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is wechat going to replicate its own “zhihu”?

if wechat's "ask a question" were used as such a simple comparison, zhang xiaolong would definitely not agree.this new function section, announced by the wechat "search" team at the wechat open class pro in 2023, has gradually matured after more than a year of grayscale internal testing and open use.

currently, wechat’s “ask a question” function is fully open and everyone can activate it directly through the “search” page.

as one of the earliest users to follow and use "ask a question", he used the account id "tang chen" and participated in answering 79 questions. his answers received a cumulative exposure of 200,000, and he also gained some fans and a share of the creative revenue.

during use, i also found that the content products derived from the search box of wechat are not just a replica of "zhihu".

wechat is a replica of zhihu? it’s not that simple

to be frank, tencent has a history of feeling the pain of words like “copy” and “replica”. since its launch, ask has been called the wechat version of “zhihu” by the industry, which is wechat copying its competitors in question-and-answer products.

judging from the product form alone, wenyiwen is indeed a question-and-answer platform, similar to zhihu's question-and-answer model, which encourages users to ask questions and creators to participate in answering. users can see high-quality and interesting question-and-answer content recommended by the platform on the homepage, and participate in comments, forwarding, liking and other forms of interaction during the browsing process; creators can browse questions raised by users in "wenyiwen" and choose or be invited to answer questions of their interest, and high-quality answers will be presented first when other users search for related topics.

wechat officials have also stated that "ask a question" mainly targets frequently asked questions on wechat, aggregating and presenting high-quality answers on the platform, and will also invite high-quality content creators from vertical industries such as education, travel, food, and science to participate in the q&a process through targeted invitations.

it should be pointed out that, similar to zhihu, there is no clear definition of users or creators participating in q&a: a user can be a creator, and a creator can also be a user who asks questions.

for example, when black myth: wukong became popular, i, as a q&a creator, asked a question as a user: "black myth: wukong has sold over 400 million yuan in pre-sales. what else should we pay attention to besides how much it sells for?" i also shared my own views under the question as a creator. this content was recommended by the platform as high-quality q&a content, and was displayed under search, q&a, and related search keywords on the wechat platform. in a short period of time, it received over 72,000 reads and over 100 interactions.

from this perspective, if you want to quickly get an impression of q&a, simply labeling it as "zhihu" is also a shortcut.but if we position it within the wechat ecosystem, it is not just another version of "zhihu".

this is because,"ask a question" is an important supplement to wechat's search content.wechat is already a national super app with more than 1.3 billion users. different content carriers have "grown" within it, such as official accounts, mini-programs, moments, video accounts, watch and listen, etc.

for a long time, the content pool in the wechat ecosystem was mostly fragmented and separated, and it was difficult for users to obtain relevant information through a certain way or channel. search naturally became the key to opening the wechat content library, which complemented recommendations and effectively distributed information through people looking for information.

regarding the positioning of souyisou, the wechat team once said that wechat is not trying to be a purely independent search engine, butas part of the wechat ecosystem, it enables better and more appropriate content and services to create more precise connections with users.the search results it presents are based on the content of the wechat ecosystem, and mainly include three types: information, services, and brands.

obviously,asking a question also serves this goal.in other words, ask is designed specifically for wechat users. on the one hand, it can improve user activity and increase the length of time users stay on the app; on the other hand, it can also enrich the search content under the wechat ecosystem and promote the formation of a more dynamic wechat content ecosystem, especially the supply of search content for hot discussions and practical content.

taking the travel during the mid-autumn festival and national day holidays as an example, wenyiwen is focusing on guiding users to share travel guides for museums, high-speed rail, airplanes, etc. when users search for places to go, they can directly get practical answers and guidance. it satisfies users' service and practical search needs to the greatest extent, and the user experience is also very good.

personally, i often travel to and from beijing capital airport t3 terminal, and the complicated online car-hailing transfer routes give many people a headache. after experiencing several "bitter lessons", tang chen summarized his fastest ride route and shared it, and has helped more than 50 people solve the problem.

compared with zhihu, ask a question is both closed and open.the significance of being closed is that it relies on sousou to provide users with a social and interactive space like xiaohongshu in the wechat ecosystem, where users can ask questions, share experiences and knowledge, communicate and interact with other users, and get answers and likes from other users. the significance of being open also lies in this. wenyiwen supports "official account" and "video account" identity login, which can effectively connect plug-ins in different areas of the wechat ecosystem, open up private and public domain traffic, enhance interaction, and form a differentiated advantage.

for wechat, "question and answer" is a very old product concept, and tencent also has other question and answer products, such as tencent news' "hot questions". there is no need for wechat to copy another "zhihu".

however, if we put this product form in the context of "search content" under the wechat ecosystem, together with other content display forms such as encyclopedias and search discoveries, it serves the users' search needs, and its overall significance is far greater than benchmarking or copying a certain vertical product.

new traffic opportunities for creators, but there are still many lessons to learn

currently, wenyiwen supports inserting pictures, videos and audio content when answering, and encourages the publication of professional creations, original personal opinions and insights that are vertical to a certain field. such content can be better displayed in multiple scenarios and seen by more people.

in a sense, this question-and-answer ecosystem that encourages high-quality content, ranking recommendations, and combines "text + pictures + audio and video" is a new way of distributing traffic and a new traffic monetization opportunity for content creators who are troubled by algorithm recommendations and low efficiency of private domain traffic.

you should know that the ask and search functions are on the same page, which means that ask has a very high exposure, providing creators with a huge potential source of traffic. when users view the answers and agree with the answers, they can follow the answerer's official account or video account with one click.

for example, in addition to the above-mentioned "black myth: wukong" example, when huawei's three-fold screen mobile phone was released, tang chen's article "the significance of huawei's three-fold screen mobile phone" was first published on phoenix technology, and was reprinted by 36kr, titanium media, the paper and other platforms. when searching for content on wechat, the question and answer content of wen yiwen was also displayed in a collection, which provided another channel for personal content exposure.

at the 2023 wechat open class pro, the head of the souyisou business disclosed a set of data. in 2022, wechat souyisou had 800 million monthly active users, and the search volume increased by 54% year-on-year. the contribution of new fans of public accounts driven by "souyisou" reached 27%, and the distribution of articles increased by 43% compared with last year; the number of new fans of video accounts increased by 120% compared with last year, and the distribution of videos increased by 895% compared with last year.

when the big river is full, the small river overflows. in other words, ask is a supplement to wechat search content, and the traffic distribution of souyisou can naturally radiate to the q&a content of ask.

at the same time, in 2024, wechat made a major revision to the "ask a question" function and began internal testing of the creator profit sharing plan. this not only shows that the official attaches importance to it as a traffic entrance, but more importantly, the signal is:when a product has the support of a commercial strategy, it means that it will generate its own "blood-making" ability, which will further stimulate the creators' autonomous activity.

however, although from the perspective of wechat's content ecosystem, ask a question can be regarded as a strategic product feature that can bring more positive changes, the challenges and difficulties it faces are still considerable, and there is still a lot to learn.

on the one hand, zhihu has been deeply involved in the question-and-answer field for more than ten years, and its product usage habits and community atmosphere have a significant impact on the users of ask.this is also an important reason why ask a question has not quickly become a popular product after more than a year of launch. the difference it shows is not enough to subvert most people's inherent understanding of the concept of "question and answer".

on the other hand, wenyiwen is relatively rough in terms of content richness and user experience.for example, many people still don’t know where the entrance is. the results presented by wechat search have already displayed the content of the question.

for example, the threshold for asking questions or posting is not low. users need to register a public account or video account. for ordinary wechat users, it is difficult to jump over this in the short term, which is likely to affect the experience and participation of users and creators. this also determines that it is difficult for wenyiwen to quickly become a civilian-level question-and-answer product.

another detail that cannot be ignored is that the quality of the content on ask has room for significant improvement. judging from the current answers, it may be limited by the 500-word limit, or it may be that ask does not want to become another version of "zhihu".the expression of its short content is more like early weibo or moments, and in-depth discussions and high-quality information cannot be fully displayed.

this is not necessarily a good thing for souyisou. another living fossil-level question-and-answer product, baidu knows, has uneven content quality, which eventually became an important factor in baidu's search results.

judging from the latest actions, ask will be further strengthened by wechat.one of them is to explore many interesting ways to play with users through operational means. for example, after the recent full opening of the question-and-answer component in the background of the official account, it has become a useful tool for many content creators to explore real user stories, combine content with question-and-answer components in multiple scenarios, and develop a variety of usage methods.

in an article about qingming festival, @新世相 inserted question cards at the end of the article after sharing the stories of 11 groups of readers, so that more people can have a way to share the deceased who are of great significance to them.

in an article discussing the recent social phenomenon of juvenile delinquency, @新闻哥 raised relevant questions on the ask a question platform in advance, and then inserted his question cards into the article to make the article more realistic and moving.

judging from these actions, the significance of ask for wechat is more than just copying "zhihu" in the search box.

if combined with the context of the big model, "ask a question" is also another form of corpus, and it may also lead to new forms of commercial realization. of course, this is another story.