, users are eager to obtain high-quality information quickly (information quantity change chart). At the same time, with the increase in domestic per capita income, the stimulation of consumption upgrading and the improvement of consumption concepts, Chinese people are beginning to be willing to pay for services and information (National Bureau of Statistics - growth in per capita consumer expenditure).

Data source: National Bureau of Statistics

In such an environment, question-and-answer communities and knowledge payment came into being.

2.1 Market size

2.1.1 Current Market Size

According to iResearch's "China Online Knowledge Payment Market Research Report":

In 2017, the monthly number of independent devices and monthly total effective usage time of question-and-answer communities and knowledge payment platforms reached 143 million and 410 million hours, respectively. Compared with the beginning of 2017, the increases were 73.7% and 100.3% respectively. In 2017, the industry scale was approximately 4.91 billion, a year-on-year increase of nearly 3 times. It is expected that by 2020, the industry scale will reach 23.5 billion.

At present, the main users of question-and-answer communities and knowledge payment are young people in first- and second-tier cities with a certain educational background and income level.

Data source: New List

2.1.2 Future Market Size

In order to open up a larger market, question-and-answer communities and knowledge payment are gradually sinking and incorporating a large number of daily life topics and courses.

With the continuous penetration in third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, all netizens using mobile Internet will be potential users of question-and-answer communities and knowledge payment, which means a market space of approximately 800 million users.

Data source: "Knowledge Service Industry Data White Paper"

Data source: iResearch

2.2 Zhihu’s Market Performance

2.2.1 Market size

After explosive growth from 2013 to 2018, Zhihu now has over 200 million registered users, with a total of 23 million questions asked and over 100 million answers. It has nearly 20 million active users, second only to Himalaya.

Data source: Analysys Qianfan

As can be seen from the above figure, the number of active users of Himalaya and Zhihu is far higher than that of Dedao, Zaixingyidian and Qianliao.

The author believes that the main reasons are:

The positioning of Duoduo, Zaixingyidian and Qianliao is knowledge payment, while the positioning of Himalaya and Zhihu is knowledge payment + free content. The free content of the former is audio, and the free content of the latter is the Q&A community. Compared with paid content, free content has lower costs and is more attractive to users to access in their spare/fragmented time.

As both platforms offer paid knowledge and free content, Himalaya has far more active users than Zhihu. I think the main reasons are:

1. Listening is more convenient than watching. Free content is mainly used for entertainment in fragmented time, that is, mainly concentrated on commuting, waiting for people, etc. During rush hour on the subway, it is more convenient to listen to audio than to read text.

2. Zhihu’s answers are more life-oriented, while Himalaya’s audiobooks and courses are more knowledge-oriented and better meet users’ demands for improvement.

2.2.2 User stickiness

From the average usage time per launch, we can see that Zhihu has high user stickiness. The average usage time per launch is second only to Qianliao, and there is a trend of gradually extending.

Ximalaya, which has the highest number of active users, has the lowest average usage time per session, while Qianliao, which has the lowest number of active users, has the highest average usage time per session. The author believes that the main reasons are:

1. Free content is difficult to obtain users’ long-term attention and is mainly used for entertainment or excessive consumption in fragmented time.

2. Paid content means more cost and better quality content. Users will focus on the content and are happy to devote their attention to it for a period of time.

Both of them provide free content, but Zhihu has more user stickiness than Himalaya. I think the main reasons are:

1. Compared with listening, reading is more proactive and people are more attracted to the content.

2. The Q&A community has a better sense of interaction. You can discuss with the author and other users, or participate in the answer yourself.

2.3 Summary

Overall, Zhihu’s market performance is good. There is a large market size and strong user stickiness, but there is also room for improvement.

3. User Analysis

3.1 Gender Ratio

From the data of Talking Date, we can see that the male-to-female ratio of Zhihu is approximately 1:1. This shows that in terms of question-and-answer communities and knowledge payment, the content provided by Zhihu is generally not affected by gender. Men and women have the same preference for Zhihu.

Data source: Talking Date

3.2 Age

In terms of age, Zhihu users are concentrated between 19 and 45 years old, among which 26-35 years old account for the largest proportion, reaching 52.83%.

Age distribution of Zhihu users:

Data source: Talking Date

Combining the age distribution of users of Dedao, Himalaya and Zaixing, it can be seen that the age distribution of Zhihu users is similar to these three. It can be inferred that, in terms of age attributes, Zhihu users are more likely to pay for knowledge.

Age distribution of users of Dedao, Ximalaya and Zaixing:

Data source: Talking Date

3.3 Geographical distribution

Zhihu users are mostly concentrated in first-tier cities and wealthy provinces. On the one hand, these regions have developed economies, high per capita incomes, and users have high demands for quality of life. On the other hand, first-tier cities are developing rapidly and the work pressure is high, so people need to keep learning and improving themselves. Guangdong Province has the largest number of users because it has two first-tier cities - Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

The high number of users in Shandong, Sichuan, Hubei and Henan is mostly due to the large population base in these provinces.

Data source: Baidu Index

3.4 Content Preference

According to Talking Date statistics, Zhihu users' preferred content mainly includes lifestyle, assets, and self-improvement. From this we can infer that Zhihu users focus on themselves rather than their families. Most of them are young people with certain economic capabilities who are eager to improve themselves and enjoy life at the same time.

Combining the user content preferences of Duode, Himalaya, and Zaixing, it can be seen that Zhihu's user content preferences are similar to these three. It can be inferred that in terms of content attributes, Zhihu users are more likely to pay for knowledge.

The following figure shows the content preferences of Zhihu users:

Data source: Talking Date

The following figure shows the content preferences of users of Dedao, Ximalaya, and Zaixing:

Data source: Talking Date

summary

In summary, most Zhihu users are between 26 and 35 years old, mainly located in first-tier cities, and are more self-centered rather than family-centered. They have a certain economic ability and are eager to improve themselves while enjoying life. Moreover, since the age distribution and content preferences of Zhihu users are basically consistent with those of Duoduo, Himalaya and Zaixing, it can be inferred that Zhihu users are also more likely to participate in knowledge payment.

3.5 User Usage Scenarios

According to the previous analysis, Zhihu’s typical user portraits can be summarized into the following three categories:

User One

Abby, 20 years old, female, a senior student, will graduate in one year. She is undecided about whether to take the postgraduate entrance examination or find a job, but she does not know many seniors. Abby decided to check Zhihu and soon found relevant answers. She learned in detail about the prospects of work and postgraduate entrance examinations, as well as the difficulties encountered in the process. After learning from the experiences and advice of those who had gone through it, Abby finally made a decision and began to prepare for it.

User 2

Bally, 24 years old, female, new pet owner. Bally loves cats very much and recently finally bought a kitten. He wanted to learn what scientific care this little life requires. Bally decided to study relevant courses at Zhihu University. Through the course, Bally learned about the living habits of cats, which behaviors indicate happiness and anger, what they like to eat and what they cannot eat, etc. Now, Bally's kitten is growing up healthily, and the two have a very good relationship.

User Three

Bob, 26 years old, male, working programmer

Bob lives in the suburbs and takes a 40-minute subway ride to work every day. To kill time, Bob would browse topics and answers of interest in the Zhihu Q&A community on his way to work every day. Because the content on Zhihu is both educational and entertaining. Bob always gets something out of his 40-minute commute and always feels that time passes quickly.

4. Positioning Analysis

Zhihu started as a question-and-answer community, and its initial goal was to answer users’ questions and broaden their horizons.

As Zhihu continues to develop, the demand for profitability and the ability to provide users with higher-quality content have gradually increased; thus, the knowledge payment business was born - Zhihu University (formerly Knowledge Market) and Yanxuan Membership. However, Zhihu's knowledge payment business did not achieve the expected results.

36Kr reporters learned that advertising is still Zhihu's main source of income, and the numbers are not ideal. Zhihu, which has been lacking in commercialization, has shifted its focus to membership services and launched the Yanxuan membership. It can be seen that Zhihu's knowledge payment has not been paid for by a large number of users.

4.1 Competitive Product Analysis

By comparing Zhihu with Qianliao and Duoduo, it was found that Qianliao has the strongest user stickiness. The author believes that the main reasons are as follows:

(1) Qianliao’s courses are the most practical

Qianliao’s popular courses are mostly marketing, parenting, English, children’s education, etc.; Zhihu and Dedao’s popular categories are workplace and personal growth, mostly economics, psychology, and management courses. Compared with the latter, the former is more practical and easier to apply to daily life and work.

Data source: Qianliao: 2018 Knowledge Service Platform Data White Paper

Data source: Zhihu, Get

(2) Users on different platforms have different motivations for paying

Data source: Qianliao: 2018 Knowledge Service Platform Data White Paper

Data source: Zhihu, Get

As can be seen from the above figure, most of the users of Qianliao and Zhihu are motivated by the course content and want to gain something from the courses. It is even better to have a big V bonus; most of the users are attracted by the fame of the lecturers. Due to different motivations for paying, when users enter the learning stage, Qianliao, which is chosen for the course itself rather than the fame of the instructor, has a longer learning time.

(3) Qianliao’s courses are highly compatible with users

The following figure is a user portrait of Qianliao:

Data source: Qianliao: 2018 Knowledge Service Platform Data White Paper

From the above figure, we can conclude that the main users of Qianliao are people aged 30-50, married with children, with average educational level, living in third- and fourth-tier cities, and who need to balance work and family. Therefore, their preferences for courses tend to be: life-oriented + professional, cost-effective, practical, easy to understand and easy to use.

Combining the above analysis of Qianliao’s course content and course attractions, it can be seen that Qianliao’s course design is highly matched with user demands. In this regard, Zhihu still has room for improvement.

The target users of Zhihu's paid knowledge are active viewers in the Q&A community. However, there is a certain disconnect between the contents of the Zhihu Q&A community and paid knowledge, and the compatibility between the two user groups is not high. According to previous analysis of Zhihu users, the majority of Zhihu users are between 26 and 35 years old, mainly located in first-tier cities, are more self-centered rather than family-centered, have a certain economic ability, and are eager to improve themselves while enjoying life. Moreover, as a question-and-answer community, Zhihu’s core function is to answer users’ questions, and one of the motivations for users to use knowledge is to solve problems. Therefore, the starting point of Zhihu University should also be solving problems, followed by knowledge learning.

4.2 Optimization Suggestions

Zhihu is both a unicorn in the question-and-answer community and a newcomer in the paid knowledge sector. In order to increase the number of users in the field of knowledge payment and enhance user stickiness, the author believes that we can start from the following aspects:

(1) Provide knowledge payment services based on problem solving

The target users of Zhihu's knowledge payment are active viewers in the Q&A community, so its knowledge payment should not imitate Dedao, which focuses on knowledge education, nor should it imitate Zaixing, which focuses on workplace training. Instead, it should be based on its own Q&A community, through more professional answers and courses based on questions, to gradually migrate users of the Q&A community to knowledge payment.

(2) Enhance the practicality of the course

Usefulness is the basis for repeat purchases, and knowledge that cannot solve problems is just nonsense. There is a common problem in the current field of knowledge payment - the learning content is far from practice and solvable problems, especially in courses such as psychology and management.

Setting up courses with problem solving as the core and guiding practice can improve the practicality of the courses.

V. Functional Analysis

In order to understand users’ expectations of Zhihu, especially the paid knowledge section, as well as the problems they encounter during use, and to effectively conduct functional analysis, the author conducted in-depth interviews with 13 Zhihu users.

Combined with the interview results, the author found that users active in the Q&A community do not fully accept Zhihu's knowledge payment. The author will start with two main reasons, analyze and propose optimization solutions.

5.1 Limited basis for judgment

Currently, before purchasing, users judge Live based on: lecturer, course introduction, content outline, and user reviews; private lessons are judged based on: lecturer, course introduction, expert recommendations (some do not have), course outline, and friends’ comments (some do not have).

However, just like online shopping, users definitely trust buyers’ shows more than sellers’ shows. Among all the criteria for judgment, the only ones that can reflect user feedback are Live course ratings and friends’ comments on private courses.

Among them, Zhiyoushuo displays several messages praising the courses selected from the community. However, the content posted by Zhiyou is selected by editors, and users who have not participated in the purchase cannot see all the comments. Users may think that only favorable information is displayed and unfavorable information is blocked, and thus do not completely believe what Zhiyou says.

Optimization suggestions:

By opening up all high-quality messages in the community that can more specifically reflect the quality of the course to users who have not participated in the purchase, we can provide users with more basis for judgment when making purchases.

reason:

For knowledge payment, learning outcomes and insights are equivalent to buyer shows, which demonstrate the impact of the content on users, indirectly reflect the quality of the course, and help users make purchasing decisions.

At the same time, high-quality message output helps existing users learn knowledge and increases the probability of repurchase. Moreover, community messages usually only reveal a small part rather than most of the knowledge content, so the probability of replacing listening to the entire course with browsing the community is not high.

5.2 Specific Optimization

5.2.1 Guide users to participate in community message posting

(1) Tie community popularity to the speaker’s income, allowing the speaker to attract users to the message community

The lecturer’s course income is divided into two parts: one part is the income from the course content, and the other part is the income from community traffic.

The revenue from community traffic is divided into two parts: one part is the speaker’s participation in the community, including how many users’ problems he/she has solved, how many discussions he/she has participated in, etc.; the other part is the total traffic of the community, that is, how many users have participated in community discussions, asked questions and shared.

By linking popularity with the lecturer's course income, the lecturer will be motivated to encourage students to participate in community interaction, and also to participate in community interaction himself, thereby mobilizing the enthusiasm of both parties. The speaker can attract traffic by distributing benefits in the community, etc.

Schematic diagram of the formula for calculating the speaker’s income

(2) Add a content pinning function to place benefits, motivational articles, and other content that you hope to attract students’ attention. Content that users are interested in is placed in the pinned area to arouse users’ interest.

(3) Add content filtering function to help users quickly find content of interest.

The interface of the Live and private lesson message community

The newly added Live message community interface follows the private course interface. The message interface originally consists of two parts: message information and an input box for writing a message.

Two new parts were added in this optimization: filter tags and pinned information.

All the pinned content is the content title set as a link. Clicking the title will jump to the detailed content page (internal to Zhihu, not external website). Among the pinned content, motivational articles can be provided by the Zhihu marketing team, and welfare gift packages and frequently asked questions and answers summaries can be provided by the speakers.

Among them, the summary of frequently asked questions and answers in the Live community can be representative questions asked by other users during the Live process, and the lecturer's answers (converted into text). The summary of frequently asked questions and answers in private classes can be the common questions and answers that the lecturer believes based on his or her own experience.

Reasons for adding filter tags:

The original community was not lively, and there were very few course communities with more than a hundred messages. However, with the optimization of the community this time, and with the intention to activate the community atmosphere, the number of messages in the community may increase significantly in the future. At that time, users will have the demand to find useful information among the numerous messages. Filter tags can help users filter out irrelevant information and reduce search costs.

Reasons for adding the sticky function:

In order to motivate users to participate in the community, the benefits of joining the community need to be detailed and visible to users. Therefore, set the pinning function and pin relevant articles, and users will inevitably see them. In addition, the content that most users care about, such as benefits and frequently asked questions, can be pinned to the top for easy viewing, thus increasing the community's attractiveness to users.

Message posting interface in the message community

The author added content tags to the original interface to ensure the functionality of filtering messages by tags.

5.2.2 Guide users to leave high-quality messages

Allow the speaker to think after class: leaving thoughts after class can help users determine the direction of their messages. In addition, after-class thinking is often more open-ended, and requires combining one's own views and learning content to leave high-quality messages.

The interface where the speaker left some thoughts on the PPT at the end of the Live

On the PPT page showing the homework, users are asked to go to the message community to share reminders. In order to ensure that the speakers have something to think about after class, in addition to the above method of binding the speaker's income to the community's popularity, the Zhihu team can indicate the information on after-class thinking in the PPT template distributed to the speakers.

5.2.3 Open the message community to non-purchased users

(1) Join the community next to the private course catalog. The community content includes all messages about learning achievements, insights, and questions and answers.

The picture above is the community page under the private lesson course introduction page. The original course introduction consisted of two parts: course introduction and course catalog. Now a community section has been added.

To suit user habits, the community content is displayed in the same way as course introductions and course catalogs.

Click on the community, and the course introduction page will be presented as community content. Users who have not participated in the purchase can browse all messages about questions, answers, insights, and learning outcomes. There are three differences between the community interface seen by users who have not participated in the purchase and the community interface seen by users after the purchase - the top information and the window for publishing content have been removed, and the homework messages are blocked to ensure that information related to course benefits and detailed course content is not disclosed.

The way to block after-class thinking messages is as follows: the listening button (the golden part at the bottom) of users who have not purchased the product is displayed as "Enter Now", and it is displayed as "Continue Listening" for users who have purchased the product. Therefore, when the field is "Enter Now", the user opens the filter label of after-class thinking and the instruction window will pop up automatically; when the field is "Continue Listening", opening the filter label of after-class thinking will display relevant messages.

Comparison of the community interface seen by purchasing users and non-purchasing users

(2) Add a community module to the Live course introduction and collect comments and messages.

The picture on the left is the current Live course introduction interface, and it can be seen that the evaluation takes up almost half of the space. Based on the aforementioned optimization strategy - building a message community for Live, you can hide the comments and only display the ratings and percentage of positive reviews, and replace the rest with the content of the community messages.

5.3 The price homogenization is serious, and there is often a phenomenon of same price but different quality.

The current pricing mechanism of Zhihu Live is that Zhihu recommends a pricing range to the speaker, and the final pricing power is decided by the speaker.

However, the pricing of Zhihu Live is flat, that is, the price of most Live is 9.99. As a result, courses priced at the same price of 9.99 have varying quality, which increases the amount of work for users to screen.

Moreover, paying for knowledge is still a new thing and has not been widely accepted. Some users are willing to try it out of curiosity. If the trial threshold is high, such as 9.99, they may not buy it.

In fact, the deciding factor for users when making a purchase is not the quality or price of the product, but the price-performance ratio. Therefore, if the quality of the course is average but the price is cheap, users will be able to accept it. And if the price reflects the quality, it can also help users make choices.

Therefore, it is particularly important to tie course price to quality.

Optimization plan:

A mechanism of listening to live courses for 1 yuan has been established, allowing users participating in the live broadcast to give reference pricing and course feedback based on their course experience. After the live broadcast, the reference prices and course feedback given by each user will be counted and given to the lecturer, who will then set the price. However, the pricing range must be within 50% of the most recognized reference price.

reason:

1. It is feasible and will benefit all users who participate in the Live.

Generally speaking, users participating in Live are composed of two parts: users who participate in the Live broadcast and users who enter to participate in the Live replay after the live broadcast ends.

According to the survey, among all the users participating in a Live, only 20%-30% of them participate in the live broadcast, and the vast majority of students start learning after the live broadcast ends.

Therefore, an incentive mechanism can be set up to encourage users participating in the live broadcast to give course feedback and reference pricing, and user feedback and participation pricing given can be incorporated into pricing considerations to set a more reasonable price for users who participate in the Live replay later. It benefits both users who participate in the live broadcast and users who listen to the replay.

2. Risks are controllable.

Even though this mechanism may attract more users to choose Live broadcast rather than Live playback, due to the set constraints (failure to submit feedback within 6 hours will deprive users of the right to listen to the Live broadcast for 1 yuan next time) and the fixed time characteristics of Live broadcast, users need to carefully consider whether to participate in courses that are difficult to meet in time just for the sake of cheapness, so as to reduce the probability of speculation.

In addition, this mechanism can bind price and quality, and the prices of many courses with ordinary content will decrease; therefore, the cost of participating in Live replays will also decrease, thereby increasing the number of users participating in the replays. The most likely result is an increase in the number of users participating in both live broadcasts and replays.

3. Help speakers solve promotion problems.

Through in-depth investigation of the speakers, the author learned that one of the difficulties faced by Live speakers is promotion. In order to complete the 1 yuan live listening service for those who have not yet started the live broadcast, it is necessary to collect all the live broadcasts that have not started; and set a dedicated icon for this part of the live broadcast on the Zhihu University class page, so as to increase the exposure of such courses and solve the problem of promotion difficulties for the speakers.

4. Determine the best price in the shortest time.

Knowledge-based paid products are virtual products that have only been around for a short time. Unlike traditional commodities such as clothing and cars, there are no mature pricing standards in the knowledge payment market. Compared with seller-set pricing and letting sales reflect users' acceptance of prices, allowing users to directly participate in pricing can save both parties' bargaining time.

5. Reduce entry costs and attract more people to enter the knowledge payment market.

Similarly, since knowledge payment is a virtual product and has only been around for a short time, it has not yet been widely recognized and accepted. The 1 yuan activity of listening to live performances can lower the entry cost and allow those who are willing to try to get a real experience.

6. Collect effective information and gain a deeper understanding of users.

For companies like Zhihu where user traffic is their core resource, compared to product-side research and speculation, the 1 yuan Live Listening event can collect deeper information about users, deepen understanding of users, and thus consolidate their core competitiveness.

Specific plan:

A mechanism of listening to live broadcasts for 1 yuan was introduced to encourage users participating in the live broadcast to provide reference pricing and course feedback. Users can purchase the upcoming Live with 1 yuan and participate in the Live broadcast. Such users are called "Live Experience Officers".

Within 24 hours after participating in the live broadcast, the Live Experience Officer needs to fill out more detailed course feedback (provided by Zhihu, different from the existing evaluation mechanism) and reference pricing. If the user submits feedback and pricing, he/she can participate in other Live broadcasts at a price of 1 yuan and receive a cash voucher worth 4.99 yuan (only for Live replay, the amount is set to half of the mode price of the replay Live, to avoid listening to two Lives for 1 yuan). If the user does not submit feedback and pricing, the next time he/she participates in a 1 yuan Live broadcast, he/she will need to pay the difference for this course, and he/she will not be able to receive a cash voucher worth 4.99 yuan.

For users who do not want to fill out course feedback and reference pricing but want to participate in the Live broadcast, they need to pay the price set by the lecturer.

After the Live is over, the speaker will re-price the course based on the feedback from all Live Experience Officers. If the course price is reduced, the Zhihu team will return the difference in the form of cash vouchers (to avoid speculation by the speaker - setting a high price first, reducing the price after the live broadcast, and letting Zhihu pay for their behavior, the following risk control mechanism is set up: Zhihu will recommend the initial price to the speaker, and the speaker's income will be calculated based on the final price for all users who do not enter as a Live Experience Officer (including those participating in the live broadcast and the replay). By isolating the initial price from the speaker's income, the speaker's subjective pricing behavior is eliminated); if the price increases, users do not have to pay the difference.

In this way, even if users are not Live Experience Officers, participating in Live broadcasts is a sure win, thus motivating users to participate in Live courses.

Specific path:

1. Place advertisements and add a "Listen to Live for 1 Yuan" module to the Zhihu University classroom page.

The Q&A community page and the Zhihu University - Classroom page

In the course category, replace the original "Task Center" with "1 Yuan Listening". Click on the ad and listen for 1 yuan.

2. Go to the detailed page of "Listen to Live for 1 Yuan"

Enter the detailed page of "Listen to Live for 1 Yuan" from the advertisement or icon

3. Purchase the course you like

Course introduction page and payment page

A new payment method for entering as a Live Experience Officer has been added to the payment section at the end of the course introduction page. Click on 2 different payment methods to enter different payment interfaces.

4. Before the course starts, inform the Live Experience Officer of the content to focus on and let him/her participate in the live broadcast with the judging criteria.

After purchasing the course, the Live Experience Officer enters the interface where the course is about to start

Add guiding content in the message section of the interface to let the Live Experience Officer know what to pay attention to when participating in the live broadcast, so that they can judge the quality of the course more specifically and it is also convenient for them to fill in the course feedback.

5. Submit course feedback after the live broadcast

User feedback interface

The feedback consists of three parts: content, expression, and speaker. Each part has specific indicators for scoring and open-ended completion. The content of the feedback can be reflected in the course introduction - evaluation. Through the feedback mechanism, the evaluation and message communities can be gradually separated.

6. The instructor re-prices the course based on user feedback, understands the pros and cons of the course, and does relevant learning to improve.

The speaker's interface for receiving user feedback and pricing

The quantifiable ratings are represented by a curve graph, where dark colors represent the evaluation of this course and light colors represent the average level of all Lives.

User feedback comes first and pricing comes later, allowing the lecturer to objectively understand the quality of the course and make reasonable pricing. In the pricing module, the gold section is the price range that speakers can set. To guide speakers in setting prices, Zhihu places a moving triangle at the recommended price position and highlights the price.

VI. Conclusion

Zhihu is the leader in the question-and-answer community and a newcomer to paid knowledge. In the field of knowledge payment, Zhihu has strong characteristics, which are mainly reflected in:

1. Q&A communities have both advantages and disadvantages

The advantages are:

1) Q&A communities can directly bring in traffic and increase the exposure of paid knowledge courses.

2) Professional Q&A will also increase users’ interest and trust in paying for knowledge, thereby increasing the conversion rate of users from free to paid.

3) There are abundant user traces, which makes it easy to combine recommendation algorithms to make customized course recommendations (Q&A community + knowledge payment interface).

The disadvantages are:

1) Question and answer communities have a certain degree of substitution potential for paid knowledge. The community can answer questions for some users, and these users will not need to purchase paid courses.

2) Entertaining topics in the Q&A community will attract users. Generally speaking, users prefer entertaining content. The content recommendations in Zhihu Q&A community are based on user behavior, which may lead to a phenomenon where entertainment content dominates and professional content is obscured.

2. User motivation is to solve problems first, and to learn knowledge second

Just like Zhihu’s slogan, one of the motivations for users to use Zhihu is to solve problems. Users' questions are mostly specific, practical, and non-professional knowledge questions, and most of them are difficulties encountered in work, life, and study. Therefore, Zhihu needs to be both concise and powerful, with live broadcasts that focus on problem solving as well as private lessons for systematic learning. It cannot imitate pure learning-based knowledge payment platforms such as Duoduo and Himalaya.

3. Zhihu creators have no experience in content output

Compared with Get, Qianliao, and Himalaya, most of Zhihu's creators (especially Live) are not professional in the field of knowledge payment, and have little experience in the process of outputting content to courses. Therefore, Zhihu should provide output support and guidance to creators.

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Author: Li Wenting

Source: Li Wenting