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So, which platforms are you using to promote your brand?
When asked this question, most of us would stick to the usual suspects: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Many of us don’t even think of Quora as a marketing channel, let alone use it for amplifying our digital presence.
For those who don’t know, Quora is an information-focused website where people ask and answer questions. Incepted over a decade ago, the platform has reached over 300 million active monthly users. Around 35% of Americans and 22% of Indians use Quora.
It has a repository of over 4,00,000 topics which users can explore and find stuff related to their industry. So, if you aim to build authority in your niche or connect with the right set of audience, Quora is the platform to go for.
Many of you may not prioritise a question-answer website for promoting your brand. However, given its reach, Quora can be excellent for reinforcing brand awareness, building authority and learning more about your target audience. With this platform, you can accomplish:
Brand Building: By actively participating in conversations on Quora, you can showcase thought leadership, demonstrate expertise and bolster your brand. You can also gain brand advocates in the long run.
High-Quality Traffic: With Quora, you can drive customers to your website by offering satisfactory answers to their questions and demonstrating how your offerings can improve their lives.
Audience Insights: Quora is a platform where real people search for real answers. By analysing their queries, you can gain insights into your customers’ needs, preferences, pain points and challenges.
Search Visibility: Because Quora questions can be searched through Google, you can boost your search engine rankings by building a robust presence on the platform.
Now that we have seen how the platform can benefit your business, let’s discuss how you can use Quora for marketing.
When you answer a question on Quora, a part of your bio is visible to users. The first 50 characters of your profile are shown as a tagline above your answer.
This can be a great branding opportunity. You can mention your brand name within these 50 characters, preferably in the beginning and make the most of what’s visible to your audience.
Your full profile can have clickable links and mention of other users.
Quora also allows you to have topic-specific bios. So, you can portray yourself as a coding expert while answering questions on Java and C++ and become a culinary expert when answering food-related queries.
Here’s how you can create a topic-specific bio: Click on your profile page. The right column shows a list of ‘Knows About’ topics. Next to each of these topics is a link asking you to ‘Describe your experience’. Click on the link to create a topic-specific bio.
Once this is done, go ahead and complete the rest of your profile to the extent possible. Add a detailed description of yourself, areas of expertise, cities you have lived in, educational background and work experience.
You can even add spaces around your areas of interest. For social proof, you can link your Quora profile with other social media accounts.
Here are some well-written profiles from popular writers on Quora:
Remember: An impressive bio can be written in a thousand ways. Feel free to experiment and assess what works for you. Take ideas from other popular writers in and outside your industry.
Because Quora is a question-answer website, you have to learn what kind of questions people are asking in your niche. And you can have these question-answers delivered to your inbox every day.
To begin with, go to Quora’s search box and type the topic you are interested in. A list of autocompleted suggestions will come up (See image below)
You can click on any of these topics and follow them. You can also search for specific profiles and stay notified of their answers.
Quora allows you to set up the frequency and specificity of the emails you receive from them. All you need to do is to go on the ‘Settings’ page, click on ‘Email & Notifications’ and customise your notification settings.
A critical part of your Quora marketing strategy is to learn how to find the best questions to answer.
An easy way to find relevant questions is to search for keywords on Quora and go through the list of questions that appear. To make the most of your Quora marketing strategy, there are certain things you need to keep in mind:
Select Topics Relevant to your Niche: Look for questions related to the solutions you are offering. Search for keywords related to your industry. Identify topics that generate interest, arouse curiosity or address common issues.
Find Threads with a lot of Upvotes: Browsing through Quora, you will see an upvotes section under each thread. Threads with a lot of upvotes get a lot of views. So, if you offer a satisfactory answer, it may grab a lot of eyeballs.
Answer new Questions: Merely searching for questions isn’t enough. You stand a better chance of appearing in the top results if you answer the query early.
Once you have the right questions, it’s time to offer the best possible answers. It’s crucial that your answers capture user attention and offer something of value. Otherwise, they will get lost in the deluge of answers.
Here are some suggestions to keep in mind while answering questions:
a) Grab Attention with a Powerful Introductory Sentence and Image
Quora shows a preview of the first 200 characters of your answer, in addition to an image. So, if you want users to click on your answer, you will have to make both the image and the introductory part count. See the answer below:
b) Craft Stories to Hook Audience
People love to devour stories, be it your online audience or your next-door neighbour. So, if you offer advice by narrating your personal experience instead of merely providing direct, actionable tips, people will savour your replies.
But to write an immersive story, you have to ace the craft of story writing. Learn to include dialogue in your story and start your story with a conflict that hooks the reader instantly and compels him to click on your answer and read it fully.
Look at the answer below:
c) Answer in Unexpected and Unconventional Ways
Stories aren’t the only way to capture attention. Many writers answer queries in unexpected ways that make their answers stand out. Look at the answer below:
Remember: Don’t overuse this technique or else it will lose its charm.
d) Take Inspiration from other Writers
Search for answers that get a high number of upvotes and shares. Examine how the writer has framed the answer, what information he has provided and how he has hooked users into reading it completely.
Many people tend to forget that Quora is also a social media channel like Facebook and LinkedIn. So, to build a presence there, you will have to connect with other users.
Because Quora lets you communicate you directly with other users, you can leverage the platform for forging meaningful connections with your customers and prospects. You can use the platform for providing solutions to their pain points, answering questions related to your product/service and encouraging them to choose your offerings.
Here are some ways in which you can find the right people to connect with:
Spaces are platforms that allow people to create communities based on shared interests and goals. Within a space, people can search for answers or answer questions themselves. Spaces are equivalent to Groups on Facebook and Subreddits on Reddit. The spaces feature is currently in beta testing mode.
You can join spaces related to your industry and participate by upvoting, commenting and sharing answers. You cannot create a space unless you are an elite writer. However, if you keep on contributing valuable content to any space, you can be promoted to Contributor, Moderator or even an Admin.
In addition to answering questions posed by other Quora users, you can start a Quora blog to repurpose your content.
To begin with, click on your profile and go to Blogs. Here you can create a blog and add a name, URL and description of your choice. Once created, your blog will get circulated on social media and attract readers and followers.
If you have old blog posts on your website and other social platforms, post them on Quora. A lot of popular bloggers like James Clear have been doing this for quite some time and have seen astonishing results.
By being an active member of Quora, you can use the platform to establish your credibility and authority. However, you also need to check if your efforts are going in the right direction. And that’s where statistics come into the picture.
Quora offers free analytics for all users. It offers a break-down of views, upvotes and shares for each of the following categories:
Besides, you can get these statistics for the time period you want: last 7 days, last 30 days, last 3 months, last year and all time.
And if you have a clickable link in your posts, you can view the number of click-throughs you have received.
By analyzing all this information, you can assess what kind of questions are generating the most value for your brand. You can, accordingly, tweak your Quora marketing strategy to move a step further towards accomplishing your goals.
So, that’s all on how you can leverage Quora as an effective marketing platform. If you have questions on the topic, let us know. We will be glad to answer your queries.
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