Zhihu content operation manual!

The first draft of this Zhihu content operation manual was completed in October 2019, but due to delays, it has not been revised yet. I had some time recently to sort it out again, and will start serializing it on this public account. This manual can be regarded as the most detailed and systematic operation manual about Zhihu on the market. If you want to get the latest updates as soon as possible, please follow this account. ”

How to understand the growth level of a Zhihu account can be directly equated to the level system of other platforms such as QQ's level system and Toutiao's index system.

Zhihu has a total of 10 levels of growth. The account level can be seen in the background of the Creator Center on PC and APP. The progress of rising to the next growth level can also be seen on the APP.

01. What is the growth level?

The following content is quoted from the backend of the Zhihu account.

Every creator who joins the Creator Center will receive a growth level and corresponding growth index points. The Growth Index is a comprehensive index that evaluates the creator's creative behavior and the stage of creation on Zhihu. It is a comprehensive evaluation based on the "content quality" and "content influence" of the content published by the creator, and the final score is obtained by weighting.

Different growth index points correspond to different growth levels, with the highest being V10. The growth index is updated every Thursday, and the growth level will be adjusted accordingly. Different growth levels will obtain different creative rights. The higher the level, the more creative rights can be obtained. For details on the benefits of each level, please see the "Benefits Center".

Benefits

Content Analysis

• You can view detailed data analysis of the "Answers", "Articles" and "Ideas" you have created.
• Application conditions: Creators with growth level of level one or above.

Comments:

The data dimensions of content analysis are lacking, mainly including:

1. If a single answer is more than 90 days old, you will not be able to view the latest data
2. The number of followers that increased can only be checked for the previous day, and there is no query entry for earlier data.
3. It is impossible to see which content has brought new attention to your account, resulting in an inability to distinguish which users are popular with target users.

Zhihu can add more data dimensions according to the number of followers of the account to facilitate the in-depth operation of the answerer.

Copyright Services

• Zhihu and WeChat public platform have established a green channel for automatic connection and handling of complaints, assisting individuals in protecting their rights as platforms, allowing you to safeguard your legal rights and interests more easily and efficiently.
• Application conditions: Creators with growth level of level one or above.

Content recommendation

• You can recommend high-quality answers or articles that you have created. The content will be automatically matched with people of interest based on a personalized algorithm and displayed in the "Recommendations" column on the Zhihu homepage for increased exposure.
• Application requirements: Creators with growth level of four or above.
• Note: If you want to enable the content self-recommendation function, you need to complete real-name authentication first.

Comments:

1. Content self-recommendation requires content review. Failure of the review will consume the number of times, while failure of distribution will compensate for the number of times the self-recommendation content is used.
2. If there are continuous contents that pass the self-recommendation review, rewards will be given for the number of self-recommendations.
3. The self-recommendation content needs to be accompanied by pictures, more than 500 words, with clear logic, and can be simply embedded in the official account and other promotional information.

Reward function

• When writing an answer, you can enable appreciation for the current answer by clicking the "Settings" button on the APP or checking "Enable appreciation" on the PC.
• Application requirements: Creators with growth level of five or above.
• Note: Real-name authentication is required to withdraw cash. Zhihu takes a 10% commission.

Comment: The chances of getting appreciation are small and the amount is small, so this function can actually be ignored.

Roundtable Moderator

• Initiate a roundtable and be displayed as a "host" on the roundtable page. You can set the roundtable topics, guests, etc. and collect roundtable questions and answers independently.
• Application requirements: Creators with growth level of five or above.

Comments: Worth participating, helpful for obtaining high exposure, see

Zhihu Live

• Real-time voice Q&A function. Once you have the rights, you can create a live audio Q&A session on a topic where listeners can ask questions and get answers in real time. Allowing you to harvest and communicate conveniently and efficiently.
• Application requirements: Creators with growth level six or above.

Comment: It is highly recommended to start a live broadcast, even if you can't make much money, but the weight of live broadcast in Zhihu search results is very high and the ranking is very shallow, which is very helpful in improving the endorsement of the account and facilitating traffic generation.

Custom promotion

• You can set up a promotion module at the bottom of the answer page or article page you created to recommend your own answers, articles, columns, Live, and e-book content.
• Application requirements: Creators with growth level seven or above.

Brand Mission

• Carry out commercial cooperation with Zhihu's selected brand owners to monetize high-quality content and influence.
• Including being invited to answer brand questions, writing brand articles, participating in brand offline activities, etc.
• Application requirements: Creators whose growth level is level nine or above.

Special Topic Host

• Initiate a special topic, you can set the topic topic and the topic display content
• Application conditions: Creators with growth level of ten or above.

02. What are the rating factors of growth level?

Mainly includes: content quality and content influence. The following content is quoted from Zhihu backend instructions.

Content Quality

Content quality is a score that reflects the overall quality of the creator's content creation. The system will identify and assess the quality of each article/answer. The content quality will determine the growth rate of the growth index score.

Zhihu has always been committed to maintaining a serious, professional and friendly community discussion atmosphere, and encourages creators to share knowledge, experience and insights in their areas of expertise that can inspire and help fellow Zhihu users. This type of content will not only be recommended by editors and included in Zhihu Daily, Zhihu Weekly, etc., gaining more attention and support from Zhihu users, but will also be reflected in the improvement of the content quality score. A high-quality content usually has the following characteristics:

• The content has sedimentable value, can broaden the reader's knowledge boundaries, or is of substantial help to a specific range of people and has reuse value
• The discussion in the content is mostly a summary of methodology and techniques based on their own rich experience, or citing data, papers, and industry reports from objective and credible sources as support for explaining the phenomenon.
• The content of professional fields must conform to the current mainstream cognition and consensus of academia and industry, and must not contain principled or factual errors.
• The content must be original, and the quoted parts must be clearly marked. For specific regulations, see: What should I pay attention to when reprinting or quoting on Zhihu?
• The content should be rational and objective, and avoid any unfriendly or inflammatory remarks.
• The full text has a complete structure, clear levels, and provides rich information
• The layout is beautiful and clear, with correct grammar, punctuation, and capitalization
• Provide clear pictures that match the content of the article. Do not abuse emoticons or use pictures that are irrelevant to the article.

The measurement of content quality is subjective, and different Zhihu users may have different perceptions of content. By collecting statistics on content types that have historically received significant negative feedback and combining them with algorithmic identification, we can conclude that publishing the following content may directly affect the increase in content quality:

• Continuously publish multiple articles with pornographic content, entertainment gossip, feudal superstition, leaked photos, unverified personal or other people's life experiences, etc.
• Deliberately inciting emotions, provoking war, or creating sensational effects in titles or content
• The content contains factual errors or controversial viewpoints
• The answers or articles contain plagiarism, re-editing, unauthorized reprinting, etc.
• The amount of effective information in a single article is small, such as spam or unclear content
• Advertisements or traffic diversion information for promotional purposes in the body of the content or personal introduction

Content influence

The influence of content is a comprehensive score obtained by weighting the feedback such as approval, disapproval, thanks, unhelpful, comments, and collections received after the content is released, which reflects the recognition of the content by content viewers. If the content receives a lot of negative feedback (opposition, reporting, unhelpful, etc.), the content influence score will decrease.

The positive and negative feedback from high-powered creators in certain fields on the content in that field will be weighted and included in the influence calculation, such as vertical fields such as academic subjects, occupations, and interests. Therefore, continuous creation in areas of expertise and gaining recognition from high-powered creators in the same field will help enhance the influence of your content. However, for content creation on restricted topics, politics, military affairs, and entertainment gossip, the positive feedback received will not be additionally weighted.

The content types used to calculate content influence include answers, articles, and ideas (excluding forwarded ideas). If content is deleted, collapsed, suggested for revision, or made anonymous, the feedback received on that content will not be counted in influence calculations.

03. How to improve the growth level faster?

Here are some things to start with:

1. The more content (answers, articles, etc.) you create, the faster you will grow.
2. The more interactions (approvals, favorites, etc.) your content gets, the faster you will grow.
3. The more words the content has, the faster it grows.

Author: Marketing Meditations

Source: Marketing Meditations