Zhihu is the most popular question and answer website in China, making it an appealing platform for your brand to be active on if you want to grow your presence in the country. With around 81 million monthly active users, Zhihu can be a valuable marketing tool, especially for brands in knowledge-intensive and technology-driven industries. In this guide, you will learn what Zhihu is, what the typical Zhihu user is like, the advantages of marketing on Zhihu, the types of brands that will benefit from marketing on Zhihu, and how to use Zhihu for marketing.
Table of contents
- What is Zhihu?
- The typical Zhihu user
- The advantages of marketing on Zhihu
- Types of brands that will benefit from marketing on Zhihu
- How to use Zhihu for marketing
- Conclusion
What is Zhihu?
Zhihu (知乎) may not be as well-known outside of China as other Chinese social platforms like WeChat and Weibo, but it is highly-regarded as being one of the most trustworthy social platforms in China. For this reason, if you are considering performing marketing activities on Chinese social media, then you do not want to miss out on Zhihu.
So, what exactly is Zhihu? Its slogan ("If you have questions, go to Zhihu") gives you a big clue: it is China's most popular question and answer (Q&A) platform. Zhihu in Chinese literally means "Do you know it?" It is a platform similar to Quora in the West, allowing users to ask questions and get high-quality answers from other knowledgeable users.
Since its inception, Zhihu has grown to become the largest Q&A-inspired online content community in China. Zhihu has become an important place online where Chinese people can find solutions, make decisions and get inspiration.
Zhihu has around 81 million monthly active users, of which around 16.5 million are paying users. These users have generated a whopping 874.6 million pieces of content (i.e. questions and answers). These numbers alone should tell you that it is a platform that has serious potential to be leveraged as a marketing tool. It is especially appealing to brands in industries where customers may have a lot of questions. As Zhihu is so focused on knowledge-sharing, it is a great platform on which brands can showcase their knowledge and build their reputation as industry experts.
Without further ado, let's get started and look at who exactly the typical Zhihu user is and how to go about marketing on Zhihu!
The typical Zhihu user
Zhihu users typically possess three main characteristics: a high level of education, a high salary, and a high consumption ability. This specific type of userbase is a key reason why Zhihu has generated such large amounts of content on professional, industry-specific topics. In fact, most Zhihu users use Zhihu as a platform to acquire more professional knowledge. White-collar brands who wish to utilise Zhihu can therefore expect a higher engagement rate from the audience compared to Weibo or WeChat.
- High level of education: Zhihu users typically have a strong educational background, with 80% possessing a bachelor's degree or above. They are able to easily understand and digest industry-specific knowledge.
- High salary: Zhihu users typically earn higher than average salaries. The majority of Zhihu users are from first-tier and coastal cities where most of the largest companies are located, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
- High consumption ability: There is a growing trend amongst Zhihu users towards investing in emerging areas such as new energy-related products, digital collectibles and high-end fitness services. A large number of Zhihu users work within technology, software, finance, education, art, business and law. Common job titles for Zhihu users are programmers, engineers, designers and product managers. This reinforces the fact that Zhihu is a community populated largely by white-collar professionals.
As you can see, Zhihu users are composed mostly of mature and financially-stable social elites. They are financially independent and knowledgeable. Zhihu is thus an ideal platform for attracting decision-makers and high-spending customers. Therefore, creating a professional brand image on Zhihu can be a highly efficient approach if you want to attract these high-quality prospects.
The advantages of marketing on Zhihu
Zhihu possesses high domain authority on the search engines
Zhihu's content possesses strong domain authority on Chinese search engines. A high domain authority score means a stronger ability to rank on the search engine results pages.
The most popular search engine in China is Baidu. Zhihu's domain authority score on Baidu is 10/10, which is the highest level of domain authority. This may be related to the fact that in 2019, Baidu was one of Zhihu's key investors in a funding round worth USD 434 million, and since then, Baidu has developed a long-term strategic partnership with Zhihu. In fact, Zhihu's entire website – with its millions of high-quality questions and answers – is connected to Baidu. This means that Zhihu's content is distributed seamlessly to users through Baidu search and other Baidu products.
When people search for questions on Baidu, Zhihu's content will typically rank very high in the search engine results pages – usually ranking in the first or second position, after ads. For example, as you can see in the screenshot below, when you search "What laptop brands do you think are worth buying?" (有哪些笔记本电脑值得买) on Baidu, Zhihu's content ranks in first and third position. Impressive!
Due to its high domain authority, 57% of Zhihu's traffic comes from organic search. This proves that Zhihu's content is easily searchable and accessible via search engines. And the higher the quality of the content, the higher it will rank! To sum up, Zhihu is a very effective channel to help brands increase their visibility and rankings in the search engine results pages.
Zhihu can generate huge volumes of traffic
Zhihu has become an important social "search engine" in China. Many people regard this platform as an information pool and knowledge encyclopaedia, as you can easily find professional content and in-depth answers regarding many industry-related topics on this platform.
Due to the high quality and trustworthiness of Zhihu's content, as well as the popularity of new Zhihu content formats such as short-form videos and podcasts, people frequently share Zhihu posts to other Chinese social platforms, such as WeChat, Douyin and Kuaishou.
This means that you can not only get traffic from Zhihu itself, but also from other platforms, if your content is being shared widely by your audience. Just like people in the West share high-quality industry content on LinkedIn, there are thousands of pieces of content being generated on Zhihu and then re-shared and distributed to different platforms, which can help generate even more traffic.
Zhihu helps brands develop authority and gain trust from users
No matter which platform you use for marketing, it is important to establish a deep relationship with your audience. Zhihu is a platform that allows you to develop a voice for your brand and to gain trust from users.
I would say pretty much everyone has a curiosity to keep up to date with the latest trends and news. Zhihu, to some extent, has become a bridge between brands and these trending topics. On Zhihu, one way that brands can communicate with users is by leaving their answers or opinions under different hot search topics. Compared with direct advertising, this softer marketing method is more acceptable to users. Understanding what your target audience needs and offering solutions to them can make your contribution more valuable and credible.
Let's briefly compare Zhihu with Weibo and WeChat. Content on Weibo and WeChat is usually quickly replaced by new content. Even if it is of high quality, the content will not always be on top. Weibo and WeChat require brands to constantly create fresh content in order to remain visible to users. Zhihu is different, because as long as your content has received many likes or engagements, its authority will always keep your content on top (until someone else creates content with stronger authority).
As I mentioned before, Zhihu is viewed as an information "search engine". Content is king on this platform. Brands can use the long-term effect of Zhihu's algorithm to ensure their high-quality content is consistently seen, clicked on and read by users. Even if conversions do not follow immediately, you can still increase your brand awareness and gain the trust of users, which will lay down a solid foundation for subsequent conversions in the future.
Types of brands that will benefit from marketing on Zhihu
As a company, before planning to utilise Zhihu, you should first consider the following:
- Is your target audience active on Zhihu?
- Do they need your knowledge, experience and insights?
Opportunities and challenges coexist, so before delving into Zhihu, it is important to ask whether your brand is suitable for Zhihu marketing. Zhihu marketing is more suitable for knowledge-intensive and technology-driven industries. The premise is that these industries can provide vital value and solutions to their target audience. The following four industries would excel with marketing on Zhihu:
- Information and technology industry: A large number of Zhihu users use the platform to keep up with the latest industry news and developments within this sector. If you are in the information and technology industry and are willing to share the most up-to-date industry news, you should consider Zhihu. Examples of major information and technology companies on Zhihu include Huawei and Tencent.
- B2B industry: Many B2B companies are on Zhihu, where they share their insights and valuable solutions. Examples of major B2B companies on Zhihu include Siemens and SAP.
- Services industry: Some service brands in industries such as law, hospitality and education use Zhihu to market their knowledge and professional solutions. Examples of this type of company on Zhihu include Peking University Press and Airbnb.
- Lifestyle industry: Some lifestyle brands such as e-commerce, travel, food and fashion brands utilise Zhihu to attract the attention of Zhihu users who typically have high incomes and powerful purchasing power. Examples of this type of company on Zhihu include Qyer Travel and JD.com.
Let's take a closer look at SAP's Zhihu account, which has 51,000 followers. SAP is a B2B company that provides software solutions. It has become one of the major B2B technology companies that actively utilises Zhihu and generates plenty of strong engagement from Zhihu's userbase. SAP frequently uses Zhihu's Q&A features to educate its audience about how to use software to increase business efficiency – and at the same time promote its SAP system through a soft selling approach.
If you browse the account, you will find that SAP's posts truly reflect its expertise in the software industry. It shares in-depth industry-related knowledge to engage with its audience regularly, to help increase brand loyalty. It also subtly shares the advantages of its SAP system without making it sound like a pushy ad.
SAP has also created a topic discussion zone for the audience to ask questions and share ideas about SAP. This hashtag has generated around 63,000 discussions and has over 96 million views. This area not only allows SAP to easily interact with followers, but also collect user feedback about its products and services.
How to use Zhihu for marketing
The fundamental core part of Zhihu marketing is content. High-quality content not only brings value to users, but also helps brands achieve commercial value. Moreover, content marketing on Zhihu is not about short-term results; it will actually help strengthen your brand awareness in the long term. Due to Zhihu's voting system, the most popular content will always be pinned at the top. The longer you can stay at the top, the more exposure you will get.
Are you excited to get started using Zhihu for marketing? Let's dive straight into some actionable tips on how your brand should incorporate Zhihu into your digital marketing strategy in China!
Publish diverse and engaging content
Like an on-site blog, companies can publish industry-related content on their Zhihu page. By doing this, you can build a strong professional image and signal to your audience that you are an expert within your industry.
In addition to articles, brands should consider content formats such as infographics, short-form videos and case studies. This is because Chinese search engines now place greater emphasis on factors such as content freshness, multimedia integration and user engagement. Zhihu posts with embedded images, videos or interactive elements therefore tend to rank higher.
As mentioned above, Zhihu content is very important for your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. I therefore strongly suggest that you use relevant keywords in your titles and that you (subtly) include your company information and contact details in your articles. When using keywords, focus on long-tail keywords that are more specific to your brand's products or services. For example, instead of just "laptop", use "laptop for graphic designers under RMB 10,000".
Engage with your audience by answering questions
One of the best ways to utilise Zhihu is to engage with users by answering questions.
In Zhihu, a hot question list tells you the most popular topics that are currently being discussed. Under all these hot search topics, there is a large volume of traffic. It would be a good idea for your brand to follow these latest trends and to provide your opinions and answers under these questions. Just bear in mind that you should only answer questions related to the industry that your company specialises in.
By providing high-quality answers, you will not only help other users but also increase the exposure of your brand, products and services. Even if your content does not bring conversions immediately, higher attention and exposure for your brand will bring about more conversion opportunities in the long-term.
Utilise SEO techniques
Since Zhihu's domain authority score is high on Baidu and other Chinese search engines, its content is widely searchable and has good visibility in the search results. Therefore, it is essential for you to keep in mind how to make your Zhihu content appear for the right search terms, i.e. to search engine optimise your content.
If you already have strong SEO knowledge, make sure to apply it to your Zhihu content, as this will help further improve your organic search marketing efforts. Content quality and keyword research are key factors of content optimisation. Before you produce any content, perform keyword research to better understand your target audience and how they are searching for your content, services or products. Through SEO keyword analysis, find out which keywords have decent traffic and conversion rates, then write answers to the questions that contain these keywords. You should include the keywords in your answers too – just make sure you do not overdo it and that it sounds natural.
Looking beyond keyword optimisation, remember that SEO nowadays involves improving the overall user experience of your Zhihu content, too. This includes ensuring fast loading times, mobile-friendliness and easy navigation. And do not forget that you can collaborate with Zhihu influencers in your industry, to help increase the visibility of your brand-related content!
Use Zhihu Live and Zhihu Roundtable
Besides pure content sharing, Zhihu also provides functions for brands to run marketing activities. Zhihu Live and Zhihu Roundtable are very popular with many B2B companies. They offer an opportunity for brands to engage with professionals in a very casual way and without the need to jump to another platform. Let's take a look at what they are.
Zhihu Live allows users to connect with one another via voice chat, without showing their face. Zhihu Live emphasises real-time knowledge sharing and Q&A. Speakers can share their knowledge, experience and expertise. Participants can engage with the speaker and ask questions via graphics, text or voice. Every brand can be its own influencer on Zhihu Live, as you obviously know better than anyone about your own products and services. Zhihu Live offers a very good opportunity for brands to connect with their target audience.
Zhihu Roundtable is similar to an online webinar and allows brands to hold virtual events directly on Zhihu. Brands can set up a certain topic and invite one host and a maximum of four guest speakers to share insights and interact with the audience. This function is extremely popular with B2B brands. Intel once organised a roundtable discussion about perceptual computing, and Siemens has organised a roundtable talking about industry 4.0, which was successful in grabbing the attention of professionals from its target industry.
Conclusion
To conclude, Zhihu is a great tool for reaching, interacting with and marketing to your Chinese audience, particularly white-collar professionals. I hope this guide has been a useful introduction to Zhihu and given you some insightful tips on how your business can make the most out of the platform. With a strong strategy and by providing users with genuine value via Zhihu, you can improve your brand awareness and thought leadership in China and boost your success in this exciting, lucrative and growing market. Good luck!
To learn more about digital marketing in China, click here.
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