The internet is full of useful, educational, and entertaining places to spend time. Many of these places are important for brands and businesses to connect with their audience. An often-overlooked platform for making those connections is Quora. Learn how to use it for marketing to increase brand awareness and authority.
Overview
What is Quora?
Quora is a community based question-and-answer website similar to Yahoo Answers. According to Alexa, this site ranks 82 in global internet traffic and engagement over the past three months. In the United States, it ranks 56. Quantcast data shows the website reaches more than 327,000 people every month in the us alone and ranks it as Number 3816 in the United States.
Anyone can ask and answer questions. The community votes on the answers that are most helpful. You can Target your question to specific URI users asking them to weigh in with an answer. You can publish content on Quora just like you can with LinkedIn publishing platform. (Repurpose some of your content to start a blog here to really amp it up a notch.) You can search for specific topics or questions related to your business and follow these to get notified whenever someone asks a new question. You can even spend credits to get your question in front of more people.
Even President Obama has jumped in on the Quora fun, answering the question, “What’s it like to play basketball with President Obama?”
Why Marketers Should Use Quora
Marketers can use Quora for a variety of tasks such as generating content ideas, content creation, and establishing brand Authority. Even if you’re just spending a few minutes a day on the platform, it can do wonders for your overall marketing strategy.
Using Quora for Marketing
Create a Quality Profile
Every time you leave an answer, a portion of your bio is viewable at the top making it a great opportunity to extend some branding. The website shows the first 50 characters of your profile as a tagline above your answer. mention your brand name is close to the beginning as you can to make the most of the space. Your full bio can contain @ mentions of other users and clickable links.
It’s also possible to have topic-specific bio so you can mention your expertise when answering topic specific questions to add to your credibility. Do this by clicking on your profile page. In the right column you’ll see a list of knows about topics. Next to each topic is a link to describe your experience. Click on this link to set up the topic specific.
From here, complete as much as your profile as possible. This includes adding:
- A detailed About Me section
- Areas of expertise
- Interests
- Social media account connections
- Your cities
- Any schools or colleges you’ve attended
- Previous companies you’ve worked for
All of this information helps you get found on the platform and can make it easier for people to seek you out when they’re looking for users to answer their questions.
If you’re brand-new to Quora, spend some time browsing the answers and upvoting any that catch your eye. Upvotes appear on your public profile right away and can indicate that you are active on the site.
Track the Topics You’re Interested in
You can use cure for market research to learn what people are asking about your industry. You can set up notifications for these topics so you have questions and answers sent to your inbox every day.
Type the topic you’re interested in into Quora search box. It will give you a list of autocompleted suggestions and when you click through to a topic page, you can see an extra list of related topics to follow.
You can also search for users to follow and be notified of their newest answers. You can do the same for blog posts based on the blog name or author name to be notified for every new post.
Go to your settings page and click on email and notifications so you can customize the frequency and specificity of email you received. Each time you log in to Quora your home feed contains the latest questions and answers and posts from topics, people, and blogs you follow.
Find Questions to Answer
You can answer any question you, which is the best way to get involved with the community and share your knowledge. Search for topics to narrow down the questions. Choose a topic that fits your business, that you have meaningful stats for, or have written about recently. Look for threads with lots of upvotes, as this indicates the questions are viewed often. If you have a popular answer in one of those threads, it could potentially lead to thousands of views per day, and a hefty chunk of clicks back to you website. Take time to find neq questions because you have a higher chance of getting to the top of the answers list if you’re one of the first to answer.
Answer with Authority
This helps you be seen as an authority on a topic. Your answer should provide sources, references, and statistics whenever and wherever possible. It should be a good short answer than points to some kind of external resource. Keep it focused and specific. Let your personality and passion for the topic shine through. Don’t be afraid to tell a story with takeaways.
Add links to what you’ve referenced, which is helpful when the information you provide is available in long form on your website.
Build a Quora Page for Your Business
Similar to Wikipedia, anyone could create a page on Quora about anything. This is a great chance to build a company page for your business. Start by searching your business name on Quora. From the results page, if you don’t see the nameless does a topic you can look in the right sidebar below the add question box and click the link to create topic. There you’ll have the option to name the topic and add a brief description.
Once your topic is live, you can ask the community to review the topic. This is particularly helpful for people wondering if they should invest their time and money with your company. And for you, it adds a bit of social proof and testimonials to your brand’s presence on the platform.
Research Topics
What are people asking on Quora? The questions can lead to inspiration for blog posts on your blog – which you can then link to in an answer.
Look for the question and answers from the topic that you cover on your blog. Check the popularity of their threads looking for lots of upvotes and conversation. When you see a lot of activity surrounding certain questions in the topic, it’s an indication that they may make a great blog post.
You can also use Quora to validate your ideas. If you’ve already got a basic idea, search for it on Quora to see what people are asking about it. You may find a new angle or direction to take or the validation you were looking for.
Get New Headline Ideas
Much the same way you can do headline research by typing your keywords into a Google search to learn how people ask things, you can do the same with Quora. All you have to do is type your keyword into a search and filter the results to show only questions.
The result page will show you how people ask their questions about your chosen keyword and therefore how you can frame your content. The most popular questions in terms of the number of answers and upvotes can signal value in regards to how things are worded and it can help you with writing headlines for your next blog post.
Analyze Your Stats
Quora provides free analytics for all users to show you a breakdown of your views, upvotes, and shares. These stats are displayed for the questions you ask, the answers you give, all the content you contribute and the blog posts you write.
With this information you can see how readers are being led to your answers. This way you’ll know if they’re finding your content through your profile through random browsing or through tagged topics. By visiting your personal views page you can quickly assess who has seen your answers. Quickly glancing at these stats will tell you which avenues give you the most covered so you can adjust your strategy accordingly.
If you focus on creating a great profile and follow topics in your industry while also finding people to connect with, you’ll find Quora is a great place to contribute your knowledge. Though it may not be something you considered as part of your marketing strategy before, it is a unique way to reach your audience.
Are you using Quora to market your business online? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
