How to create a distinctive Zhihu account?

Many people only see short videos and public accounts, but they didn’t expect that they could make a name for themselves on Zhihu. What’s the story behind this? Today’s article will reveal the secret of Zhihu’s operation to you.

01. The value of a Zhihu account : 10,000 is equivalent to 100,000

The title is adapted from Liu Zhenyun's novel "One Sentence Is Worth Ten Thousand Sentences", and it is intended to show the value of Zhihu fans.

The number of 10,000 followers on Zhihu is comparable to the number of 100,000 followers on some other platforms.

Moreover, once you have this amount of fans, when you go to other platforms, such as Toutiao, you can use the number of fans on Zhihu as endorsement and directly certify the original author, which can save a lot of time and energy.

So for creators, Zhihu is a good starting platform.

Zhihu has two advantages:

First, it ranks very high in major search engines.

Second, the long tail effect is very good.

First of all, Zhihu ranks very high on major search engines at home and abroad. As long as your content is accurate enough, you can easily search it with a few keywords and rank very high.

Therefore, on Zhihu, the fundamental factor that enables your content to be seen by others continuously is the quality of your answers, not the number of fans.

Secondly, as long as your content is good enough, Zhihu users and external users will continue to comment and like your answers.

This is also the reason why questions asked a few years ago often appear on Zhihu's hot list.

The second point can in turn make your answer rank high on major search engines...

So this is actually a very good closed loop.

Zhihu is very friendly to talented people, even if they have 0 fans and no foundation!

02. Positioning: You can write about anything, which is equivalent to writing nothing

Everyone is very concerned about what to write on Zhihu? That is positioning.

Zhihu’s account levels have been upgraded from V5 to V9 with great momentum. If the positioning cannot be figured out, the transition from V5 to V9 will be a long way off.

Think about the self-media that we are familiar with: all the self-media that impress us specialize in one field.

Why is this?

First of all, precise positioning allows you to quickly find your user base and establish an authoritative impression in a certain field.

Secondly, precise positioning can better utilize the platform’s distribution mechanism, obtain more user feedback in a short period of time, and form a diffusion effect.

If you write everything...

Finally, and most importantly!

The website doesn’t know how to help you match your target customers! I don’t know which group of people to focus on distributing the content to!

The system algorithm doesn’t know who to push your content to, this is the fatal problem!

The content you write will be distributed to scattered groups of people in a very scattered manner, and there is no way to concentrate your own precise fan base.

Therefore, in the early stages of Zhihu, it is recommended that you aim at one direction and output steadily .

For example, if you are good at writing about the workplace, then you should focus on writing about the workplace.

After you have concentrated on establishing your own label in this workplace field, you can try to write about other things. This will add points to your personal image.

But if you haven’t even established a basic character, just do this.

It can only make your personality very unclear, which will directly affect the start of your account.

It's not just Zhihu, the algorithm on any platform is almost the same.

03. Content and likes, favorites, and fan attention

We can see two types of content on Zhihu.

One category is about family matters, gossip, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships, divorce and infidelity .

This one looks more lively, with a lot of comments and likes. But if you go to the backend of the Creator Center, you will see that this kind of answer can only attract likes but it is difficult to attract fans . Everyone came to watch the fun, and after watching it, they vented their emotions and left.

This kind of answer makes it unnecessary for readers to continue paying attention to you.

The other type is more practical content .

This kind of content may provide people with methodologies for solving problems such as job hunting, relationships, family conflicts, parenting, and purchasing decisions. The number of likes may not be very high, but the number of collections and the growth rate of fans it brings are very impressive.

That’s why we often say: “Stories attract likes, and solid content attracts fans.”

Taking my own creative data as an example, what I have collected the most at present are the practical recommendation articles of books liked by my personal brand IP Camp Mom.

How to produce content that can attract fans?

You can try more and use readers' feedback to test your work to find a way of creation that you are good at and that readers like.

Here I can give you some tips.

For example, if you write about job hunting, at the end of the article, you can leave some job hunting related content summaries and links, such as the latest job openings at BAT and a collection of resume templates.

If you are talking about parenting issues, you can put a list of relevant picture books to help solve the problem of children not wanting to eat by themselves or go to kindergarten;

If it is about movies and TV, you can put some movie recommendations, movie review summaries, etc.

In short, make readers feel that your answer is valuable and can be useful in the future.

However, we need to remind everyone here that when consciously trying to attract fans, please pay attention to the website’s red lines.

Article 4 of Zhihu Community Management Regulations clearly stipulates the following violations:

So many people will fail at the first point:

"Follow my WeChat and I will give you the information"

"Give me a like and I will continue to update"

Once this kind of behavior is discovered, the user will be banned or their account will be blocked, and the same applies to TikTok.

Therefore, when you start to produce on the platform, you must first study the platform rules thoroughly before going ahead, so that you can get twice the result with half the effort.

Finally, when operating Zhihu, everyone should integrate into the community culture.

For example, on Zhihu, the person who asks a question is called the questioner. If someone invites you to answer some questions, you should write a "thank you for the invitation".

The use of this kind of rhetoric will make users feel that you are their own person and increase their sense of identity.

Just like Kuaishou calls people “laotie” and Bilibili calls people “UP master”, different communities have different cultures.

04. What are the exposure channels?

Where does Zhihu’s traffic go?

Zhihu has several exposure channels, including hot lists, popular content on the entire site, Zhihu roundtables, Zhihu friends wall, editor recommendations, Zhihu Daily, etc.

My advice to everyone is: in the initial stage, get on the hot list, actively answer Zhihu roundtable questions, and recommend yourself to Zhihu Daily.

The hot list is the content that everyone can see on the homepage as soon as they open Zhihu. This usually represents the hottest topic within 24 hours. If you can produce high-quality answers to questions in a timely manner during the hot list period, you can gain more exposure.

If you gradually improve your online sense in the process of operating your account and can judge whether some questions have the potential to be on the hot list, then you can also look for some potential questions and write them calmly. When they are on the hot list, you can better attract everyone's attention.

Zhihu Roundtable is a special column targeting some specific issues. These columns will also receive additional exposure during the operation of the roundtable.

If you see a Zhihu roundtable in a related field, you can follow it and try to answer it.

If you can get the "Round Table Included" label during the round table, it will also be included in the "Achievements" column of your personal homepage, increasing the weight and giving you more distribution opportunities.

After being included in the roundtable, it will be displayed on your personal page, increasing the weight of your account. Generally speaking, you should be able to unlock round table permissions if you are at level V5.

but! The round tables organized by ourselves have no traffic. It is not recommended to do it if you have too few fans.

But, you can get it. Especially those friends who have good writing skills. Just take the initiative to write roundtable topics and try to get included. What we want is the traffic and the inclusion, not the number of roundtables held.

The last one is Zhihu Daily.

If you produce any high-quality content, you can actively recommend it to the Zhihu Daily account. If they like it, they will include it or give you a like. The Zhihu Daily account has nearly 10 million followers, and its exposure is self-evident.

The others, such as the site's popular content, the friend wall, editor recommendations, etc., are something you can only come across by chance. It mainly depends on the quality of the content produced.

05. The relationship between Zhihu achievements and account weight

When we open our Zhihu personal page, we will see a column on the right called "Personal Achievement List". The content displayed here includes: several answers collected by Zhihu, including editor recommendations, roundtable collections and Zhihu Daily collections.

Then there are the likes, thanks, favorites, and professional recognition you get.

Below are the published e-books, and finally the number of people you are following and being followed, that is, the number of your fans.

As for personal achievement, it mainly depends on the quality of everyone's output.

The more personal achievements you have, the higher your account weight will be.

If we look at account weight from a numerical perspective, we can look at two points: salt value and level .

The salt value is an intuitive score indicator that records your account behavior. As long as you abide by the community rules and answer questions well, your salt value will steadily increase.

But if you send spam messages and harass others, your salt value will be deducted or even your account will be blocked.

If your saltiness is high, your likes, comments, and dissent will also be louder.

Here is a little tip for everyone. If you have been able to apply for an arbitrator on the mobile app and passed, and complete a few arbitration tasks every day, your salt value will increase faster.

Zhihu is a place that focuses on producing high-quality content. The following titles and identity certifications can help you establish credibility and trust.

1. Your education: Master's degree, PhD, or experience as a visiting scholar or specially-appointed lecturer;

2. Your professional field: teacher, engineer, athlete, doctor, sales, marketing, etc.;

3. You are the author of a book, the founder of a platform, etc.

After passing the identity authentication, your salt value and weight will increase again.

But here everyone should pay attention that the personal profile should be consistent with your positioning.

If you position yourself as a doctor, but all you answer every day are entertainment gossips, then this certification is meaningless and will not be conducive to accumulating fans and retaining attention.

Zhihu’s monetization methods: product recommendations and brand advertising.

I am a beneficiary of good product recommendations. One of my experiences regarding the use of good product recommendations was liked by Zhou Yuan, the founder of Zhihu, which is equivalent to Ma Huateng going to your circle of friends to comment on you.

Zhihu’s promotion of good products is similar to Toutiao’s. Just insert the product tag in the answer.

Another one is brand advertising

For brand advertising, you will be given a blue label, but this function will not be enabled until V9.

So, write hard, let advertisers see you, and you will have a chance to get advertising.

Author: Uncle Akiba

Source: Uncle Akiba