Your Guide to Marketing on Zhihu

  • Post category:Zhihu

Zhihu is a Chinese website that was launched in 2011. It is the Chinese equivalent of the American website, Quora. The main purpose of the platform is to allow users to ask questions and get answers from the community using the website. Zhihu has over 94 million Monthly Active Users (2021) and is one of the top 10 most popular websites in China. It has become a powerful marketing tool for brands to reach out to their target audience in China.

1, Some Interesting Data about Zhihu (Q3 2021)

Average monthly active users (MAUs): 101.2 million

Average monthly paying members: 5.5 million

Advertising revenue: RMB321.1 million (US$49.8 million)

Paid membership revenue: RMB178.3 million (US$27.7 million)

Total revenues: RMB823.5 million (US$127.8 million)

Source: Zhihu Financial Report

2, Who are Zhihu users?

Because initially, only experts were invited to answer questions, the app has attracted a crowd of educated and knowledgeable users.

As a matter of fact, most Zhihu users have at least a Bachelors’s degree (+75%) with 1.62% having a Ph.D. These users usually live in 1st and 2nd tiers Chinese cities and are aged 18 to 35 years old. 40% of users are also older than 30.

A recent study found that 30% of Zhihu users earn more than 10,000 RMB/month. Not only are they educated but they also have purchasing power.

Zhihu has an extensive community of high-skilled individuals who are often recognized for their knowledge and abilities to educate others (which makes Zhihu Marketing ultra-efficient).

3, How to do Zhihu marketing?

The Q&A feature is the key feature of the platform to use for marketing, there are at least two ways to go about it.

Brands can search for questions that are answerable – a good question is one that allows the brand to educate the reader, show their expertise and promote brand values. Q&A marketing can be especially effective for products that require an in-depth explanation to persuade readers even to consider using the product.

For instance, global car brands are frequently seen using Q&A marketing at Zhihu by answering questions about car components.

Another way is for brands to create a discussable topic and lead users to answer it. This is a way to generate interest towards the brand.

For example, Huawei asked users “how does it feel to trust someone?” Later on, Huawei’s subsidiary company “Huawei Cloud (华为云)“ joined in sharing their experience of building trust with partners as a cloud computing company. Here, Huawei Cloud used this question as an opportunity to build a reliable brand image by sharing their experience.

4, Writing tips for Zhihu

Learning to write content that resonates is extremely important. The writing style used for Weibo or Xiaohongshu won’t work. Brands should be authentic and show some personality, but most-importantly provide thorough and useful content.   

It is crucial to actually answer the question before pushing brand messages on the audience. Brands should also try to write their answers in an organic voice while citing reliable sources; the copy-pasted information is not liked by the users. Plus, choosing a casual and conversational tone and manner is another tip to engage with the audience.          

Besides, there are two types of answers that tend to rank higher on Zhihu. One type is long and high-quality content covering the topic from various angles; the other is very short, two or three sentences and straight to the point.

Zhihu is clearly a user-generated-content platform. Therefore, brands should be aware that messages that seem too promotional or pushy may not resonate with the audience. It’s critical that brands offer useful information that is needed by the targeted audience on a specific topic or field.

As for the questions, it is important to ask open-ended and not-too-complex questions on Zhihu to encourage users to answer. They may be very specific and directly related to your products. Questions such as “How do flowmeters work?” are often seen on the platform. So are extremely weird questions that are usually taken seriously and answered with the full engagement.

So, you can make it simple. Or, you can get extremely creative, with both the questions and the answers.

Need help with your Zhihu marketing strategy?

Our team of Chinese marketing experts can put you on the right track, they can help you build a Zhihu marketing strateg that ticks all the right boxes.

And feel free to reach out to us if you are seeking advice on a more comprehensive advertising strategy for your online marketing in China.