Has your Zhihu been monetized?

The operation of an Internet platform has two purposes: to attract traffic or to realize monetization.

Zhihu can be used as a traffic pool or as a bounty pool. Putting aside the traffic, there are also many ways to monetize traffic on Zhihu.

Today, the editor will review with you the monetization methods within Zhihu.

1. Recommended products on Zhihu

When talking about Zhihu, the first project that everyone thinks of is definitely [Zhihu Good Things].

Indeed, Zhihu allowed a group of people to take advantage of the platform. The platform's traffic bonus, templated content creation, and easy and stable monetization income. I haven't seen such a fresh and unconventional monetization method for a long time.

Since 2018, friends who work in the Internet industry full-time have started to feel confused. The Internet is becoming more and more formalized, there is less and less room for taking advantage of the situation, there are very few projects, and the platform dividends are gradually fading.

I thought the next few years would be a time of great work, and everyone was waiting to eat with their meals in hand. But the landlord suddenly said that he had no surplus food. It was extremely embarrassing. How could the cold winter come so suddenly?

Zhihu Good Things is not a big project, at least not the kind of project that could be eaten up in one go like in the past two years. But after all, Zhihu Good Things can still fill our stomachs, and if we work hard and reach the 20% minority, the income can be still decent.

But the plate of good things on Zhihu is not big after all, and in the end only a small group of players will be left. The platform will not give all the traffic to the pioneers, leaving those who come after without a chance to share the spoils.

Therefore, the Zhihu Good Things project will always exist, but the entry threshold will only become higher and higher in the later stage, and the requirements for creators will also become higher and higher, both in terms of content and soft articles. This is the future development trend of Zhihu Good Things.

Whoever is more professional, who becomes a big V, and who writes better copy will be able to eat the meat and drink the soup.

Requirements for opening Zhihu Goodies:

Zhihu Creator v4 Level: I have talked to you about this in previous articles. The way to upgrade is very simple, which is to post original videos. I can’t take high-quality photos, so I recorded a few while playing games.

Registration more than 90 days ago: How to get an account? Those who know will know it. If you don’t know, go and practice basic Internet skills.

No violation within 90 days: Refer to the previous item, the condition is very simple to meet.

How to make profit from Zhihu Good Products?

Hard work: lay out long-tail traffic, do ranking, and once the volume is up, it doesn’t matter even if the content is a little worse, winning depends on volume.

Delicate work: write popular answers and regard yourself as a content creator. Inventory questions are a common question type on Zhihu. Write a popular answer, add Dianzhi+ recommendation and cold start, and you can have several answers with thousands of likes in a month, and you will not have to worry about the subsequent income. To create popular content and highly-rated answers, you need to improve your writing skills. Take your time and produce fine work. If you can produce a high-quality answer in a week, the profits will be considerable.

Follow activities: Participate in whatever the official supports and keep up with the official activities, which can both attract traffic and generate revenue.

2. Video creators’ income

As for short videos, everyone knows that if the government doesn't provide income subsidies, why should you come here to create? There are so many short video platforms now, you can't make it anywhere.

As a newcomer in the short video industry, Zhihu has to allocate resources, traffic and subsidies to the video section if it wants to make short videos. Video creators usually promote one content through multiple channels. Since Zhihu has traffic support and revenue, it doesn't matter if they add one more Zhihu channel.

The creative incentives are as follows:

Resources for increasing followers by hundreds of millions: focus on supporting high-quality creators and creating influential video content in the industry.

Monthly video newcomer ranking: The top 100 creators can receive cash rewards.

Video creation income: Rewards will be given to high-quality creators for their original videos after evaluation.

Other video rights: quick review channels, dedicated operations personnel, event recommendations, etc.

Which creators does Zhihu Video focus on?

The number of fans on Bilibili is greater than 1,000;

Youtube followers are greater than 5,000;

The number of fans on any of the short video platforms including Xigua, Douyin, and Kuaishou is greater than 100,000.

The above users can receive platform traffic support.

Which video areas are the most popular on Zhihu?

Popular science, e-sports, technology, life, humanities, games, digital, and entertainment.

What is the video style of Zhihu?

16:9 horizontal video, duration is more than one minute, and the title is similar to the style of Bilibili.

How to make good Zhihu videos?

Arouse resonance and recognition:

Content that resonates with others is most likely to increase followers, and this trend is particularly evident on Zhihu. What happened to me, what happened to me, what happened to me, what my ideas are, they are all made up, just telling stories and jokes.

Arouse desire:

It mainly refers to the desire for delicious food and the yearning for beauty. Delicious food arouses appetite, and food and sex are also part of human nature. Users like beauty and look forward to a better life.

Sensory stimulation:

Visual stimulation, auditory stimulation. The content can be mixed and edited into a large scene, or it can be processed into the form of Half Buddha on Bilibili.

Arouse curiosity:

Create suspense and raise questions. Even cats are curious, let alone humans.

Interests:

All things can be divided into [related to me] and [not related to me]. Obviously, I am interested in things related to myself, things related to my identity, and things related to my region.

Get value:

The value of the Internet is nothing more than two kinds: useful knowledge in life and the latest news and information.

Thought provoking:

While physiological needs are met, people also pursue spiritual needs. As long as they are not hungry, they like to study life philosophy and listen to some life insights.

This is just a starting point, and we will stop here. For more topic selection directions, it is still up to the traders to explore them themselves.

3. Zhihu paid consultation

Activation conditions: The salt value can be activated when it is greater than 500.

The answerer can set the consultation fee by himself, and can set it to private answer. If it is a good question and a good answer, the author can also display it publicly. The user's attendance fee is 1 yuan, and the user can get 50 cents share.

Popular paid fields:

User needs. For example, if you have deep insights in a certain field and you write a popular answer, users will think that your answer makes sense, recognize you as an expert, and want to get advice from you. The most popular fields: psychological counseling, legal counseling, designers, copywriters, etc.

First comes traffic, then comes revenue, which means that when you do paid consulting on Zhihu, monetization depends entirely on the traffic you bring in. If you don't write a few highly-praised answers that touch people's hearts, no one will pay for your knowledge. If you want to make money in this area, you must not only be able to write highly-praised answers, but more importantly, write in-depth answers with industry-relevant content.

4. Brand Mission

Activation conditions: After the creator reaches level 9, he/she can apply by himself/herself. When applying, he/she needs to fill in his/her own quotation. At the same time, the official will also give a quotation as a reference.

Brand sponsors will invite you to insert soft-text advertising information in your answers and then pay you the fees.

Note: You should have a thorough understanding of the product and its advantages, and quietly insert advertisements into your answers in a way that you are accustomed to, without leaving too many traces of advertisements. Don't do a one-time deal. If the brand is satisfied with your content, there is an opportunity for long-term cooperation.

5. Content Cooperation

Keep up the output of highly-rated answers. The top-ranked highly-rated answers will have a chance to receive advertising invitations from advertisers. Of course, this is not an official intermediary cooperation method, and inserting advertisements may violate regulations.

The quotation mainly depends on the field and module of the answer. For example, the beauty, education and other related fields are more likely to be favored by advertisers. Advertisers do not look at the number of fans, but mainly look at the quality of answers, traffic, and question areas. Even if a novice writes a popular answer, he or she may receive an invitation from an advertiser.

This kind of income is the most common way to monetize on Zhihu . Many big Vs on Zhihu operate Zhihu part-time and do this as a side job.

6. Knowledge Plan

A daily activity of Zhihu official. Zhihu survives by high-quality content, and it has become an exclusive beast because of high-quality content. However, the quality of Zhihu's content has declined significantly in recent years. On the one hand, Zhihu's user base has declined, and on the other hand, creators have also begun to water down [dry goods] content, and more and more people are trying to be witty. The purpose of the Zhizhi Project is simple: to encourage creators to produce high-quality content. Every answer can get traffic support and exposure.

income:

Answers with good quality, high professionalism, more than 300 words, and more than 5 likes can share a 100,000 yuan bonus pool.

The first place winner of the Excellent Creation Cicada Award will receive a prize of 50,000 yuan.

The top 20 in the overall ranking will each receive a 1,000 yuan incentive bonus.

It can be simply understood as Zhihu's [Qingyun Project].

7. Salt Selection Column

It mainly refers to Zhihu Live and Zhihu e-books. Don’t even think about Zhihu Live. Since the past two years, new Lives have had almost no popularity. And if you are not a big shot, you won’t make much money even if you host a Live.

Zhihu Yanxuan has no level requirements, you can be on it as long as your content is good.

Zhihu Salt Selection Content Requirements:

1. Clarify the target audience, output useful content, and satisfy user curiosity.

2. Both fictional and non-fictional content are acceptable.

3. Graphics, e-books and publications are all OK.

4. Originality, starting from 10,000 words.

5. Application email: [email protected]

Profit settlement method:

Users can pay to purchase or purchase individually, with prices ranging from 19 to 199 yuan.

Zhihu members do not need to purchase, but the author's share will be calculated based on the number of times the member reads. As long as the content is clicked, there will always be income.

The advantage is that once the content is written, it is a one-time thing. The disadvantage is that writing is quite difficult and not something that most people can handle.

8. Zhihu Live

Zhihu is a high-end platform, and its live streaming is also high-end. Zhihu’s live broadcast is different from other platforms. What it sells is not entertainment, nor goods. Instead, it sells [knowledge], which can be simply understood as [lectures].

The income depends entirely on tips from the audience. The motivation for big V live broadcasts is to build their personal image, which makes it easier to monetize them later.

To open the live broadcast permission: send a private message to [Xiaozhi] on Zhihu and provide a live broadcast plan (how many live broadcasts to be held each week, the theme and content of the live broadcast, etc.)

Zhihu live streaming is a game for a few people, and those who enter the market are all big names in various industries. The income from live streaming rewards is just a drizzle compared to the personal image, so the income from live streaming ultimately comes from [traffic].

The monetization of Zhihu's on-site traffic has indeed achieved [elite-style] monetization. If you want to make money from Zhihu, it mainly depends on the quality of the content. It is not just about highly praised answers, but more about the ability to continuously output [in-depth articles]. Whoever achieves the ultimate in professionalism will be the big winner of Zhihu's dividends.

Author: Xiucai Youliao

Source: Xiucaiyouliao