Zhihu offers two main types of accounts: personal account and organization account. Personal account is an affordable and easy option particularly to small-to-medium-sized businesses not in China yet. Personal accounts for private use can be set up, independently of the fact that you’re in or out of China. The main downside is there’s always risk your account might get deleted if it becomes too commercial so as expected content creation needs careful administration with edits made accordingly.
Organization accounts have all of the benefits that you would want in an advertisement, but it is important to note they are only available for businesses who holds Chinese business licenses. Organization accounts can themselves be split into four sub-groups: Enterprises, Media, Government and others.
A brand account comes with Zhihu’s commercial features but also improves visibility and certifies your account, protecting you from copycats and improving your credibility on the Q&A platform. An organization account is crucial for your Zhihu Marketing effort.
1, How to register an Organization account on Zhihu?
1.1 List of requirements & documents needed
Must have a Chinese Business License
Provide Company data: In order to register an organization account on Zhihu, you need the following: your company’s name and operating license. As well as the name of the account operator and a copy of his/her ID.
Name of the account and field of activity
An Avatar
1.2 Register a Zhihu organization Account: Process
Registration: When registering you must use a professional e-mail address to activate your account.
Choose your type of account: Choose between a business, government or other organization account.
Account verification: Once your account has been approved, you will get a blue badge.
The annual audit fee is 300 RMB.
2. Why brands in China need Zhihu Marketing
Reaching out to a Niche Educated Target Audiance
SEO & Visibility Boost: Zhihu post are very well indexed
Company Credibility building
Cost Efficient Marketing
2.1 What type of companies should invest in Zhihu Marketing?
Universities looking to market their higher degrees or executive education should consider using Zhihu marketing as a communication tool.
Organizations in B2B industries that sell highly complex solutions would also enjoy targeting this audience on the platform because they can relate better with them than others due to shared experience and expertise from working together before.
2.2 How to use Zhihu Marketing for your business?
Zhihu marketing is a great long-term promotion tool/strategy. Whether it’s posted yesterday or years ago from their archives…if it’s relevant research material then there will always be at least one Zhihu result page ranking on top of Baidu’s SERP. You can thank Zhihu domain authority and the quality of its content for that.
Zhihu is excellent to work on a company reputation. We said it multiple times already, Zhihu’s content is top-notch and well trusted by netizens. Use this to your advantage. Have Zhihu content creators post about your brands, create severals authority profiles on Zhihu and post undercovers about your brads, interact with Zhihu users that are asking questions about you, and on. All these actions will positively impact your online reputation in China (in the long term!)
You can use Zhihu as an effective tool for digital marketing in China because its different user features help it stand out from other platforms, making this platform a great resource to reaching potential customers that you want to engage with.
If you are interested in setting up an official brand Organization account, or want to get more strategy about social media marketing, please feel free to contact DDC.