On the morning of November 2, at the Sohu Video GuanZhuLiu (Follow Feed) Halloween American TV Series Cosplay Party event, Sohu founder, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Charles Zhang shared his views on the product positioning, content ecosystem and future development of Sohu Video’s GuanZhuLiu, and responded to outside claims that he is “lying flat.”
Charles Zhang said that he gets up at 4 a.m. every day and works more than ten hours, and that his physics classes and English classes are both personal interests and important practices for promoting GuanZhuLiu livestreaming and the content ecosystem. “We are not lying flat; we are working hard. GuanZhuLiu is our strategic-level product.”
In his view, Sohu is currently devoting more resources to polishing the GuanZhuLiu product, expanding users and operating offline events. “There is an order of steps to this matter; once the platform grows bigger, making money is a relatively natural way.” Charles Zhang said that building high-quality products that society needs and users like is not contradictory to creating long-term value for shareholders; the most important thing is to make the product good.
“Take a quick look around, forward, interact and follow GuanZhuLiu,” Charles Zhang introduced. This is the latest usage instruction for GuanZhuLiu. The KanKan channel undertakes a light-browsing function, where users can discover videos and creators they are interested in; after entering the main GuanZhuLiu channel, they can engage in deeper interaction through following, forwarding, commenting and other methods.
In Charles Zhang’s view, what makes GuanZhuLiu different is that users do not only care about the content itself, but also about who posted it. He summarized this model as “making friends through video,” and described GuanZhuLiu as “a semi-open circle of friends,” where users can meet more people online and form sustained social relationships around shared interests.
“Forwarding is the king, commenting is the little king, and commenting while forwarding is the king of kings,” Charles Zhang said. Forwarding is the most important interaction method in GuanZhuLiu, and also an important bond for content dissemination and relationship accumulation. The platform emphasizes promoting content flow through user following and real forwarding; users can manage their follow lists according to their interests and maintain interaction through features such as the little bell and comment pools.
In terms of product logic, GuanZhuLiu relies entirely on user follow relationships and real-person forwarding, and does not rely on algorithmic recommendations. Charles Zhang said that algorithmic platforms form profiles based on users’ click history, which easily creates information cocoons, while GuanZhuLiu is filtered by the people users follow. “The people you follow are diverse, with various excitement points, and it is divergent; there is no information cocoon problem.”
Regarding creator support, Charles Zhang mentioned that the traffic support of GuanZhuLiu, translated, means “big accounts forwarding.” “The person who is forwarded gets seen; people forwarded by big names are relatively easy to be seen.” He encouraged creators not only to be content publishers, but also to become participants and interactors. “Forwarding others leaves a lingering fragrance on your hands; when you forward others, they are happy, they will also look at you, and they will also forward you, and this way you will gain followers.”
From the spring and autumn GuanZhuLiu conferences to this Halloween American TV Series Cosplay Party, Sohu Video is incorporating more offline events into the GuanZhuLiu ecosystem. According to Charles Zhang, the finals of the 2026 GuanZhuLiu Dance Competition will be held in Beijing on November 28, and the national finals of Guofeng-related competitions will also take place in early December.
Original title: “Charles Zhang responds to ‘lying flat’: working more than ten hours a day, GuanZhuLiu is our strategic-level product”