Zhihu Monetization: Does the gene for selling goods equal the ability to sell goods?

The commercialization issue of Zhihu has always been a concern of the industry, but no substantive solution has been discussed, and it has become a cliché and useless issue.

However, recently, a Zhihu blogger named Bell Ringer posted a message saying that he has earned over 10,000 yuan a month by earning commissions through recommending good things on Zhihu, which makes people see the hope of Zhihu's commercialization.

He has only been on Zhihu for 6 months, has given 71 answers, accumulated 14,425 followers, and has 69 products in his showcase, which all seem "ordinary". However, upon closer inspection, he has 8 answers with more than 1k likes, and the two answers with the most sales received 18k and 6.6k likes respectively. The popular answers are the real reason why he earns over 10,000 yuan a month.

Another parent-child blogger, Chen Dake, also posted a screenshot of his backend commission income in his answer, saying that he had set off a small climax in bringing goods and saw the paying ability of Zhihu's parent-child users; blogger "Arrogant Hu Luobei" wrote in his profile: 1,800 sets of lipsticks were sold in one article; women's clothing designer blogger "Dachen" had a product showcase with as many as 1,018 products... From the internal testing of good product recommendations in September to the addition of the product showcase function in December, Zhihu's road to bringing goods has quietly begun, and some pioneers have even "quietly" tasted the sweetness.

At present, Zhihu's product recommendations are still in the internal testing stage. There are four sources of goods: JD.com, Taobao, Zhihu Mall, and Pinduoduo. Bloggers mostly choose JD.com, and the products are mainly in categories such as books, 3C, and smart living products, taking the quality selection route. The actual range of bloggers involved is not large, and they are mainly small bloggers with tens of thousands of followers. The real Zhihu big Vs are far from appearing. If the big Vs appear and promote products with their professional advantages and status as spiritual mentors, Zhihu may have a chance to pull off a beautiful surprise attack.

But on the other hand, the gene for selling products does not equal the ability to sell products. Zhihu's previous functions, such as the Little Blue Star recommendation function, the online live broadcast function, and the circle function, have not played a substantial role in Zhihu's commercialization. Zhihu's consistent community atmosphere may become a long-term factor hindering its ability to sell products. Zhihu's product recommendations are essentially a Taoke model. If you want to become one of the effective engines for Zhihu's commercialization, you may need to work hard to "cultivate your internal strength."

Hot answers + winning by quantity, making tens of thousands of dollars a month without doing anything?

"Congratulations to Mr. Qiao for joining Zhihu for recommending good products three months ago and finally making over 10,000 yuan a month." On February 21, Zhihu blogger Qiao Zhongren posted a backend income chart in his Zhihu Thoughts, and complained in a half-proud tone, "I can't go out for a barbecue to celebrate. In the past, I didn't know how to make money, and now I don't know how to spend money at home. The turnaround is quite big."

When most people were skeptical and held negative reviews about the sales ability on Zhihu, the bell ringer was one of the few bloggers who showed off his sales ability in a high-profile manner. In response to the question "Is there any part-time job that can earn a little money?", he explained in detail how he made a profit by recommending good things on Zhihu, and this answer earned him 6.6k likes and 5751 likes. What’s interesting is that among the nearly 300 comments below, they are basically divided into two camps. One camp is shouting “Please teach me”, and the other camp is ridiculing him for “definitely trying to sell courses.”

This forced him to emphasize at the beginning of the article that "there is no profit involved and no courses are sold."

The bell ringer started writing questions and answers on Zhihu as a hobby in September last year, and received the internal beta qualification for product recommendations in November. During the Double Eleven and Double Twelve periods, Zhihu officials actually provided a lot of traffic support and high subsidies. On the one hand, I was relatively lazy and did not answer questions diligently. On the other hand, I felt that the commissions were basically only a few cents, so I did not take them seriously, and therefore I have been slow to participate.

Until the official message notifying him that the function would be taken back if he did not use it, he randomly linked three books in his previous answer with 10,000 likes. Then he was pleasantly surprised to find that he could receive about 20 yuan every day for three consecutive months, which was enough for a lunch. From then on, he began his journey of recommending good things on Zhihu.

The article that the bell ringer mentioned that allowed him to receive 20 yuan a day was his answer to the question "What great business ideas have you seen?" So far, it has received 18,199 likes and 307 comments.

Let's estimate the credibility of what he said. We roughly calculate that he got 18,000 likes in 3 months and 90 days, an average of 200 likes a day. Based on the 20 yuan he said, one like would bring him an average profit of 0.1 yuan.

18000➗90=200 likes/day 20➗200=0.1 yuan/like

From the conversion rate point of view, JD's book commission is basically around 1 yuan, 20 yuan means about 20 orders, 200 likes means 20 orders, and the order conversion rate is about 10%. Some people may think this number is too high, but it should be noted that this is calculated based on the number of likes on the article rather than the number of readings. The actual number of readings must be much higher than the number of likes, but we don't know the specific ratio of readings to likes, and 20 orders are created by 3 books. It is very likely that one of the books has a higher rate, or they are interspersed and matched. Considering these two points, a conversion rate of 10% is relatively reasonable.

In addition to this answer with 10,000 likes, the bell ringer has another answer that brought him a lot of income. It is a relatively detailed stockpiling guide he compiled during the epidemic. This answer is displayed under the question "Due to the closure of the city/community due to the new coronavirus, what supplies should families stockpile? Is there a detailed plan?" Although it only received 308 likes and 26 comments, according to the screenshot of the backend reading volume he made public, the reading volume of this answer is basically around 1,000 per day, and the total reading volume is less than 20,000. The income brought to him by this answer is currently 2,000 yuan. This time, he gave a calculation method himself:

Commission ➗ Reading volume estimate: 2000 ➗ 20000 = 0.1 yuan / each reading

You may wonder why this article is much more valuable than the previous one. The previous one was 0.1 yuan per like, and this one is 0.1 yuan per read. Is the difference between the two answers really that big? The reason is actually very simple. In the previous answer, the commission for a total of 3 books and 3 items created 0.1 yuan/like, and in this article about stockpiling during the epidemic, he recommended a total of 12 products in three categories: medicines, personal/family protection, and life. The number of products has greatly increased. Coupled with the shortage of relevant materials during the epidemic, it is not surprising that the price has increased to 0.1 yuan/reading.

To sum up, it is basically a popular answer + winning by quantity (number of products in a single article). It can be said to be simple, direct, rough and effective.

There are currently 69 items in the Bell Ringer's product showcase. Click on each item to view the creator's answer or article recommending the item. A product may also be recommended by the creator multiple times in different answers. There are nearly ten people who answered the question with similar answers, which include more than a dozen products and have hundreds of likes. This may be a reasonable explanation for why his income exceeds ten thousand yuan.

The bell ringer has been on Zhihu for 6 months, with a total of 71 answers, 14,425 followers, and 69 products in the product showcase. These data seem to be "ordinary". Perhaps the real difficulty lies in how to write a popular answer.

However, for many people, a monthly income of over 10,000 yuan is already attractive enough and motivating them to study Zhihu's traffic distribution mechanism and content high-like methods. It also confirms the feasibility of Zhihu's sales promotion to some extent.

Early adopters who “make money in silence”

Of course, the story of a mere bell ringer may be an individual case or an exaggeration or he may have ulterior motives. However, after taking a look at Zhihu, Doujiao Entertainment Investment found that among the creators who earn commissions by recommending good products, there seems to be no shortage of bloggers who can reach or even surpass his level, but they just "make money quietly" and don't say so out loud.

In the profile of blogger "Arrogant Hu Luobei", it is proudly written: 1,800 sets of lipsticks were sold in one article. We also found this article of hers that has a strong sales momentum. It is an answer to the question "Is there any lipstick that amazes people the first time they see it?" It has received 1.7k likes, 627 likes, 170 comments, and a total of 15 lipsticks were recommended.

This answer only ranks fourth among her answers ranked by the number of likes. Her first-ranked answer, "What are some good quality pants stores on Taobao?", received a total of 3.4k likes and 2,022 likes, and recommended 4 Taobao pants; the third-ranked answer, "What is the most satisfying liquid foundation you have used so far?", received a total of 2.1k likes and 775 likes, and included 3 liquid foundations. There are 86 items in her merchandise display, mainly cosmetics, toiletries and clothing. Both the average order value and commission of these products are much higher than those of books. We have reason to believe that the arrogant Hu Luobei should earn more than the bell ringer.

In addition, blogger "Orange Flavor Mailbox" mainly recommends snacks, with a total of 134 products in his product showcase, which are basically snacks, and the goods are mainly sourced from Taobao; blogger "Prinz", public account "Funny Things Research Institute", has a total of 160 products in his product showcase, including beauty and fashion brands such as Lancome, MAC, and L'Occitane, and in the question "What interesting gifts can I give to my girlfriend?", he ranked first among all answers with 58k likes, 35k likes, and 1.2k comments, and this answer includes a total of 28 product recommendations; blogger "Dachen" is a women's clothing designer, her product showcase has 1,018 products, almost the blogger with the largest number of products.

Of course, where there is profit, there will be people who will specialize in research. At present, there are already sporadic researchers on Zhihu who have begun to provide ways and skills to make money from Zhihu’s good things. I believe that related paid content and communities will appear one after another, just like the micro-business training and short video training in the past.

However, Zhihu's recommendations for good things still have certain thresholds and restrictions. In terms of the thresholds: first, the creation level must be above level 2; secondly, there must be no violation of the "Zhihu Community Management Regulations" in the past three months; and currently only personal accounts are supported, not institutional accounts.

There are also specific restrictions in terms of recommending good products. For example, each blogger can only choose products from 3 categories for recommendation, each article cannot contain more than 30 product cards, and only one content containing product cards can be published every day. It must be published under the real-name system, and each article must be longer than 200 words.

However, judging from people's enthusiasm in the past for making money on new platforms, it is not impossible to produce a professional profit-making team. It is indeed possible that this may lead to problems such as a rampant recommendation trend and an overflow of soft articles on Zhihu. It also depends on Zhihu's governance of the community and the balance between content and commercialization.

However, overall, Zhihu's product recommendations are still in the internal testing stage. It has only been a few months since the initial internal testing in September and the launch of the product showcase function in December. Currently, the number of bloggers using related functions is still relatively small compared to the overall number. It can be said that the bloggers above are still early adopters.

On the other hand, Douban Entertainment Investment found that there are basically no Zhihu big Vs among the bloggers who have opened relevant functions. Most of them are small bloggers. The above-mentioned Bell Ringer, Arrogant Carrot North, Orange Flavored Mailbox, Prinz, and Dachen are all bloggers with less than 20,000 fans. It can be said that all bloggers who have opened Zhihu live rarely opened product showcases.

Regarding this point, some industry insiders believe that all Zhihu big Vs with a certain reputation generally disdain this way of making profits by earning commissions, and once a product link is inserted, people may say, "Are you doing so badly that you have started to make money from this?" It is like posting sales content on WeChat Moments, which seems "lowering in status." This may be the main reason why no Zhihu big V has ended up like this so far.

In terms of sources and categories, although there are already four sources, namely JD.com, Taobao, Zhihu Mall, and Pinduoduo, the bloggers currently participating mainly choose JD.com, among which books, 3C, smart living products, etc. are the main ones, taking the quality selection route. The share of Taobao products recommended by bloggers is still relatively small, and the share that Pinduoduo can occupy should be even smaller.

So what is the correct way to recommend good things on Zhihu? In fact, it is not difficult to find from the above that the simplest and most effective way is to insert the corresponding product links in your past highly praised answers. The bell ringer mentioned in his article that this is the most direct and effective way. Another Zhihu parent-child blogger Chen Dake holds the same view. She said, "I did not rush to write a few answers with products overnight, but naturally added a few product recommendations from several excellent answers with thousands of praises before - I had written about them in the article before, but did not clearly state the brand, and many people asked about them in the comments."

Chen Dake also posted a screenshot of her backend commission income in her answer. "Several of thematic answers have set off a small climax in selling goods, and also made me realize that the readers of Zhihu's mother and baby channel are a group of shopping experts with amazing purchasing power." Currently, there are 347 products in her product display window, mainly parenting books, children's picture books, and household supplies.

Overall, the revenue from Zhihu's product recommendations mainly depends on whether there are enough highly-praised answers to get exposure. The number of fans does not directly affect the revenue, and it is not a direct fan-based economy. This may also be a major difference between Zhihu's product recommendations and other short videos, Weibo and WeChat.

The gene of selling goods does not equal the ability to sell goods

"Zhihu's product recommendations are essentially a Taobao affiliate model, which promotes products through refined tweets. Although the articles can attract fans, the payment model in the last 3 minutes is not good." Ma Shengpeng, an expert in short video live e-commerce operations, believes that if Zhihu only uses pictures and text recommendations, simply writing an article and listing a few products, it will still be difficult to really succeed.

At present, Zhihu's product showcase only supports basic product display and jump, as well as links to blogger-recommended articles. Compared with Douyin's product showcase and Kuaishou's small yellow car, its functions are relatively basic. Ma Shengpeng believes that Zhihu should strengthen the technical development of product showcases in the future. "The combination of perfect product showcase functions + refined pictures and texts + live broadcast + WeChat community, and the comprehensive use of several means and methods, will make it possible to truly create a hit and drive the entire commercialization capabilities of Zhihu."

Ma Shengpeng told Douban Entertainment that he once did online planning for a big emotional account on Zhihu, trying to use Zhihu's matrix answers to promote a book they published themselves, but the effect was not ideal.

Ma Shengpeng believes that if Zhihu wants to sell goods, live streaming is still a key link. Currently, Zhihu's product recommendations already support inserting product links during live streaming, and bloggers have also tried live streaming to sell goods. "Live streaming adds an interactive model, and is an important point to promote orders," said Ma Shengpeng.

Whether it is the Little Blue Star recommendation function or the online live broadcast function, the many attempts in 2019 failed to lead to substantial progress in Zhihu's commercialization, and seemed a bit "small-scale". Some media people believe that if Zhihu wants to make a success of bringing goods, it needs to make a superposition combination based on strong multi-directional functions. "It should be 0.9✖️0.9✖️0.9, not 0.3✖️0.3✖️0.3."

Although some of the above-mentioned bloggers have tasted the sweetness of recommending good products and even earned more than 10,000 yuan a month, if Zhihu wants to truly make product promotion a major source of revenue, the current scale and scope are far from enough.

Zhihu Good Product Recommendation is a co-creation model between a platform and content creators, which is completed jointly by the guidance of the platform and the content participation of the creators. Within two months of the establishment of the official account of "Zhihu Good Product Recommendation", a total of 56 questions pointing to good product recommendations were added. It can be seen that intentional guidance, subsidies and operations have been carried out in many node categories such as Spring Festival goods, Valentine's Day gifts, new year book lists, and home life.

"Whether Zhihu's product recommendations can be successful depends mainly on the platform's positioning this year and how it can move to the next level in all aspects, including details such as the categories that are supported, product selection, and the display location of function pages," said Ma Shengpeng.

Some people say that Zhihu's recommendations for good things inserted in pictures and texts are very similar to the popular articles on WeChat public accounts a few years ago. In comparison, Zhihu's advantage is that its questions and answers and articles support creators to make secondary and tertiary edits and modifications. The content presented is dynamically changing, and the community algorithm will continue to make new recommendations, while WeChat tweets are one-time products. Another point is that Zhihu's question-and-answer traffic is more open and does not rely too much on the number of fans of the creators, while WeChat public accounts are relatively closed and do not have much "natural traffic". From these two aspects, even if they are both picture and text recommendations, Zhihu is still an evolved version of WeChat public accounts compared to the previous period.

On the other hand, what may bother Zhihu as it moves towards selling goods is the overall atmosphere of the community. Although Zhihu has been declining significantly in 2019, its early white-collar and highly educated users still dominate the community atmosphere and direction of Zhihu. "Zhihu users have two-sided characteristics. On the one hand, they implicitly believe that 'as long as there are advertisements, it means money', but on the other hand, they have an explicit need to make a profit. This contradiction may be the main reason for the slow progress of Zhihu's product promotion." A media person told Duojiao Entertainment Investment.

"Zhihu has an obvious long-tail advantage, and its traffic is very precise. I have posted on Xianyu, Weibo, and Douban, but Zhihu still attracts the most users and has the highest payment conversion rate." Jiaqi previously compiled a strategy for preparing for the Beijing Film Academy's postgraduate entrance examination and posted it on Zhihu. In the two years since then, candidates still occasionally sent her private messages asking her to buy postgraduate entrance examination materials.

In Jiaqi's opinion, Zhihu's ability to attract traffic has always been very strong. This time, she also launched a good product recommendation function. "There are still few people entering the market now, and no one can say whether Zhihu's product promotion will become the next outlet." She said.

We have no doubt that Zhihu has the gene to bring products to the market, but how to transform the gene into ability is still an open question for Zhihu to think about.

Author: Liu Gongzi

Source: Doujiao Entertainment Investment ( ylwanjia ）