Zhihu is a question and answer site just like the English equivalent, Quora. This site raised 100 million USD in its series D, leading to it becoming one of China’s many “unicorn,” companies with over a 1 billion USD valuation.   It started in a similar fashion to Quora, but it has become much more in recent years. Zhihu users are highly engaged, with many posts accruing tens of thousands of upvotes/downvotes and hundreds of comments.

While posts on Quora can be quite lengthy, it is common for posts on Zhihu to be over 5k words and cover incredibly specific questions. Users often include charts, graphics, and other media to further demonstrate their point and improve the quality of their answers. It has also introduced several new features which Quora has yet to emulate. Example as below:

Zhihu’s Latest Features

1. Popular Zhihu answers can open their own “column” and write essays, without having to answer any specific question
2. Zhihu readers can voluntarily “tip” the authors of essays they like. This function utilizes the WeChat wallet and instantly transfers money into the author’s account. Most people tip 2 RMB (about 30 cents), but some tip more. This is entirely voluntary, yet people utilize it. It’s a way to reward authors for good content and to provide incentive writers to contribute better quality content.
3. Zhihu has a new feature called 值乎, which when romanized also reads as “Zhihu”, but is actually a different character. In this feature, Zhihuers respond to questions with a 1–2 minute sound recording answering the question, and people can purchase the recordings for a price set by the recorder.
4. Zhihu Live is the biggest new feature on Zhihu. Top Zhihuers are invited to prepare TED talk style lectures, with about 30 minutes of content and 30 minutes for Q&A. The lectures are live broadcast (sound only) and follow a set schedule. Listeners have to sign up ahead of time to participate. Cost for one lecture seems to range from 20 — 100 RMB (3 to 16 dollars).

In terms of demographics, Zhihu users are highly educated, wealthier than average, and concentrated in tier 1 and tier 2 cities. With over 100 million monthly active users, Zhihu’s users base should seem very attractive to brands throughout the world. For complex purchases, there’s no better platform to use than Zhihu!

Why is Zhihu important for business?

One important fact to note about both Quora and Zhihu, is that they both have tremendous trust rankings on search engines. If you’re a Google user, I’m sure you’ve noticed how often Quora posts appear in your search results, and the same is true for Zhihu on Baidu in China. Creating the discussion on these platforms regarding your brand and providing useful information to users on these platforms can greatly improve your presence on search engines.

While advertising in the traditional sense might not be incredibly effective on either platform, providing users with useful content will almost certainly result in some increased brand awareness. Businesses can answer questions that relate to their industry and post links to their company website or contact form. However, businesses must be careful to not come off as too sales-oriented and self-promotional. Users accept the presence of links to websites and contact forms in exchange for useful content and contributions to discussions, but outright sales pitches will not fare well.

One way to ensure that your content that you create on this platform is through KOL promotion. While they might not consider themselves as KOLs in the traditional sense, top contributors on Zhihu have managed to gain massive followings on the platform. Collaborating with these top contributors can help brands to reach their target audience and impart a sense of trust to Zhihu users. For B2B brands or businesses with very complex products, Zhihu is the ideal platform for social media marketing in China. Especially when products require customers to be educated about the uses, benefits, and features of a product Zhihu is the perfect platform.

Resource from : https://www.dragonsocial.net/blog/social-media-in-china/