Zhihu’s operational strategy: What are the chances of fighting against content “entropy increase”?

The content track remains hot.

First, Baidu and ByteDance sued each other. Baidu claimed 90 million yuan for suspected "search results were stolen". Then ByteDance "copied" this lawsuit claim and counter-sued Baidu for 90 million yuan.

On the other hand, Zhihu, which has always established its quality image with "style", held the 2019 "New Knowledge Youth Conference" and brought in creators to discuss ideas on community ecological operations.

CEO Zhou Yuan said that Zhihu aims to promote the interactive integration and common improvement of users, content and business, and launch the second phase of the "Haiyan Plan".

It seems that Zhihu, which is becoming more and more popular, wants to solve the problem of "users, content, and business" in the content industry that it cannot have all three through its operational strategies. The key to Zhihu's success lies in whether it can prevent the spread of "entropy increase" of content across the entire industry on this platform.

The content track has entered the "entropy increase" market

A strange phenomenon is happening in the content track.

• On the one hand, the total amount of content is "breaking through the sky". In 2018, Toutiao's Toutiao account alone published 164.67 million articles with 159.9 billion words. If other platforms are included, the number will only be more exaggerated.
• On the other hand, the “available content” has been greatly reduced. The regulatory authorities have frequently taken action, and incidents such as peasant women’s self-media and plagiarism have occurred in large numbers. The objective "conspiracy" relationship between platforms such as Toutiao and Penguin and the account-making party has further caused the public to lose confidence in content platforms.

The clickbait headlines are still there, they just use a different method to attract clicks; vulgarity is still there, but the "driving" is more subtle; plagiarism is still rampant, but now there is software that automatically removes duplicates...

While the total amount of content increases, the amount of truly valuable content is decreasing. Subsidies have led to the prosperity of content platforms, but have also brought them into a disordered and uncontrollable world. This is the "entropy increase" of content.

In physics, "entropy increase" causes the disorder of all things in the universe to increase, and it will eventually lead to chaos and meaningless extinction.

Back to Zhihu, Zhou Yuan constantly emphasizes the "integration" of "users, content, and business". The background is precisely the evil consequences caused by the "entropy increase" of content in the content track: users, content, and business, at least one of the three must be abandoned.

• If we want to improve the quality of content, since there are only a limited number of high-quality creators (they have been squeezed out by account-makers), the traffic has dropped drastically, and there is no commercial value to speak of.
• If commercial value is to be achieved, traffic comes first, and account-making parties become traffic engines (the current model);
• If we want user experience with quality, then the number-making party has no meaning of survival and its commercial value will be lost; "nipple pleasure" without quality can guarantee traffic and commercial value, but the quality of content will be sacrificed.

In the dilemma of "entropy increase", content quality will be abandoned first because commercial value cannot be discarded, and ultimately users are "arranged" in a "nipple pleasure" experience - this is the logic behind the development of some celebrity information flow platforms.

However, as a content platform, users are the source of lasting vitality, content quality is the foundation, and business represents future development and recognition from investors. If any one of the "three legs" is missing, the platform cannot support long-term and stable operation.

After 8 years of development, Zhihu's evolution can be summarized as being based on the "popular" commercial value while also adhering to user experience and content quality. (It is worth mentioning that Zhihu is a self-produced and self-sold community. “Users” include both ordinary users and creators, and the latter are also directly related to the quality of “content”)

This is contradictory to "entropy increase". In order to coordinate users, content and business as Zhou Yuan said, we must get out of the dilemma of "entropy increase".

To prevent the spread of "entropy increase", community ecological operation must start with "users"

In the universe, there is an exception to the increase in entropy, and that is the emergence of life. The self-circulation and metabolism of organic life reverse the process of increasing disorder and even achieve "entropy reduction" - becoming more and more order.

Judging from the actions, Zhihu’s community ecological operation is similar to this. All its operational strategies start from the users and try to achieve controllable self-circulation and self-growth - this is the original connotation of the word "ecology".

At present, Zhihu's community ecological operation around users can be interpreted from two aspects:

1. Operations centered around the three core goals of "users"

The biggest taboo on Zhihu is the generalization of content quality due to "popularization".

It faces two tasks: on the one hand, it must maintain the "level" of content on the platform, and on the other hand, it must let the public know that it has guaranteed quality, rather than being preconceived by the negative associations of "popularity" and forming stereotypes.

This time, Zhou Yuan gave the three core goals of Zhihu's content ecosystem construction (the main content of the newly launched "Haiyan Plan" Phase II), and analyzed them one by one:

• Co-construction: Zhihu and users jointly evaluate the professionalism of content (affixing "professional badges"), and high-quality, professional content enters a larger algorithm distribution process (there is also answer ranking within a topic), rather than being determined by market-wide data indicators such as click-through rate, dwell time, and completion rate;
• Co-governance, that is, introducing users to "crowd-arbitrate" rather than platform "arbitration" to resolve controversial content, has two results: community content always keeps in line with the tone of users, and users have a greater sense of participation;
• To put it simply, win- win means various incentives to increase revenue for creators (users). However, in addition to providing three support plans, Zhihu also divides incentives into two levels: promotion resources (lists, algorithms, exclusive promotions, etc.) and commercial cooperation resources, providing both "benefits" and "fame".

These measures are all aimed at ensuring content quality, but fundamentally they are a series of strategies centered around user engagement.

In the Zhihu community, "users" are the only subjects, and everyone's participation means that different users such as creators, readers, institutions, and brands are tied together with the community, forming a kind of community of interests.

This is just like an organic living body, which cannot tolerate disorder and chaos in any part. Poor quality content harms the interests of all "users" and their living space is greatly reduced.

I don’t think Zhihu can completely solve the problem of “entropy increase” in content. “Popularization” will definitely lead to a certain increase in useless content. However, the community ecological operation mode that binds stakeholders together makes the expansion process as orderly as possible, prevents the spread of "entropy increase", and creates more opportunities for successful transformation.

1. Prevent high-quality creative users from being "squeezed out"

The direct reason for the "entropy increase" of content is that unhealthy subsidies have squeezed out high-quality original creators. Ultimately, only whoever can produce more and larger amounts of junk content can gain more profits.

High-quality creators are Zhihu's consistent advantage. Now Zhihu must not only strengthen the protection of these "rare species" in the content track, but also tell the outside world that it is actively protecting them.

"We are all people with problems" is the theme of this New Knowledge Youth Conference. Zhihu invited in-depth users on the platform, such as Timothy Wang, an excellent answerer on photography topics, and Liu Zehong, an excellent answerer on accounting topics, to talk about their thoughts on the "problems" they faced. In the routine award session, "Honorary Friend of the Year" was presented to 15 content contributors from different fields, including Dr. Philip, Qian Cheng, TEDCJK, Xiao Hou Feidan, and Lu Xi.

People who frequently use Zhihu know that these people are very active and productive on Zhihu. Unlike content platforms represented by information flow that only show traffic but not the authors, these people are building their own IP and influence to some extent through Zhihu.

Information flow platforms can be ambiguous with the number-making party, but Zhihu is clear in "supporting" these high-quality creators and users, which is precisely Zhihu's style and persistence in content.

Looking back, Zhihu’s poaching once became “big news” in the content circle. Conversely, this also shows that only Zhihu has people to poach, and the quality of its users has made Zhihu the birthplace of “quality authors” in the content track.

In addition to quality, "scarcity" brings more unique value to "content"

In the above part about users, there are already a lot of measures to promote the quality of Zhihu content. In fact, when it comes to content, "scarcity" is Zhihu's most unique value and a resource that cannot be copied or plagiarized.

Zhihu claims that its mission is "to enable everyone to obtain reliable answers efficiently." "Questions" and "answers" have always been Zhihu's greatest scarcity in the content track.

According to relevant data, as of January 2019, Zhihu's 220 million users have provided more than 28 million questions and 130 million answers on the platform, and "100,000 Whys" has long become a historical term.

These questions and answers cover all aspects, including medical science, parenting knowledge, physics/astronomy knowledge in popular language, current affairs answers, etc. Sometimes, hot topics in public opinion can come from the question and answer analysis on Zhihu.

At the "New Knowledge Youth" conference, Zhihu also brought in UBTECH and Tianyi Research Institute to hold a so-called satellite launch ceremony, launching "humankind's questions about the future world" into the "vast universe" along with the satellite launch.

This action obviously reinforces the scarcity of "questions and answers".

Today, when the entire content track is talking about traffic, the "question and answer" content characteristics of Zhihu actually make Zhihu naturally away from "entropy increase". Among the 28 million questions and 130 million questions and answers, there are always some that can bring you useful information value. In terms of maintaining the "scarcity" of this content, Zhihu's approach is to use "small operations" to manage a "large community".

To some extent, the larger the Zhihu community is, the "smaller" its operations are.

Whether it is the "professional badges" and "crowd arbitration" of the Haiyan Project Phase II, or Zhihu Company treating itself as a member of the community (of course, with greater authority), they are all manifestations of "small operations."

In its niche era, Zhihu platform was in charge of everything. After becoming popular, Zhihu began to shrink its operations. This is certainly because the old model is not suitable for large-scale operations, but it is fundamentally an inevitable choice for the development of Zhihu content.

This kind of "small operation" has obvious significance for the vitality of community Q&A content and its large-scale development.

Giving "power" to users may be more likely to avoid "entropy increase" than for the platform to personally hire thousands or tens of thousands of "content reviewers" (a promise made by some content platforms in the face of regulation), while also greatly enhancing users' enthusiasm for participating in Q&A, asking high-quality questions, and answering them boldly and innovatively.

After all, in order to make "content" bring usability and value, letting go and satisfying the desire for exploration is always one of the important methods.

It’s not just direct advertising and marketing that can create “commercial” value

Commercialization has always been the biggest "embarrassment" for content platforms in maintaining content quality. However, if we break away from the mindset of relying solely on direct advertising for brand marketing, there are more opportunities for creating "commercial" value and it can be better combined with users and content.

1. Only by "creating value" can the three pillars stand together

Institutional accounts, even those with marketing nature, have always been an important component of the community user base on Zhihu. The platform has more than 30,000 institutional accounts covering dozens of fields including science and technology, psychology, daily consumption, medicine, and entertainment.

This time, Zhihu awarded the title of "Honorary Institution of the Year" for 2018 to 10 organizations including the Minority, Beijing Psychological University, and Outdoor Adventure Magazine, and evaluated them as "outstanding representatives who persist in producing high-quality content and win attention with professionalism and friendliness."

Zhihu institutional accounts are not “allowed” to post marketing content, but must instead follow community rules to output high-quality content in their field.

This coincides with the three goals of the "New Knowledge Youth" mentioned above. Institutional accounts, as high-quality authors, also jointly prevent the "entropy increase" of content. Their approach, if evaluated in one sentence, is "to try not to create more garbage in an environment of increasing entropy, to truly create useful content, and at the same time to convey the brand and product value truthfully and accurately."

Only when content production creates value can the interests of content, business and users be unified. This source of value includes not only non-commercial content, but also commercial content.

1. The stance is on the brand, the experience is on the user, and the focus is on the content

On the Zhihu platform, Zhou Yuan talked about a case of achieving collaboration among users, content and business.

The institutional account "OnePlus Technology" initiated a brand question, "What kind of changes will the arrival of the 5G era bring to future life?" The number of views reached more than two million, and a large number of respondents in the fields of technology, communications, and medicine provided content.

From a communication perspective, on the one hand, valuable interpretations and discussions are themselves high-quality, professional knowledge content; on the other hand, this large-scale Q&A itself is a brand promotion with commercial value.

The most important thing in this case is not the data such as interaction, retention, and reading. They are just appearances. The "influence" gained is more important. OnePlus and 5G have formed a kind of mental binding.

Looking horizontally, mobile phone companies need to establish a high-end image, traditional clothing needs to become younger, and automobiles need to get rid of domestic bias... What is more important is for brands to be able to "convince" and "influence" consumers in the market.

With limited user attention, the competition for data has led to a continuous increase in advertising budgets, but most content platforms are simply waiting for a good price. Although they "help" advertisers to promote, they do not take the lead.

Now, many brands have begun to lose interest in "data" and influence has gradually been put on the agenda.

Starting from the brand's communication value, ensuring user experience while producing high-quality content is an inevitable choice to prevent "entropy increase" in the commercialization process. Zhihu has only implemented its own approach in the form of "question and answer", and content platforms should have more options.

In 2018, Ren Zhengfei published a long internal letter, asking Huawei to operate in an "entropy reduction" manner during its rapid growth, which was "referred to" by many large companies. In the context of "entropy increase" being avoided as much as possible, Zhihu is working on synergizing the value of users, content, and business, which has already achieved initial results. This can also be an important reference for the entire "problem-ridden" content industry.

In the content track, Zhihu is objectively an unreplicable and irreplaceable content platform. When the Zhihu large community platform is thoroughly built and mature, its imagination space will be even greater, and the current unicorn value may be underestimated.

But then again, the process of preventing "entropy increase" by organic life forms is also full of risks. Any uncontrolled proliferation may lead to serious consequences. Zhihu's road to "popularization" is bound to be full of challenges and a long way to go.

Author: Li Yonghua

Source: TanglangFin