Baidu knows that the cumulative number of users exceeds 900 million, and in 2021, it will focus on personalization and service

In 2021, Q&A recorded a special year.

Anti-epidemic, meta-universe, aerospace, Olympics... New questions emerge to await answers, and new answers are added to older questions this year. Looking back at 2021, Q&A is still one of the "just needs" of Internet users, in the endless entrepreneurial track, Q&A has been built as a variety of concepts such as community, platform, knowledge payment, etc., and it is still a reliable pillar for many companies to maintain high activity in 2021.

However, the Q&A industry in 2021 is also unusually calm.

Compared with the lively scene of spending heavy money and poaching content creators in previous years, the Q&A industry in 2021 is no longer looking for high growth from the outside, and has also gone through this stage of irrational competition. This change, on the contrary, makes the Q&A industry in 2021 worth carefully studying the emerging playing styles, layouts and trends.

Q&A Industry 2021

The layout decisions of the major Q&A platforms have gone to different results in 2021.

Wukong Q&A, which once relied on heavy investment and poaching high-quality respondents, rolled off the production line from major app stores on January 20, 2021, and stopped operating and closed services from February 3. The practice of purchasing high activity from the outside through high subsidies is actually difficult to sustain, and some analysts believe that the lack of its own community atmosphere has always been an unsolved problem in Wukong Q&A.

Zhihu, who began to plan the road to listing, has created a unique quality of the community atmosphere and is also facing the test it brings. Since its inception, Zhihu has attracted a large number of high-sticky users through its unique positioning temperament, but in 2021, "making up stories" has become a controversy that Zhihu must face.

Stories, which naturally meet the needs of human nature, also bring high traffic, and fictional stories are contrary to the professionalism that users value when asking questions. In 2021, Zhihu's layout is to expand the field beyond text Q&A, including live broadcasting, e-commerce, short videos, etc. Zhihu, who expands new business categories, tries to find a development path beyond Q&A.

Baidu Know, the earliest Q&A community in China, unexpectedly became popular again in 2021 because of an old problem.

"When will it be the turn of the Iss Chinese?" Under this question that Baidu knew in 2009, a netizen's answer that year was: "Chinese want to go up to your own International Space Station, it is not fun to go to others." After 12 years, more and more netizens have come to this Q&A to punch in: "Now, we have done it." ”

As a "national-level" Q&A platform that has been born for 16 years, Baidu knows that it has accumulated massive Q&A data: the cumulative number of users has exceeded 900 million, the cumulative number of problems solved has exceeded 590 million, and the number of respondents has exceeded 180 million.

In terms of data advantages, Baidu knows that the layout style is more inclined to "below the water", which is based on the heavy operation of its own platform and continuous vitality.

"Peel a coconut, but you give it a pear." The nonsensical "empty ear" lyrics looked for the song title, and after Baidu knew the question, he actually got the answer: "Sugar". Li Xiaowan, general manager of Baidu's knowledge business department, often comes up with such strange Q&A cases in her speeches, showing Baidu's problem-solving ability and user activity. "No matter how professional your questions are, all kinds of things and even so nonsensical, Baidu knows that there are people inside who can accurately answer the questions."

With the combination of the two, it is not difficult to understand why Baidu knows that it will become popular again in 2021.

Observing the head players of the Q&A industry, we can see that a key question has gradually become prominent: Can the Q&A industry build a positive community atmosphere through institutional design and encourage the continuous output of high-quality content?

Another way of solving problems

This problem can be seen through the actions of Baidu and its thinking context.

In December, Baidu Knew and Xinhua released a short film called "My Pride", which tells the story of a little girl from a fishing village who makes her own satellite with the help of everyone. In fact, Baidu's intention is not only to provide authoritative and professional answers, but also to show that Baidu knows that it has seen the humanistic temperature of pride, growth, and care behind the Q&A.

Baidu knows that the new understanding of Q&A is rooted in two strategic key points that Baidu has repeatedly emphasized in 2021: personalization and service. Under the overall vane of Baidu, Q&A has also become a scene of personalization and service landing, which let Baidu know that the overall business has followed the trend.

In 2021, the big move that Baidu knows is to launch a new "ask a question" product and join the paid model for the first time. The Q&A mechanism is designed to be similar to a "bounty", through paid questions, users can get more accurate answers, and evaluate respondents, so that high-quality content creators can get encouragement and benefits.

Customized answers that combine humanity and service show huge user demand at two nodes in July 2021.

From July 20 to 23, heavy rains in Henan caused a large number of users across the country to urgently need a reliable consultation channel to obtain accurate information. According to the official data released by Q&A, the number of consultations on "rescue", "transportation" and "donations" reached nearly 1,310,000 in three days.

In July, the stage of volunteering to fill in the college entrance examination is also an event when the user's demand for professional and humane answers reaches a peak. In response to the outbreak of consultation needs of candidates and parents, Q&A invites professional respondents to settle in, opens up a special area for the college entrance examination, provides candidates with authoritative consultation answers, and meticulous and considerate emotional guidance.

For example, Professor Luo Xiang, the respondent invited to settle in, answered the question of professional service such as "recommendation of law schools", and for "In the current world, does justice really exist?" This kind of emotional question, Luo Xiang wrote a paragraph on the question, with "although you can't go, your heart yearns for it" to give young people more encouragement and care.

In order to solve the problems of more vertical areas, Baidu knows that in 2021, it will more actively invite diversified respondents to settle in.

Government agencies and enterprises have become a major source of answers for Baidu. According to the data released by Baidu, the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau and other government agencies have settled in, and more than 5 million enterprise customer service knows through Baidu to answer users' questions about the purchase of products and services of enterprises.

In 2021, for focusing on the Q&A needs of Henan Province, Baidu knows that it has reached a strategic cooperation intention with the top news of Henan Newspaper, and the two sides have successively completed nesting in Q&A content and respondent construction. Switzerland Tourism has become a baidu know partner, using the form of full-short video Q&A to provide domestic users with official professional answers related to Switzerland tourism.

In essence, Baidu knows that the practice is to promote government services and enterprise service upgrades in the context of service, and play a bridging role in it. On the one hand, the one-on-one Q&A scenario is naturally suitable for meeting the needs of government affairs and enterprises, and government agencies and enterprises are settled, which also provides users with a reliable source of Q&A authority.

If you summarize the trend of Q&A in one word, the answers from 10 years ago can be summarized as "information". Searching for questions and obtaining information as answers is the earliest prototype of questions and answers. Companies with strong search capabilities are strong competitors in this era.

5 years ago, the trend of Q&A showed a more diverse trend. Professional counseling, emotional answers, knowledge products... Behind these exploration modes, "personalization" has become an element emphasized by every Q&A product, playing an increasingly important role.

Today, Q&A has grown into a broader demand, which is no longer a single subdivision track, but covers the core needs of multiple subdivisions. In 2021, rethinking the need for Q&A and providing diversified services is a trend that deserves more attention.

Looking ahead to 2022, there won't be only one answer to where the Q&A industry should go. What is certain is that professional and humanized Q&A will always become a way for people to satisfy curiosity, curiosity, sense of value, and self-pursuit.