Yandex is a big company and not only search engine. In addition to Yandex.Direct and other services, holding has its own platform for authors, brands and mass media, a service of content recommendations (articles, posts, photos, videos), which is selected personally, taking into account the user’s interests and behavior, location, time of day, and many other factors.

We know how you can use Yandex. Zen to promote your business on the Internet, increase awareness and attract traffic. The best solution is to run a corporate blog or buy advertising from bloggers. For more details – read our article.

What is Yandex Zen

As we have mentioned previously, Yandex Zen is a platform where bloggers and companies can run their blogs in different formats – videos, texts, photos and etc.

The main difference from the other Social Media is that it works by machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies. Also it has an algorithmic feed.

The  principle is really very simple: the more a user uses Zen, the more he likes/dislikes publications, the more he actually just reads what is there – the better Zen learns what he likes, the more interesting this feed becomes, aimed entirely at this user.

Yandex. Zen is developing in every possible way: the audience is regularly increasing, new formats, metrics, etc. appear. Yandex plans to make Zen a competitor to Instagram, VKontakte and YouTube with a cost of several billion dollars.

As a result of the constant improvement of the product and the trust in Yandex itself, media and brands come to the platform after authors and bloggers who want to make money on monetization. The latter, according to the service in December 2018, owns about 100 active channels.

How Yandex Zen can be useful for your business in Russia

• 1. The audience of the platform is 40 million users per month, according to Yandex. Radar.
• 2. Ranking algorithms find readers, even if they are not subscribed to the channel. This is a plus for those who need free coverage: they start from scratch, can’t “pull up” their subscribers from other platforms. The Alpha Centauri algorithm is currently in effect. About the algorithm updates-in the blog ” Yandex.Zen.”
• 3. The CTR (click-through rate) of going to an article from the feed is 6-10%, and the average viewing time of the publication is 1-2 minutes. Keep in mind, huge longreads are unlikely to be readable).
• 4. 70-80% of the materials are read in full, while the average for Russian media is 45%.
• 5. Integration with Yandex. Metrica and external pixels, internal statistics on coverage, read-throughs, and time in your personal account.

The most important advantage of Yandex.Zen as a content marketing tool — an opportunity to get free coverage and gain an audience from “zero”.

Coverage of Yandex. Zen includes an audience not only in Russia, as many people think. Statistics show a wide geography of influence. According to the infographic of the Director, Daniel Trabun, it is read in many countries of the world: USA, Finland, etc.

What you should know if you want to promote on Yandex.Zen

Before you start investing in this area of effort, time and money, you need to consider the following points:

• 1. You should not only write good texts in Russian, but also interesting and attractive for your target audience.
• 2. Competition with other brands, large and niche media, as well as numerous authors is constantly growing. That is, it is very likely that the opportunity to successfully “enter” will only decrease over time.
• 3. The team of Yandex.Zen identifies the following components of success: consistency, a certain theme, a content plan, and naturalness (nativity). That is, if you do not plan regular publications and communications, you should not hope for a good result. It is also unlikely that you will be able to advance normally in Zen if you offer only ready-made materials from your blog on the site – all because the highest engagement rates are in the narrative (analogous to Stories).

If the blog is new, its administration should publish at least 2 articles a day, at least 20 publications a month. But the more, the better. Content can be presented in any form: a short post, an article, a photo, a video, or a combination of several forms.

Yandex. Zen only skips unique articles, which means that if you have a blog on a company page, it is important that the material in the Zen feed and your blog are not identical.

Also there are possibilities to advertise on Yandex.Zen.

How to advertise on Yandex.Zen

How can a brand advertise itself? Two options:

• 1. Order advertising from the authors. You can look for a blogger on a resource that writes on topics close to your business. For example, there is a person who writes about sports. And you are a brand of sports equipment or clothing. You should turn to the author and order advertising from him. He writes an article, for example, about Nordic walking and during the disclosure of the topic sincerely recommends buying clothes and inventory in your store, gives arguments and voila — this will be the native allowed by the Yandex management. Zen advertising.
• 2. Create your own channel. For example, you are a company offering SMM courses. Create your own channel, write interesting, relevant posts and articles about the world of SMM. The topic is quite extensive, so there will be plenty of topics. And in your materials, you publish links to your own courses, master classes, and trainings.

And if you need a help with promotion on Yandex.Zen, just contact our agency!