2021年1月
インターネットの最大の功績の一つは、膨大な情報への容易なアクセスです。多くの人がオンラインで情報検索を行っており、欧米ではウィキペディアが人気で、中国では百度百科（Baidu Baike）がよく使われています。
中国では百度百科に加え、「知乎」（Zhihu、ちこ）も人気の情報検索サイトです。知乎はQ&Aサイトとして、ウィキペディア並みの科学的回答を提供し、ユーザーコミュニティーは一見馬鹿げた質問にも丁寧かつ科学的に答えるプライドで知られています（サイトは中国語のみ）。
2011年に開始した知乎は当初、招待制でハイレベルな質問と回答を保証。ユーザーは既存ユーザーからの招待か、詳細な履歴書提出が必要で、申請に時間がかかりました。科学的正確さ、回答の信頼性、詳細な情報提供を目指し、それが成功と成長の要因です。
2018年時点でユーザー数は2億2千万超、質問3千万件、回答1億3千万件に上ります。2013年に招待制を廃止し誰でも登録可能にしましたが、初期の招待制による信頼性が引き継がれ、知乎の回答が信頼される理由です。
知乎の基本機能はユーザー間のQ&Aで、特定ユーザーをタグ付けして回答を促したり、他のユーザーをフォローして質問や回答を追跡可能。回答は「いいね」でランキングが上がり、目立つ仕組みです。
知乎の平均ユーザーは高学歴で高所得、企業にとって魅力的な消費者層です。3万以上の企業アカウントが存在し、ブランドイメージ向上や顧客対話に活用されています。知乎は車やソーラーパネルなど、購入前にリサーチが必要な商品の宣伝に適しています。
知乎ユーザーの回答への期待は高く、宣伝方法は多様です。企業は自問自答形式、インフルエンサーとの協業、社員による職場紹介、ライブ配信など様々な手法を活用。深い正確な回答でブランドイメージを向上できます。
しかし、押しつけがましい広告は嫌われます。例えば「自社製品が他社より優れている」といった回答は避け、ソーラーパネルの仕組みを詳細に説明する方が知的ユーザー層に好まれます。これは手間がかかりますが、信頼関係構築に優れ、他のプラットフォームで宣伝しづらい商品に有効です。
知乎の回答は正確性で知られ、検索エンジンで上位表示されやすく、キーワード検索で企業投稿がトップに出ることもあります。
知乎は短期的な売上向上には不向きですが、長期的なブランドイメージ向上と顧客信頼構築には優れたツールとして、中国市場で注目され続けるでしょう。
One of the internet’s biggest accomplishments is the ease with which people can access a vast amount of information. A lot of people are searching for information online. In the West they can find their answers on sites like Wikipedia, in China there’s Baidu Baike, the Chinese equivalent to Wikipedia.
In China, however, there is an additional tool people have to do their research: Zhihu. Zhihu in its essence is a Chinese Q&A website that provides users with Wikipedia-level, scientific answers to whatever question they pose. It is only available in Chinese language. It’s a point of pride for the Zhihu community to answer even silly-seeming questions with elaborate and sincere answers, sometimes excessively so, as a means to play into the joke.
Zhihu’s strategy to guarantee high-level answers and questions right after launch in 2011 was to keep the registration process on an invite-only basis. Users could either be referred by hundreds of already registered users or go through a lengthy application process, where they had to provide a large amount of personal and professional information to verify their expertise.
The goal was to establish a reputation for scientific accuracy, authenticity, and detail, which ultimately succeeded and proved to be the reason for Zhihu’s success and growth.
The numbers speak for themselves. As of 2018, the site has a total number of more than 220 million users, with over 30 million questions and 130 million corresponding answers.
Even though open registration was started in March 2013, the early invite-only strategy established the baseline for the level of scientific accuracy and detail that’s expected from the Zhihu community and continues to be the reason why answers on Zhihu are well respected.
As already mentioned, Zhihu’s basic function provides users the opportunity to ask and/or answer questions. They can also tag other users to invite them to answer specific questions, follow other users’ accounts, and keep track of their own questions and answers. The answers are then ranked according to an upvote system; the more upvotes an answer gets, the more prominently it is displayed.
The average user on Zhihu tends to be well-educated and therefore has an above-average disposable income, which makes them a valuable audience for brand messaging. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are already well over 30,000 official business accounts run by brands on the platform, that use Zhihu to improve their brand image and to build and interact with their customer bases.
Zhihu works especially well for brands that offer high-involvement products, such as cars, solar panels, or similar products, where customers commit their time to do in-depth research into the product they’re looking to purchase.
However, with greater affluence come greater expectations, especially considering the expected level of scientific accuracy and detail by the Zhihu community when it comes to answers.
There are plenty of options brands have to promote their image on the platform. They can start their own Q&A campaigns, cooperate with influencers, provide answers or invite people to ask them questions, ask their employees what it’s like to work for the company and what they love about their positions, or organize live-streams. The options are almost limitless, however, it is vital that brands remain mindful of the type of platform on which they’re advertising in order to hit the right tone.
Since users on Zhihu look for reliable information, brands can successfully promote their image by providing in-depth, scientifically accurate, and authentic answers to questions that fall within their area of expertise.
On the flip side, what users on Zhihu aren’t looking for is aggressive and obvious advertising. So when brands are looking for questions to answer, they should refrain from obvious, in-your-face types of questions like “Why is our product better than everyone else’s?” and lean towards questions that provide users with interesting facts that fall within the brand’s scope of expertise like, for example, “How does a solar panel work?”
At first glance, this might seem like a lot of work, but it allows brands to interact and build trust with customers, because brands have the time and space to actually prove their expertise and know-how by providing valuable content as opposed to merely proclaiming it.
That is especially true for brands that provide high-involvement products, which makes advertising on other platforms awkward. Nobody seriously considers an ad for solar panels when they’re trying to relax by watching cat videos on TikTok.
Beyond that, it happens to boost a brand’s SEO. Since Zhihu has an established reputation for scientific accuracy, search engine algorithms tend to prioritize content on Zhihu, which helps brands to become associated with desired keywords. Moreover, it improves a brand’s search result environment, because individual content on Zhihu can also show up on search results. This means that a search result for a brand’s website can not only turn up the website itself but also links to high-value content the brand provided, which is valuable in and of itself.
To sum up: Is Zhihu the right platform to do some shotgun advertising to boost short-term sales numbers before the next budget or performance meeting? No.
It is, however, a great opportunity and long-term investment to improve a brand’s image and reputation and to establish trust with its potential customers without scaring them off with aggressive and obvious marketing ploys.
