5 Things to Know to Get Started With Content Marketing in China

You might have heard about Zhihu being the biggest Q&A hub in China, whether it be “reaching 220 million users in total”, “80% are well-educated with the high income”, and “having five well-developed industries.”

You might have also spent a lot of time considering and eventually decided to invest in content marketing on Zhihu. Then, you asked:

How should I start?

First of all, congratulations! You’ve landed on the right page. Here, you will only need to follow 5 steps to get a head start on Zhihu marketing!

Step 1: Setting up your enterprise account

As Zhihu is a Chinese-based platform, you must be familiar with Chinese culture and language. You will also need to open an official account by following this manual. But what about getting your account approved?

Despite not being mandatory, having your official account verified not only displays your company’s professional look but also prevents other sellers from personifying your account. That means you should not be concerned about the copied or fake accounts if you spend 300 RMB on an annual verification fee. You will also be granted a blue badge which benefits you in terms of Intellectual Property protection, Salt Values privileges, data analytics, etc.

Step 2: Engaging with your community

A significant advantage of using Q&A platforms like Zhihu is high engagement. People engage in conversations by asking and answering questions of their own free will. This strategy opens a door of opportunity for you to get feedback and educate users about your brand.

On Zhihu’s main feed, all queries that you have responded to will appear in the 回答 section (directly translated as ‘answers’). Alternatively, instead of investing your time and budget on constructing questionnaires, you can post an open-ended question in the ‘提问’ section (directly translated as ‘asking questions’).

No matter which methods you choose, whatever you write must be carefully articulated. The questions you ask can be casual, conversational, and should be relevant to your industry. Just like how you design games for teenagers, you need to think of fun questions users are interested in interacting with. For example, Tian Mao （天猫）- a Chinese B2C online retail platform – sparked discussions that received up to 1,187 replies by asking:

“Do you have any hobbies that empty your wallet?”

（你有哪些兴趣爱好让你的钱包被掏空？）

This question returned many inspiring answers ranging from archery to NASA’s deep-space exploration!

Step 3: Publishing educational resources

Sometimes, Q&A is not enough for people who like in-depth details. Don’t worry! Here is your chance to build customer loyalty.

In this way, companies usually write articles in the 文章 section. You can think of topics to write based on your brainstormed ideas, global trends, interests, commonly found queries, and so forth.

Let’s look at one interesting case study: Audi’s strategy of promoting its car model Q8. Audi recruited its fans for car driving test in Q8 campaign through creating文章 (article) and 专栏 (column). One month later, three columns were published consecutively by different authors who shared their driving experience with Audi Q8. Isn’t it a fantastic idea to make people follow up on your events?

One thing to note is that there are some nuances between the 专栏 (column) and the 文章 (article) sections on Zhihu. Further information described by Chinese netizens can be found here.

Other essential functions in this following diagram are also worth exploring:

视频 (live-streaming): users can watch videos of your channels instead of reading texts
想法 (Opinion): Perfect for posting a short and easy-to-digest paragraph.

There are also many other captivating features on Zhihu. Typically, Zhihu Encyclopedia is a place where in-depth articles are re-organized into a specific field. Meanwhile, Zhihu Paid Consultancy Service is an attractive platform for professionals who earn their incomes as consultants.

Step 4: Collaborating with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs)

Working alone in content marketing may exhaust your energy and took a long time to see conversions. One effective way to accelerate this process is to collaborate with KOLs or influencers who shout out to your brand. You may seek KOLs who have built a specific niche of your interest, then approach them to work with you in producing articles or columns just like the KOLs in Audi Q8 campaign discussed in step 3.

Selecting the right KOLs will strengthen your brand image, increase engagement rate, and several followers. As there are many KOLs out there, the rule of thumb to find the best-suited KOLs are personalities (whether their works match your industry), age, generation, professionality, marketing skills, relations, number of followers, and many more to cover. On the other hand, you can also approach Chinese KOL agencies to help you select suitable KOLs.

Step 5: Advertising with Zhihu

You might have already posted a few articles, but you noticed that very few users passed by your page. What can you do to increase the number of viewers? Pushing users to visit your page through Zhihu’s ads may be the answer.

Conclusion

Zhihu showcased a brilliant marketing strategy that provides opportunities for brands to sell their images. This article proposes the best yet simple steps to kickstart your business with Zhihu in China. Ultimately, what leads to successful marketing on Zhihu is your creativity and ability to utilize it!

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: