This blog post was updated on 11 April 2025.
Zhihu is the most popular question and answer website in China. This makes it an appealing platform for your brand to engage in marketing activities on, if you want to succeed in the country.
With around 81 million monthly active users, Zhihu can be a valuable marketing tool, especially for brands in knowledge-intensive and technology-driven industries.
But many brands outside of China are unfamiliar with the platform, and unsure how to harness the power of Zhihu for marketing purposes.
Never fear, I have written a full-length guide on this topic, and this blog post will look at some of the key points!
1. Engage with your audience by answering questions
One of the best ways to utilise Zhihu is to engage with users by answering questions. By providing high-quality answers, you will not only help other users but also increase the exposure of your brand, products and services. Even if your content does not bring conversions immediately, higher attention and exposure for your brand will bring about more conversion opportunities in the long-term.
2. Publish diverse and engaging content
Like an on-site blog, companies can publish industry-related content on their Zhihu page. By doing this, you can build a strong professional image and signal to your audience that you are an expert within your industry. Zhihu content tends to rank very highly in the search engines, so I strongly suggest that you use relevant keywords in your titles and that you (subtly) include your company information and contact details in your articles.
3. Use Zhihu Roundtable
Similar to an online webinar, Zhihu Roundtable allows brands to hold virtual events directly on Zhihu. Brands can set up a certain topic and invite one host and a maximum of four guest speakers to share insights and interact with the audience. This function is extremely popular with B2B brands; Intel once organised a roundtable discussion about perceptual computing, and Siemens has organised a roundtable talking about industry 4.0, which was successful in grabbing the attention of professionals from its target industry.
Want to learn more?
I hope this blog post has given you a useful introduction to how to use Zhihu for marketing. For more in-depth information and advice, read my full-length guide here. The guide covers:
- what Zhihu is
- what the typical Zhihu user is like
- the advantages of marketing on Zhihu
- the types of brands that will benefit from marketing on Zhihu
- how to use Zhihu for marketing
