Case analysis: How to implement promotion and operation layout strategy on Zhihu?

How to promote products or individuals on the Zhihu platform? To avoid writing an answer with great effort but no one paying attention to it, you need not only writing skills and methods for selecting questions, but also good strategies and layouts for answering questions.

Nowadays, content platforms such as Zhihu have become important promotion bases for many product operations, brand markets, and self-media promotions. But students who often use Zhihu may have had this experience: they worked hard to write an original article and answer a question, but no one was interested; they finally came across a suitable hot topic, but were overwhelmed by the massive amount of answers...

In fact, using the Zhihu platform to promote products or individuals requires not only good writing skills and methods of selecting questions, but also a good strategy and layout for answering questions, which can often achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Theory: Understand and analyze platform rules

First of all, to play a platform well, you must first understand and make good use of its rules.

Zhihu has two special features compared to other platforms, and those who often use it may have noticed:

1. Deemphasize the time when the question was raised (you need to click the ellipsis button below the question - view the public edit log - scroll to the bottom to see the time when the question was first raised);
2. Public question editing function (users with a certain level can modify the title and participate in public editing of questions).

The issue release time is not displayed on the details page. You need to check the issue log to trace it, and the entrance is hidden deep.

It is not enough for us to just know these two functions. We also need to analyze the reasons behind the platform setting these two functions:

First of all, Zhihu downplays the function of question posting time, which is conducive to the discovery and repeated use of high-quality questions. It is not like traditional community products that sort by topic posting time and cause older topics to sink to the bottom. This will allow the community's old, high-quality topics to become popular again at the appropriate time, maximizing the use of the community's high-quality content.

The public editing function of questions has many functions, and its main purpose is to enable public participation to make the questions more complete and standardized. But in addition to this, it is also related to the time fading function - for some "suddenly popular" topics, editors or users can turn old topics into "hot topics" by modifying the titles of previous related questions, and use the high-quality answers accumulated under old questions to speed up their dissemination and enhance users' perception of the quality of platform content.

So, what value does understanding these two functions of Zhihu have for operators of the Zhihu platform? Here is a case:

Case Study: Planning in Advance Before the Release of Oscar-winning Films

On January 22, 2019, the Oscar nominations were announced, and several films represented by "Green Book" were shortlisted for Oscar nominations. At that time, there were only about 2-3 questions related to "Green Book" in Zhihu's movie topics. Among them, the topic with the highest number of followers had no more than 10 answers, and the answer with the highest number of likes was just over 100. Among the vast number of Zhihu topics, it is just a low-lying question that receives no attention at all.

Because most of the films have not been released in China, the Oscar nominations did not attract much attention after they were announced. After the nominations were announced, there was still no increase in the attention paid to this issue. Since I personally like watching movies, I searched all the resources I could find on the Internet and watched several Oscar-nominated films. After watching it, I personally feel that whether in terms of political correctness or the watchability of the story, the movie "Green Book" has a high probability of winning this year's Oscar.

With the mentality of giving it a try, on February 1, I casually wrote an answer to the question "How do you evaluate the movie "Green Book"? " on Zhihu.

I only spent half an hour writing this article after watching the movie, and the perspective I chose was relatively niche. In addition, very few people paid attention to this question, and there was no deliberate operation. In the nearly one month after the answer, the number of likes has remained 0 and the number of readings has remained in double digits.

The Oscars were held on February 25, and as expected, "Green Book" won the Best Picture Award. Then, on March 1, "Green Book" began to be released in domestic theaters. The question on Zhihu, originally titled "How do you evaluate the movie "Green Book"?", was also edited by the public as "How do you evaluate the Oscar-winning best film "Green Book"?"

The question was first raised on December 19, 2018. This topic has been dormant for nearly 3 months, but it is slowly gaining momentum (answer)

On March 1, this issue became a hot topic after being edited many times by the public as the Oscars results were released.

Unsurprisingly, following the Oscars and the film's domestic release, the amount of attention and responses increased day by day, from less than 10 responses when I answered the question to over 800 responses within just a few days of its release.

Zhihu’s answer ranking algorithm will lead to a certain Matthew effect - the earlier a popular question is answered, the higher the number of likes it will receive, and the higher the answer will be ranked. This will create a virtuous cycle and gain more attention and likes. On the contrary, the further down the list an answer is ranked, the less likely it is to attract attention.

Therefore, the "seeds" I planted a month ago soon paid off -

On March 6, I received an email from the Zhihu system informing me that my answer had become popular and provided a popular content dissemination analysis report.

From the reading volume curve of the analysis report, it can be seen very intuitively that my answer had no one interested in it before March 2. After the Oscars, the reading volume experienced an explosive growth peak.

Summary: Plan promotional content before traffic peaks

This case, combined with the two special features of Zhihu, which downplays the release time and public editing, can give us some thoughts and conclusions:

Be good at observing and discovering "potential stocks", and make advance arrangements for topics that you think will become popular before the traffic peak arrives - the lower the attention to the topic and the fewer the answers, the easier it is to occupy the high ground.

But some people may ask, how do you know which topics will be popular?

In fact, as long as you pay close attention, there are many opportunities that can be seized. For example, for the Oscars, the nominations are announced very early every year, and the favorites to win are basically within the expectations of many senior film critics. Especially for award-winning films that have not been released in China, with the blessing of winning and being released, the contrast in attention before and after is huge.

In addition, for some popular TV series, you can tell whether they have the potential to become popular (producer, cast, subject matter, netizens' attention, etc.) from the advance trailers. But for most users, it usually takes about a week after the broadcast before they start to pay attention to the series and it becomes a hot topic. The peak traffic of the topic will also come after a period of time after the broadcast. The time difference is enough for early planning.

In addition to film and television topics, the same is true for many other industries. As long as you pay close attention and write diligently, it is easy to get ahead of others and seize the low ground before traffic increases.

Source: Louise