Yandex.Zen Sums Up 2021’s Most Popular Content

On December 24, the final Zen Friday of 2021, an annual event for Zen channel bloggers. Yandex.Zen (as a company) shared their results for the year and told how the platform will develop next year.

According to the latest data, almost 22 million people use Zen every day, and the number of active bloggers in 2021 was 50 thousand.

Among them, most bloggers have already tested videos and posts – new formats that Zen launched this year. To support creators in these formats, Zen launched support programs this year. In just six months, bloggers earned 150 million rubles from them.

Zen paid 2 billion rubles to content creators this year. In 2022, this amount will double – to 4 billion rubles. As previously reported, the budget increase is due to the fact that from December this year the company will start paying bloggers money for the interaction of subscribers with the content, that is, for viewing and reading posts by them, as well as for attracting new subscribers to Zen channels.

The service also noticed that users like content from subscriptions: people are three times more likely to like cards from subscriptions and 30% more likely to switch to them. Over the past year, Zen subscriptions have doubled.

The video format has been actively growing in Zen throughout the year. The number of videos created has grown 5 times, and users now spend 1.5 times more time on videos than on articles.

The time that users spend daily watching videos in Zen is already 300 million minutes – and more than 50 million minutes people spend watching short videos.

Another change in Zen affected the content moderation rules. Users who subscribed to the blogger’s channel will see content in the feed that was not previously recommended – for example, materials with bright emotional coloring. And bloggers who write and shoot local content will be able to reach an audience of the whole country.

The Rating Of Bloggers & Channel Authors

Zen also ranked the fastest-growing bloggers and popular creators in short videos. Among the most successful bloggers in commercials are parkourist Kirill Kolesnikov, automotive blogger Nastya Tuman and acrobatics coach Roman Dorokhin. Their videos have garnered the most views in Zen.

The fastest growing bloggers include landscape and interior designer Shabby-Chic, as well as food bloggers Sadfman and Evgenia Polevskaya. Over the past year, they have increased the number of their subscribers several times.

Most Popular Videos

Top views in Zen in 2021 include a video from Sadfman with preparations for the holiday, a video about beauty and strength from Travelmaniac, and a story about how not to give up from Andrey Simonov .