Deep Sound Original · The author | Xiao Humble
Without mastering a set of information acquisition methodologies, today's Internet world seems to be a place where the more you stay, the more useless it is.
There is so much information. In the recent popular view of Internet history, in the early years of the web 1.0 era, information mainly came from portals, and the supply was relatively limited and one-way. In the web 2.0 era, the threshold for smartphones to enter the Internet will be greatly reduced, and everyone can participate in content production, and information has exploded since then.
But the problem is that the amount of information has become extremely large, and "good content" is becoming more and more rare. The balance has shifted to the other end. Rather than getting lost in endless entertainment and consumer content, the public is increasingly calling for "good content."
But what exactly is "good content"?
Throw this question at different people, and everyone will have a different understanding because of their location.
For businesses, good content corresponds to ROI; for brands, good content is subtle; and for users, good content can be new knowledge that expands cognitive boundaries, practical tips for life, or heartwarming emotional resonance.
Platforms in the content industry certainly know the importance of "good content" to users, and each platform is defining and delivering "good content" in its own way.
Taking the "Three Masters of the Community" as an example, Zhihu started with questions and answers, and the platform content is known for its knowledge, experience and insights, which is a place for users to understand the world and solve problems; Xiaohongshu has a deep gene and emphasizes the "usefulness" of content, which has increasingly become the entrance to consumer decision-making; Station B focuses on interests and circles, allowing users to find their own belonging, so that the same kind of people can get together.
All of the above shows that the Internet brings more than entertainment and kill time. However, the "good content" of each platform is different in detail. So what is the commonality, or core attribute, of "good content"?
The answer is "sense of gain.".
Why is it knowing
In May this year, Zhihu highly abstracted and condensed the ten-year content precipitation foundation into a "sense of gain", and defined the "sense of gain" as broadening horizons and bringing help or resonance in the new version of the community content standard. At yesterday's WISE2021 New Economy King Summit, Zhou Yuan, the founder of Zhihu, also gave a further judgment on the "sense of gain".
Zhou Yuan believes that "sense of gain" is the core value of high-quality content, the "greatest common divisor" of users, enterprises, merchants and industries, and the cornerstone of the content industry and even the entire commercial society towards long-termism. And Zhihu will also take the "sense of gain" as the core and open a super long cycle of self-evolution.
This series of actions and statements has many dimensions worth observing.
For example, to raise the "sense of gain" to the core position, it means that it has a fertile soil for the growth of the "sense of gain".
This is not some kind of self-selling boasting. Taking the topic of "Su Bingtian breaking the Asian record" as an example, in the men's 100m semifinals of this year's Tokyo Olympic Games, Su Bingtian set a new Asian record with a score of 9.83 seconds, and the ultra-high degree of discussion aroused people's curiosity - "How difficult is it to improve the 100-meter sprint by 0.1 seconds", "How far is the gap between Su Bingtian and Bolt", "How big is the significance of Su Bingtian breaking the record"?
You can get all kinds of relevant information from many platforms, but this information is often fragmented and marginal. And those hands-on experience and hard-core analyses can be obtained almost exclusively and efficiently.
For example, Su Bingtian himself will answer on the knowledge, don't say 0.1 seconds, it is difficult to increase 0.01 seconds. He went from 9.99 to 9.91 (an increase of 0.08 seconds) in 3 years. He will also tell everyone in another Q&A that shaving his head will not make the athlete run faster, but will only make him "become a monk".
Under the question of "how far is the gap between Su Bingtian and Bolt", ChenQin, the respondent of Zhihu, explained the great significance behind Su Bingtian's record-breaking through hard-core analysis and data visualization:
If Bolt shows us the fastest human speed at the moment, then Su Bingtian shows us how to gain room for upward mobility beyond race and age through improvements in technology and training.
It is precisely because of Su Bingtian that we are more convinced that the speed of human beings will never stop at Bolt's record.
The above answers are professional and diverse, with both Su Bingtian's hands-on experience and structured knowledge and insights based on logical thinking. This is the unique temperament of Zhihu, a unique "sense of gain".
In Zhihu, a similar "sense of gain" can be easily perceived. So if you go deeper, the question becomes: Why does Zhihu provide a unique "sense of gain"?
Zhou Yuan mentioned in his speech, "Zhihu is currently the largest Q&A community in China, and it is also an original content platform with a high concentration of creators. Any topic entering Zhihu has a variety of in-depth discussions from professional perspectives, showing a different content style and form. ”
The Q&A community is the key word in this passage. Q&A is the foundation of Zhihu, but Zhihu has made it clear from the beginning that the platform is not going to do a "Q&A function", but to build a "Q&A community" for public discussion.
The difference between the two words determines the huge difference in the content carrying capacity and problem-solving ability of the platform.
If you only do "features", users will get "standard answers", but they will lose multiple knowledge, experiences and insights from different perspectives, as well as the connections between users. But because it is a "community", respondents from different fields and backgrounds can join in the discussion and generate new sparks of thinking in interaction and collision. These collisions and inspirations will bring about a second or even third fermentation, and the topic will be more vital.
That is to say, as a "Q&A community", Zhihu is by no means a cold "encyclopedia", the experience of the respondent provides a more appropriate solution, and the words with temperature provide the power of understanding. In Zhou Yuan's words, through approval and opposition, users also participate in a certain reality, resulting in value beyond curiosity.
"Many phenomena are exposed in Zhihu, many facts are clarified in Zhihu, and many sorrows and joys are understood in Zhihu. Zhihu is not only a window for users to understand the world, but also a platform for users to give back to the world. ”
This is the source of the unique "sense of gain" of knowledge. Because it focuses on the "sense of gain" of the lower level and closer to the source of human needs, it does not fall into the trap of function, and the imagination space of the platform is greatly improved.
The so-called "imaginary space" refers to opening up more value space with a "sense of gain". If you only focus on the Q&A function, the monetization method of the platform is nothing more than traffic advertising, but I know that it is using various examples to show the possibility of the Q&A community.
For example, relying on Q&A, Zhihu has opened up the IP closed-loop chain of "Q&A - Publishing - Film and Television", and some excellent works have entered the Zhihu Salt Selection Column, some have entered the stage of book and film and television copyright development, and some have been adapted into TV series on the screen.
Young brands also regard Zhihu as a growth position. Taking the domestic high-end hair care brand Airfly as an example, in addition to the function of content planting, the brand's zhihu also has the functions of "search engine" and "judging consumption decisions".
Based on this, Airfly launched questions on Zhihu, issued crowd testing invitations, and guided users to share real product experiences. A series of operational actions have been remarkable, and the content crowdfunding initiated by Airfly has significantly improved in terms of product trial registration, topic popularity and conversion. Because of the popularity of the topic in the early stage, after the product card was provided in the product content, the sales volume of the designated model increased by four times from the previous month.
"Whether it's reading, watching, buying, subscribing, that's the real business value of content, which is to connect and generate action." According to Zhou Yuan, there are currently "thousands of institutions in Zhihu to establish brands and obtain benefits", and the reading rate of pictures and texts on Zhihu has reached 78%, which is "very high" at the moment of information excess.
Judging from the feedback from the B-side and the C-side, Zhihu has obviously touched the key to open the future development, and its new decade will also begin.
For "ultra-long periods"
Clarifying the pain points of industry development is only the first step. As a platform for formulating community rules, how to release the value of "sense of gain" to a greater extent, how to determine content standards, strictly and continuously land, let users and communities form a continuous identity, and become a mechanism and norm to drive the operation of the community, which is a great test of the wisdom of the executors.
In the announcement "Good Content Must Have a Sense of Gain" released in May this year, Zhihu announced the refining process of content standards, such as reviewing content treasures, reading hundreds of thousands of essential content, as well as interviews, group discussions and questionnaire surveys.
On this basis, in order to strengthen the "sense of gain" of the Q&A community, Zhihu has also upgraded a number of platform strategies, including upgrading the content traffic distribution mechanism, tilting more resources to the "sense of gain" content; introducing credit weights, adjusting the weight of favor or opposition of stakeholders; and combating the dynamic of destroying the community atmosphere and trust.
At the WISE2021 King of the New Economy Summit, Zhou Yuan announced that Zhihu 8.0 was fully launched. The platform's enhancement of the "sense of gain" is still in progress.
Good content still shines even after many years, and what platforms need to do is to make this kind of content more visible. Version 8.0 strengthens the home page search portal to shorten the search path, and also adds a "you search" module to provide users with a more intuitive and personalized search experience.
While improving the exposure of treasure content, version 8.0 also added a "happening" content module on the home page to bring users more real-time "sense of gain".
In addition, the 8.0 version also upgraded the original "Follow" Tab button to the "Dynamic" button, adding real-time dynamic tracking of followed users. The Dynamic module upgrades filtering and sorting capabilities to facilitate a personalized experience for users.
"Sense of gain" is to understand the core logic of a series of actions of Zhihu, which tries to upgrade and optimize the mechanism, so that the "sense of gain" content is circulated on the product side in a better form of production, consumption and distribution. If the "sense of gain" is compared to blood, and the product is compared to the human body, then the intention of Zhihu is to let the blood flow smoothly and enter every organ and mechanism of the body.
Zhou Yuan revealed in his speech that the 8.0 version is called the "exploration version" within Zhihu, and it is also the first initiative of Zhihu to open a long cycle of self-evolution with "sense of gain" as the core - "We are exploring the ultimate form of community products." I don't know what it will look like in the end, but we've been working on it. ”
This is a rather grand statement. Why "ultra-long cycle"? Why the "ultimate form"?
To understand Zhihu's outlook, we still have to go back to the underlying sense of "gaining" content to the platform and users.
"Compound interest" has great power, and wise people such as Albert Einstein and Buffett have expressed this. But compound interest is not only evident in the economic or investment sphere, but its logic applies equally in terms of knowledge, experience, and even intellectual growth.
Li Lu, known as the "Buffett of China", once compared the accumulation of knowledge and economic growth, in his view, both of which are compound interest growth. Experience will confirm and accumulate with each other, and compound interest will also arise from this.
The key to this process is to precipitate little by little. This is consistent with the direction that Zhihu has adhered to for a long time. 、
For the Q&A community Zhihu, the "sense of gain" content that has been precipitated for many years will not be rapidly decaying, and the "sense of gain" content that has been precipitated is a platform asset and will continue to bring value in the long river of time. A high-quality answer to the college entrance examination ten years ago will continue to be seen, discussed, and approved in ten years, and time will not erase its value, but will make it more dazzling.
On this basis, the effort to make the "sense of gain" achieve better circulation will exchange for a more beautiful compound interest curve for itself.
For users, the knowledge, experience and insights on the knowledge, so that they will not be lost in the ocean of information. Schrödinger mentioned in What is Life that life depends on negative entropy. In the era of the explosion of valueless information, the "sense of acquisition" of zhihu content provides power for users to fight disorder, and a better content community will gradually take shape in this process.