New trends in Chinese online marketing have disrupted the way brands advertise their offerings. New strategies have emerged to meet the growing users of Chinese users. An example of such a new trend is content marketing.
What channels do brands use to promote their content? Are they just emails, webinars, or blogs? There are many more! An effective strategy businesses use today is Q&A (questions & answers) marketing.
Just like Quora, Zhihu is one of China’s biggest Q&A hub for professional knowledge. You may be somewhat familiar with other online marketing platforms in China, like WeChat or Alibaba. However, you should not overlook Zhihu, either. Imagine how many potential customers you can find on Zhihu, where about 34 million users are actively searching for things to buy!
In this article, we will explain 10 reasons why you should invest in content marketing on Zhihu.
But first, let’s discover together what is Zhihu, for those of you who have never heard of this platform before.
About Zhihu
Zhihu（知乎）is a brand name directly translated as “Do you know?”. Launched in 2011 by a former journalist named Victor Zhou, it has been known as the most prominent Q&A and knowledge-sharing community for many professionals in China. At present, Zhihu has over 200 registered users, contributing regularly with numerous good-quality content.
- Expert in Q&A marketing strategy
Zhihu allows businesses to search for frequently asked questions or lead discussions. This approach helps promote mutual interaction between users and companies. On the one hand, users voluntarily engage in answering/posting questions. On the other hand, businesses can get to know their customers better and raise brand awareness through Q&A.
- A large group of promising audience
In 2019, Zhihu reached 220 million registered users and 34 million active users. 78% of them are 25-years-old or older, with an equal proportion between both genders. More importantly, the majority of users share the same motive in learning and self-improvement.
- Highly educated users
80% of Zhihu users hold a bachelor’s degree or above. 30% of them have an average income higher than 10,000 RMB (1427 USD) per month. Higher education means people specialize in a particular academic field. Businesses can benefit from this trend by building trust through word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing promoted by content influencers active in their industry.
- Credible rating system
Zhihu has a 5-criteria user rating system called ‘Salt Value.’ Salt Value encourages good behavior among users. One of the criteria includes the ‘Basic Credit’ in which users who verify their accounts by submitting documents will receive credits.
- High engagement
Zhihu’s clear interface is a crucial attractiveness factor for Chinese readers to stay and engage on the site. The average user spends 6.5 minutes on Zhihu compared to 3 minutes on Quora. Zhihu also showcases trending posts, recommended posts, live-streaming, and many other types of content. There’s barely anything users could ask for more!
- Education branding image
Zhihu is a sharing portal not just for a few niches, but also for gamers, investors, IT beginners, and so forth. Many businesses like Amazon Web Services take this opportunity to educate readers by creating unique content aimed at building brand awareness.
- Long-term branding
Social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo play a pivotal role in disseminating messages through WOM (word of mouth). Around 230,000 articles are shared daily on each of these channels. This technique makes information spread faster and wider, but it also makes it quickly fade away. On the contrary, Zhihu enables good content to last longer. For example, many businesses say they still see an upvote on posts published in 2011.
- Being the top on search engines
Zhihu has a high domain authority on search engines like Baidu and Sogou. High domain authority means that whenever people search their queries on Baidu or Sogou, Zhihu will appear on the first page, making it easier for your content to rank in the top 10 search results.
- Paid advertisement available
Sometimes, businesses see a plus from doing Q&A marketing along with other kinds of advertisement. Indeed, Zhihu offers 3 types of ads: pop-ups, banners, and news-feeds.
- Zhihu has 5 well-developed business sectors
On Zhihu you can find content that matches all your needs as a reader. However, there are five major industrial clusters that are growing faster than others because of their communities’ continuous posting efforts:
- IT
- Law firms
- Health-care professionals
- Designers
- Educational Service Providers
Conclusion
Zhihu introduces a new dimension of marketing into the Chinese market, where businesses and customers can share the interests they have in common, educating each other. Zhihu also helps to reduce the negative impressions users may have towards a company.
If you plan to invest in content marketing, start by understanding the Chinese culture and language. You can then move on to creating good content on Zhihu, where you will raise your users’ trust and awareness of your brand in China.
We at EhaiTech can help you enter the Chinese market and promote your business through content marketing on Zhihu. Contact us now to get started!
Author’s Bio
Katie is a Thai Bachelor’s graduate who used to live in China for 4 years before she began her college life at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Recently, she came back to China to start a new chapter of her life. As China leaps forward in innovation, she is intrigued by the technological advancement the country has to offer. Thus, she becomes motivated to share some knowledge about Chinese marketing!
3 Interesting facts about Katie:
- Katie LOVES cats
- Katie likes BIOLOGY as well
- Katie CAN speak Cantonese (a group of Chinese dialects) a little bit…
