With pictures from Canva drawable
In today’s era where traffic is king, the development of all Internet companies is inseparable from a solid traffic foundation. For example, in e-commerce, short video, web writing, online education and other fields, the stable development of traffic on the platform in the future Zhongdu played a vital role.
It is true that under the thinking of traffic, the development of enterprises has been further accelerated. For example, Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Kuaishou have become particularly important in the current Internet world with the rapid growth of traffic. However, under the favorable conditions, the flow thinking has also brought certain difficulties to the development of some enterprises, such as Zhihu.
Closer to the flow of Zhihu
If the IPO is used as the node, Zhihu, who has experienced ten years of slow development, has finally accelerated in the new ten years. But whether it is the closed stage of “small and beautiful” in the early stage, the later opening stage, or even the current commercialization stage, Zhihu has been moving closer to the flow thinking in the process of development.
The performance of Zhihu’s approach to traffic thinking is mainly reflected in the following levels, and each has its own characteristics.
One is to show a diversified content level. For Zhihu, the only card it relies on is the question and answer content. If you want to get good traffic results, the diverse and rich question and answer content on the platform is indispensable. Therefore, Zhihu has been expanding its content over the years, both in terms of content and form, Zhihu has made a lot of effort.
The second is the brand level caused by content changes. Because of the diversification of content, Zhihu has been transformed from a closed elite community to an open mass community, which also reflects the characteristics of constantly breaking the circle at this level. This feature also fits the traffic thinking that Zhihu needs, and attracts more and more users in the process of constantly updating its own positioning.
The third is the user level based on content and brand. At first, Zhihu was just a small group of 200 people, but with the continuous changes in content and brand, users began to develop in a more diverse direction. The characteristics of this level can be summed up with the term “sinking”. In order to obtain traffic growth, Zhihu users have sunk from the elite to a more popular level.
In addition, the increase of users will enrich the Q&A content of the platform, attract more users to the Zhihu platform, further accelerate the circulation between content and users, and ensure that Zhihu’s traffic thinking continues to operate during mutual promotion.
Platform changes under traffic thinking
Under these various actions, Zhihu, which was originally “small and beautiful”, has also achieved certain results in the process of moving closer to the flow.
According to Zhihu’s prospectus, as of December 31, 2020, Zhihu’s content creators totaled 43.1 million, contributing a total of 315 million questions and answers to the platform. In the fourth quarter of 2020, Zhihu The average MAU reached 75.7 million, while the average number of monthly interactions during the same period reached 676 million.
Today’s volume is naturally unexpected for Zhihu, who was still in the invitation system ten years ago, but the change in traffic has brought not only an increase in users, content, etc., but also an increase in data for Zhihu. Conflicts at other levels.
On the one hand, the conflict comes from the content of the platform. As the founder Zhou Yuan said, the initial small group established Zhihu’s content tone, but with the progress of traffic, the content on the Zhihu platform has also become severely polarized, with very high-quality professional answers. At the same time, there are also content such as trembling, soft and wide, and funny jokes.
This kind of content-level conflict is a complication of Zhihu in the process of trafficization, and it is also what all platforms that expand from niche to masses need to face. Station B is a good example. And this kind of content conflict also made Zhihu’s original advantages gradually disappear, and finally embarked on the old path of platforms such as Weibo and Today’s Toutiao.
The conflict on the other hand comes from the user level. For users, what attracts them to the Zhihu platform is the content, but different content attracts different users, which also brings about conflicts at the user level of Zhihu.
Some users are dissatisfied with the declining content of Zhihu and choose to leave or denounce the status quo, while other users are often attracted by bloggers’ eyeballs but nutritious content. The use of Zhihu in their hearts is just to read jokes and find It’s fun, it also exacerbates the conflicts and contradictions between different user groups.
Do you know that it is suitable for traffic thinking?
It is not difficult to see that although Zhihu, which is close to traffic, has grown to a certain extent, Zhihu itself has also undergone tremendous changes under the impact of traffic. And behind these changes, the core problem of Zhihu’s limited development has gradually become apparent.
If you want to understand the actions of Zhihu, you can use station B to compare. Because of the continuous breaking of the circle, Station B has achieved very good results both in terms of its own performance and market performance. These results naturally made Zhihu jealous, so the starting point of development was very similar to Station B, and it became the target of Zhihu to imitate.
Through various actions to break the circle, gradually transition from the niche area to the general public, and move towards a comprehensive platform based on the increase of traffic, and explore stable and diversified commercialization paths in the process. Station B has achieved good results through this traffic thinking, and Zhihu, who is a step slower, also wants to catch up.
But this kind of traffic thinking is very suitable for station B, but there are certain problems for Zhihu. This is mainly because the content tone of Zhihu conflicts with traffic thinking, and this is the core problem of Zhihu’s limited development. .
In contrast, the content tone of Station B is mainly entertainment. Even the popular science content and educational content also have a strong entertainment nature. This kind of entertainment ensures the stability of Station B in the expansion and the stability of the platform. Ensure the retention of users and subsequent commercial realization.
However, because of the nature of the question and answer content, users want more accurate answers to their questions, so Zhihu’s content tone is biased towards seriousness from the beginning, so when the platform is full of entertainment content, Zhihu’s users are also conflicted. It is extremely fierce and difficult to break the circle, and the desire to use traffic thinking to achieve better development is also greatly reduced.
Knowing that we need to find another way
In this way, it seems that Zhihu is not suitable for the development of traffic thinking, but is it really the case? Although the answer is no, it is not simple, and it also requires more effort at the level of content control.
On the one hand, it is the fine control of the content tone. Because of the seriousness of the content of the question and answer, Zhihu, who continues to move closer to the flow, needs to control the tone of the platform content. But entertainment is not undesirable, but it needs to be controlled within a controllable range, use entertainment content to add vitality to serious question and answer content, and master the proportion of all kinds of content.
On the other hand, the continuous development of content forms. Based on different content forms, it can increase the user’s acceptance of the content, and it can also bring more traffic to the platform in a more attractive way. Although Zhihu has a layout in many aspects such as audio and video, graphics and text at this stage, it needs to continue to increase in the future.
Through the continuous upgrading of these two aspects, Zhihu may be able to ensure that its own characteristics will not waver in the process of flow, and better use flow thinking in its own development.
Of course, this is not just something that Zhihu needs to consider alone. Although the B station, which has already been in the front, has become the most popular video platform in the Z generation, how to maintain the cornerstone under the impact of traffic is also a big problem. For other platforms that want to expand from a niche to the masses, this issue is also the focus.
All in all, today’s Zhihu has started a new ten-year journey, and its commercialization is also accelerating in the implementation of traffic thinking. However, on the road to commercialization, Zhihu is still in the growth stage, and there are still more challenges in the future. Whether it can make good use of traffic thinking also affects Zhihu’s future development.
Text/Liu Kuang public number, ID: liukuang110
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