Exclusive | Douyin and Xiaohongshu launch 'Zhihu' feature, new battles in the Q&A space heat up

Source| Tech Planet

Text| Chen Qiaohui

Tech Planet has learned exclusively that the search page within the TikTok app includes an embedded 'Ask a Question' feature, allowing users to post questions with text and images. These questions are then pushed by the system to other users' homepages for display, where interested users can respond in the comments section.

Similarly, Xiaohongshu has also embedded a similar 'Post a Question' function within the search page of its app. Users can publish question-and-answer content with text and images, seeking help from other Xiaohongshu users.

The integration of Q&A functions into the search pages of these two platforms is no coincidence. As search becomes a high-frequency use case for users, simple content searches are no longer sufficient. Users increasingly desire precise and fresh 'real human feedback.'

For example, today’s users no longer limit their searches to finding fixed information. Whether it's daily outfit suggestions or food recommendations, or resolving professional knowledge doubts and seeking consumer decision-making references, they hope to receive experience-sharing from real users. The Q&A model precisely matches this core need, becoming an important tool for platforms to retain users and increase usage time.

As a leading player in the Q&A field, Zhihu, with its years of deep cultivation in the Q&A ecosystem, has built up a highly engaged user base and a strong content barrier, serving as an important reference point for Douyin and Xiaohongshu as they quietly work on creating their own 'Zhihu-style' Q&A systems tailored to their respective ecosystems.

However, compared to Zhihu’s years of accumulated expertise in professional content and established user mindset, can the 'Zhihu-style' Q&A systems created by Douyin and Xiaohongshu overcome the limitations of their platform DNA, truly retain users, accumulate high-quality content, and thus secure a share in the Q&A sector?

Douyin and Xiaohongshu launch Q&A features

Tech Planet found after testing that Douyin’s question-asking feature is hidden in a core area of the search page. After users complete a keyword search in the search bar, they can find the 'Ask enthusiastic netizens a question' entry on the page. However, this entry appears somewhat randomly and does not show up every time.

After clicking the 'Post a Question' button, users are taken directly to the editing interface. The interface design continues Douyin’s consistent minimalist style, supporting text input for questions which can be posted in a text-and-image format. The entire operation process can be completed in just a few steps.

Once a question is posted, it may be pushed by the platform algorithm to other users’ homepages based on content tags. Users who wish to provide answers can reply directly in the comments section, forming Q&A interactions. For instance, when a user asks 'What are the rules for vanity phone numbers?', they can quickly receive experience-sharing from other netizens.

Tech Planet learned from Douyin users that there is also an entry point in the comment section for posting works as questions. By posting a question in the comments as a text-based work, users have the chance to receive traffic rewards. This enriches the entry points for the Q&A feature and diversifies the scenarios through which it reaches users.

Xiaohongshu’s 'Post a Question' feature is similarly located on the search page, with the entry prominently displayed on the search results page. Some pages even prompt users with suggestions like 'Didn’t find an answer? Try asking our enthusiastic community,' aligning well with the platform's community-focused communication style.

Its posting interface is more personalized. In addition to basic text and image editing for questions, users can choose different styles of question cards. Once edited and posted, the question reaches Xiaohongshu’s user base. Most questions revolve around scenarios such as lifestyle consumption and daily outfit pairings. After posting, users receive targeted answers from others. Over time, this feature has deeply integrated into the platform’s topic and note ecosystem, allowing users to tag relevant labels to enhance the accuracy of exposure for their questions.

Overall, both Douyin and Xiaohongshu have embedded their Q&A functions within the high-frequency search entry point, focusing on text-and-image questioning formats. They rely on real-time human responses facilitated by the platforms’ user ecosystems to address queries when users fail to find satisfactory answers after searching.

However, differences exist between the two platforms. Douyin’s logic for pushing questions prioritizes web-wide traffic distribution, while Xiaohongshu emphasizes community interaction. From guiding phrases to card designs, Xiaohongshu maintains strong platform-specific characteristics. Its questioning scenarios are closely tied to vertical fields such as lifestyle consumption, and its distribution aligns better with interest-based users. Additionally, the function was introduced earlier and has achieved deeper integration with notes and topics, forming a Q&A experience more distinctive to the platform.

The two giants enter Zhihu’s core territory

At present, it seems Douyin and Xiaohongshu aren’t aiming to recreate Zhihu within their apps but instead are using the shell of Q&A functionality to fill gaps in their own ecosystems. After all, neither platform has the DNA to 'replicate Zhihu,' and observed differences highlight their divergent paths from Zhihu.

For Douyin, Q&A serves as an add-on to enrich content formats and increase user engagement time. Leveraging its massive traffic, it allows users to quickly resolve immediate doubts while browsing short videos, further retaining them. For Xiaohongshu, Q&A is a key tool to strengthen its position as a 'decision-making hub for lifestyle choices.' When users search for fashion or skincare content, they can get precise references via real-user Q&A, reinforcing the platform’s community strengths.

It cannot be denied that Zhihu remains the leader in professional Q&A, but Douyin and Xiaohongshu are capturing 'ordinary people’s everyday questions,' a segment of the market Zhihu likely wants but hasn’t managed to monetize effectively.

More notably, Zhihu itself is mired in developmental challenges. Its 2025 financial report shows annual revenue of 2.749 billion yuan, with a net loss of 195 million yuan. Behind these figures lies Zhihu’s difficulty in breaking through its own bottlenecks, indirectly suggesting that even if Douyin and Xiaohongshu wanted to replicate Zhihu, they wouldn’t copy a model currently in crisis.

For Zhihu, its ability to secure a leading position in the Q&A track is not just reliant on traffic, but rather on the 'professional answers' accumulated by users over the years. When opening Zhihu, users expect to find in-depth interpretations from practitioners and experts across various fields, ranging from technical details to industry trends. The platform offers well-reasoned, logical, professional responses, creating a content barrier that Douyin and Xiaohongshu will find difficult to overcome in the short term.

However, this professionalism now seems to be becoming a shackle for Zhihu. The latest financial report shows that in 2025, revenue from paid memberships was 1.539 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.66%, exposing its core issue: the severe insufficiency in monetizing professional content, with losses still persisting.

On the other hand, Douyin's core has always been the 'short, flat, and fast' traffic logic. The primary demand of users when browsing Douyin is entertainment and killing time, so both questions and answers naturally follow a 'lightweight' approach. This model makes it easier to monetize traffic, forming a stark contrast with Zhihu.

For instance, when users on Douyin ask, 'Where will gold prices go next?' no one expects an extensive industry analysis. What they want is a simple, easy-to-understand summary of experience, along with the emotional value provided by the responder. Moreover, these responses are often scattered personal shares, making it hard to form systematic professional content.

As for Xiaohongshu, its core is a 'lifestyle sharing community,' where Q&A functions focus on life scenarios. User questions revolve around practical topics like fashion coordination, skincare, and rental housing, with answers being 'personally tested' experiential content, completely different from Zhihu’s path of professional argumentation.

More importantly, user needs themselves differ. Users come to Zhihu with the intention of 'finding professional answers to resolve deep confusion,' such as 'How should fresh graduates choose internet positions?' or 'What are the core competencies of a product manager?' These types of questions require professional interpretation. However, when users utilize Q&A functions on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, it’s essentially for instant clarification—a supplementary option after failing to find satisfactory answers elsewhere. They don’t seek depth but rather authenticity and simplicity.

Looking at content sedimentation, which was once Zhihu’s core advantage and Douyin and Xiaohongshu’s weakness, this advantage is now being continuously weakened by Zhihu’s own financial struggles. A high-quality response on Zhihu might still be searched, referenced, and even become an industry reference years later. Behind this is its meticulously crafted creator incentive system and content moderation mechanism, where professional creators are willing to spend time writing in-depth content, and users recognize this value.

But the net loss in 2025 indicates that Zhihu’s challenging incentive and content moderation model faces significant challenges, potentially affecting both the quality and quantity of professional content production. More critically, Zhihu’s content sedimentation hasn’t effectively translated into revenue. While Douyin struggles to accumulate deep content, it can quickly achieve commercialization through traffic distribution, and Xiaohongshu’s lifestyle-focused content sedimentation can drive sales conversion via consumption scenarios—precisely where Zhihu falls short. Its professional content barrier hasn’t turned into a monetization advantage, ultimately resulting in a 'well-received but not profitable' dilemma.

Ultimately, Douyin and Xiaohongshu’s introduction of a Zhihu-style Q&A function will inevitably capture Zhihu’s toughest, least proficient, yet largest incremental market driven by user demand.

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