6 common monetization methods on Zhihu

First of all, everyone should know that Zhihu, as a public self-media platform, its monetization model is not that good. Many of my friends who work on Zhihu have discussed privately that Zhihu’s monetization is not good and it is going to starve to death.

Some people have questioned that it is because you have few fans!

Not really. I asked several Zhihu big Vs with hundreds of thousands of fans, and the answers they gave were surprising. They just said that they did not monetize at all and did not monetize through Zhihu at all.

I said, then why do you work so hard to write answers every day?

He said that he was used to it. He was used to writing on Zhihu. Every day when he had nothing to do, he liked to check out the Zhihu hot list, and then give answers to some questions that interested him, mainly to satisfy his desire to express himself.

I was stunned when I heard this. It turns out that there are people who write on Zhihu purely out of their love for words rather than out of a utilitarian purpose.

The above tells us that Zhihu’s monetization is actually not very high. Many big Vs with hundreds of thousands of fans may not even be able to make a living if they only rely on income from Zhihu, let alone other things. Therefore, from a profit perspective, there is no need to be overly envious of those big Vs on Zhihu.

In fact, a very important attribute of Zhihu big V is social recognition.

It means that you like words, but there are many people who like words. But if you become a KOL on a certain platform through your own words, it is still convincing. After all, Zhihu is recognized as a paradise for creators in the field of pictures and texts.

But in any case, Zhihu still has some ways to monetize, which I divide into two categories:

One is monetization within the site, and the other is monetization outside the site.

Let’s talk about the site first:

1. Recommended products

Everyone should have heard of it and have a certain understanding of it. It is a new functional business launched by Zhihu last year. Zhihu's official definition is that creators can insert product cards in answers, articles, and showcases through the [Good Product Recommendation] function. If other Zhihu users purchase products through product cards, the creators can obtain corresponding commission income.

Simply put, Zhihu bloggers recommend products, and after a transaction is reached, the merchant will pay the blogger a certain commission.

2. Zhihu Live

It is equivalent to opening a paid course on Zhihu, where creators share their knowledge, experience or insights on a certain topic, and then users can ask questions and get answers in real time.

Currently, many bloggers like to upload their own paid knowledge projects as a means of monetization.

3. Appreciation

This should be easy to understand. It is a function button at the bottom of the author's article. Users can appreciate and support the answers of their favorite authors, and all proceeds from the appreciation belong to the creator.

At present, this monetization model has almost no high value. Whether it is a million-dollar celebrity or a newbie, it is difficult for the answers to be appreciated by others. On the one hand, a lot of content is not of high quality and does not meet the threshold of user appreciation.

On the other hand, Zhihu users, including users of other platforms, all have a habit of reading articles for free. If you want me to pay, I won’t read it. Very few people will reward the author after reading an article and feeling satisfied. In other words, even if they do reward, the amount is pitifully small. Normally, the reward amount for a popular Zhihu article with 10,000 likes is almost enough to buy you a cup of milk tea with pearls.

4. Paid consultation

If you think a creator's answer or article is very professional, and you happen to have questions in his field, then you can pay to consult the blogger, but this monetization function is similar to appreciation, and both are useless functions.

Among the big Vs on Zhihu that I know so far, only Hongsang earns a lot of money through paid consulting. The other mid-level bloggers are basically worthless. At most, they can earn a few hundred yuan a month, which is considered good. As for those bottom experts, I won’t say more because they are all in tears.

5. Brand Mission

Now you can apply for brand tasks after your Zhihu level reaches eight. This is the highest-yielding on-site monetization method so far, but it is also not very useful. I asked a blogger a few days ago. He has opened a brand task for more than a year, but he has only cooperated once and earned two thousand yuan. Most of the time, this brand task is just hung on his Zhihu background and has no value at all.

6. Add advertising links

This is a collaboration with a brand. You write a highly-rated answer with good data, and then some brands will find you and ask you to insert their product links in your answer, and then pay you a portion of the profits, which is similar to the recommendation of good products at the beginning.

Obviously, this kind of cooperation has very high requirements for the answer data itself. Now very few people can write highly praised answers. The algorithm mechanism of the platform is constantly being improved, and a large amount of high-quality content is constantly pouring into the site, resulting in fewer and fewer highly praised answers. Many Zhihu bloggers have been operating for more than a year, but they don’t even have an answer with a thousand likes, and finally have to give up Zhihu operations.

Another point is that most of the brands that come to us actively are very cunning and offer very low quotes, generally between one hundred and five hundred. There are higher prices, but they are really rare, or it can be said that this is the budget of the brands. As a Zhihu blogger, if you must raise the price, you can find other bloggers to cooperate with. Let’s talk about off-site monetization.

As we all know, Zhihu is a public domain platform, and the fans on Zhihu naturally belong to public domain traffic. If you want to increase the value of your fans, you must learn to direct the traffic to your own private domain platform, and then let private domain users pay for your project, so as to maximize the value.

Many big Vs of public accounts regard Zhihu as their own traffic platform. By continuously outputting on Zhihu, they continuously attract traffic and increase fans for their public accounts, thereby successfully building their own personal brands and maximizing the value of private domain traffic.

The above are the more common profit models of Zhihu at present. It is not complete, and everyone is welcome to add to it.

Author: User 637299

Source: Knowledge Planet [Greetings]