A complete guide to Quora marketing (with video explanation inside)

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The internet never ceases to amaze me — with its endless number of resources, it is a minuscule thing to say that this technology has brought a paradigm shift in all our lives. That being said, when it comes to asking questions and getting reliable and direct answers, we’ve solely had to depend on Google. However, the downside of this is — google doesn’t give answers; instead, they provide you with a list of links where you can find them. That in most cases feels like trying to find a needle in a haystack, isn’t it?

If you, like me, find yourself in this predicament, here is what you should consider instead: Quora.

So today, I’m going to give you insights into everything you need to know about Quora

First things first -

What is Quora?

A company founded in 2009 by two ex-Facebook employees, Quora is a question-and-answer social media platform where users can ask questions, get answers, and interact with each other. Have a question but you’re worried about sounding silly? Oh wait, that’s exactly a question on Quora.

It is a place where millions of users and hundreds and thousands of questions are being asked on various topics.

Is Quora a reliable source?

The primary function of Quora works quite simply: You can search questions to get answers or provide answers to questions on the site. That said, the biggest concern people have about this type of crowd-sourced information is its accuracy or correctness. Luckily, many of these woes are eased due to the fact that industry experts often use Quora to provide answers.

See what I mean?

Add to that, Quora has some aspects that help maintain its usefulness and credibility:

1. Community feedback: The ability to vote, comment, thank, and mark as “not helpful” results in information that can help us determine the value of any given answer. Also, commenting allows us to pose questions to an answer-provider if we would like to further verify the credibility of an answer.
2. Real names: Although anonymous answers are permitted, Quora has a culture of using real names. In addition to helping us verify claimed qualifications and seek out other background information on answer-providers (helping address your concern about experts actually being experts), this also reduces the chance of intentionally misleading or malicious answers and feedback being given.
3. Bios: A short description of the answer provider's qualifications and experiences that will be visible next to their name, will lend answer credibility and help us understand potential biases in the answer.

Now that we’ve established the credibility factor of Quora and got a general idea of its usefulness, let’s dig deeper, shall we?

Watch the video to understand Quora marketing in detail

How do I get started on Quora?

Setting yourself up for success with Quora requires you to complete a few steps. That being said, if you are already on Quora, you can skip this part and jump to the next section.

Sign up: You will be given three options to choose from — you can sign up with your Google account, your Facebook account, or forego them in favor of a simple email sign up — that’s up to you. Once you select your preference, you’ll be presented with a screen that asks you to choose 10 topics that you’re interested in. The topics you choose will be used to generate your feed, which we’ll touch on below. The next step will ask you if you’d like to join Spaces groups, which again, we’ll cover later on. After that, you’ll be presented with your feed, which is where the real fun of Quora begins. But first, you have a few more elements to take care of.

Fill out your profile:

This is a procedure you can’t skip — for Quora, credible sources for answers is important, making it necessary for you to fill out your profile to the best of your ability. The profile section starts with your profile photo and profile credential, the latter of which can be viewed as your primary industry or sector you have expertise in or your job title. This will be shown prominently when anyone views your profile.

Below is a section where you can add a brief description of yourself, as you’d expect in any profile.

On the right side of the profile page, you’ll find an additional section for adding information about your employment, school, and location credentials, and another for adding topics that you know about. On the left-hand side, it will allow you to search topics and it will display all of the topics with the keyword you searched to add to your profile.

Also here’s good news for all you multifaceted people — Quora allows you to add specific topics to your profile and provide bios for each one.

To add a topic, simply click on this panel in the sidebar of your profile:

Then search for relevant topics to add to your profile.

Once you’ve selected the topic, you can edit the bio that’s used when you answer questions on that topic.

Creating a custom bio for each of your main topics allows you to highlight the most relevant aspects of your experience for each topic. Once that’s done, they’ll appear in your profile like this.

Get to know your feed:

Your Quora feed is the best place to find questions about topics you care about. In the beginning, your feed will only consist of topics that you previously selected when you first signed up, but you can, of course, add more. You can simply search for a topic in the ‘Search Quora’ box at the top at any time, select it to open its page, and click “follow”. The topics you have followed will also appear as a list on the left side of Quora, so you can easily click the topic you want, go through what people are asking related to that topic and easily answer. It’s that simple. From then on, new and relevant questions from that topic will be added to your feed.

The same goes for unfollowing a topic: just go to the page of the topic you’re following and click on the blue marked “follow” button. It will then turn white to indicate that it’s a page you’re not following anymore.

Your feed now will have a display of the list of topics you’ve followed on the right hand side for quick access, in addition to a super quick way to ask a question or share a link with others.

Also, on the right hand, you will have a section called “Improve your feed”, which is a small list of items that will be crossed out once you’ve completed the required process, such as:

1. Visit your feed
2. Follow 5 more spaces
3. Follow 6 more topics
4. Upvote 5 more good answers
5. Ask your first question
6. Add 3 credentials
7. Answer a question

This list will help you get the hang of using Quora, so make sure to complete the steps to reap the benefits.

Now that your profile is up and ready, let’s dive straight into the core feature of Quora — the Q&A section.

Learn how to ask questions and give answers

Ready to ask your first question? At the top right hand in your Quora page, you will see a button ‘Add question’. Click it and start typing your question. Additionally, you can also type into the search bar next to it to view a list of questions and answers in relation to what you’re looking for.

Now you might have a query pop in your head — What to do if the question is not listed in Quora?

If the question you have in mind is not listed there, you can ask your friends to ask the question. But don’t answer it immediately once the question has been asked. Wait for 1 or 2 people to answer, and then you can answer to maintain authenticity.

Next is, how do I answer the question?

Pick the questions which have less number of answers. This is simply because there is a probability that a lot of people will read your answer who come in search of it.

It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t answer questions with more answers already. You can. But when there are already so many answers written by people, chances are high that people might miss reading your answer or might feel your answer is repetitive.

If you are going to answer such questions, make sure your answer stands out from the rest. Include a lot of images, screenshots, or creatives, so people don’t miss reading your answer.

Request an answer

This feature, known as “Ask To Answer” in Quora, gives you the ability to request an answer from the experts of a particular niche. You can simply go to the question and click on “Request” to get a list of people who have written on that topic. Select the person that you want an answer from and send the request to him/her.

Also, if you want to be that ‘expert’, keep answering a decent amount of questions on your favorite topic, then Quora will list you as an expert in that subject so others can request you to answer.

Now a crucial topic to consider is:

How to write Quora answers?

This is the most important part.

I’ll break this down into key pointers for you:

Give an opening line

Always start by thanking people if it was “A2A” or by saying “Good question” or some appreciation to the question. This can act as an icebreaker for you to start writing.

Get to the point

Now come directly to your answer. Don’t write Quora answers like blogs. Imagine Quora as Google. You come to Quora to find instant answers to your questions. If you keep dragging the answer, people would lose interest in reading. Keep your answers short, straightforward and write in a simple language.

Support your answer with visuals

Provide necessary screenshots and videos to make it look useful and interesting. The more the images, the more people would read your answer.

Keep it crisp

Don’t write more than 70 to 100 words in a Quora answer.

Refrain from self-promotion

Don’t write salesy answers. That is a big turn-off. Always write with the intention to help people. Be genuine with your answers. Don’t focus on getting the leads alone, sometimes you have to help your audience and win their hearts, then conversion will automatically happen.

Be genuine

Sometimes, you might be pushed to write salesy answers for questions like “What is the best alternative to xyz” etc. Tackle this by writing a genuine answer on how the product/service has helped you personally.

Provide links to more resources

You have to provide proper links to your website and blogs from Quora. Maximum of 3 to 4 links can be provided depending on how you answer.

Add keywords

Write with keywords that people want to see. Bold them. Don’t forget to provide links with UTM parameters.

Use personal pronouns

Personal pronouns like “I” or “Me” create a personal touch to your writing. Use this effectively to bring about a connection with the reader.

Create viewership for your content

Share with your colleagues and friends and ask them to upvote and share. Share your answers in your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

Don’t sell the farm

When answering questions, make sure you provide enough value to get upvotes and views but not so much that you give away all the details. Link the remaining details to a post on your website or blog, giving further details. Now this piques the reader’s interest and drives traffic to your page.

Grow your Quora account

The formula for success in Quora or any social media platform for that matter is straightforward — the more followers you have, the more people are going to see your new answers, and the more impactful your time on Quora will be. For me, I’ve found out there are a few tricks to help my numbers bump up.

Keep growing your connections

Now you have a bunch of people who’ve gone to school and college with you. Even though they aren’t exactly your target audience, connect with them, and because of the personal connection, they are more likely to upvote your answers when they see them.

Be active in one community

To be considered a thought leader, refrain from answering questions in a dozen different niches as people who see your account will not know what to expect. If you have positioned yourself in one niche, people in that niche will want to follow you as you will be an ‘expert’ in that particular subject.

Engage with other people

Follow people you’re interested in, upvote their answers, and leave interesting comments. Quora is unlike most social media platforms, but the rule remains the same — be social.

Be consistent

It’s easy to answer a few questions once a week, but you’ll see slow growth that way. Go through the niches you’re interested in and answer questions every now and then.

Review your old content

As an added benefit, spare a few minutes of your time to freshen up your older content by going more in-depth after looking at the other contributors. This will help you stand out and garner attention.

Analyze your Quora stats

Quora provides free analytics for its users, showing you a detailed breakdown into your:

• Views
• Upvotes and
• Shares.

These stats are displayed for the following categories:

• The questions you ask
• The answers you give
• The blog posts you write
• All the content you contribute

Each of your answers provides stats for the number of times it’s been viewed, and by which users. If you click on “#views,” you can see how readers are being led to your answers. Are they finding your content through your profile, through tagged topics, or through random browsing?

A quick glance through these stats will tell you which avenues give you the most coverage and areas you need to improve.

Now a word of caution:

If you are active on Quora, every now and then you’ll see a spike in Quora that lasts a day or two and then drops again.

These spikes can get you puzzled. But don’t be. Quora has this unique way of combining similar questions. So if there are a dozen questions in the last month asking, “How can I be a better marketer?” Quora will sometimes smash it into a mega-thread and everyone who answers will get a notification and you’ll see a spike in views.

Now I know this information will not reveal the individual performance of your answers. So the trick is to get strategic.

When you’re searching for questions to answer, look for ones that have a lot of duplicates. This strategy will get notifications on combined questions a few times a week, so I see a lot more spike in traffic and thus a lot more click-through.

How a marketer can use Quora

As a marketer, there is one goal you’ll want to achieve through Quora — build your professional brand as an authority in your niche. Now to get to this, I’ll give you all the tips and tricks I’ve used over the years.

Build a Quora page for your business

Much like Wikipedia, anyone can create a page on Quora about anything. So shoot away! To do so, start by searching for your business’s name in Quora. From the results page, if you don’t see the name listed as a topic, you can look in the right sidebar underneath the “Add Question” box and click the link to “Create Topic”. This gives you the option to name the topic and add a brief description. Once the topic is live, you can share it with your Quora community — this is an ideal way to add a bit of social proof and testimonials to your brand’s presence on Quora.

Discover new headline ideas for your blog

Much like you might do a bit of headline research by typing your keywords into a Google search, you can do the same thing with Quora. Simply type in your keyword into a Quora search and filter the results to only show questions.

Consolidate the most popular questions in terms of answers and upvotes as it can act as a signal about the value of the way things are worded. Use it for writing your next blog post.

Help with customer support and influencing

One of the biggest benefits of Quora is building authority. Add to this, the power Quora has given you in providing customer support to your users and positively influencing them about your product.

Use Quora Spaces

While topics in Quora are specific subjects you want to follow and answer questions on, in Quora spaces, on the other hand, there are communities that share common interests. Once you join a Space, you’ll get updates on all the content and those posted on the Spaces feed. You could think of it as your Facebook Groups. However, there is one key difference — not everyone can contribute to Quora Space. This is because the owners can restrict members who can write content and reply to questions, unlike the regular Quora you know. Also, they can subject all the submissions for review, and make it a mandate to follow the Space for you to contribute.

Also, note that you want to keep links to a minimum here, as overuse could cause followers to view your Space as purely promotional, which lowers the value and could lead to you getting banned from Quora. Remember, Quora Spaces is not about selling your products and services, but about positioning yourself or your brand as the expert in your industry.

Set up a business account

Do you run a business? Then you need to open a business account with Quora. This account allows your company to establish a presence on the platform and assign roles to different people within your organization who could write a response on behalf of your business.

This account will be an opportunity to provide the most knowledgeable answer to your business, give you insights into your particular industry, service or tools. This will give you the chance to grow as a thought leader in your domain and the knowledge you share will be tied to your business and not to only individual people within your organization who may come and go.

Quora ads

All this while, you’ve only heard about the Q&A side of Quora. However, did you know you could take your Quora game to the next level with Quora ads?

Here’s what you need to know about Quora ads:

From the moment you start to gain some traction on Quora and you’ve produced some solid answers and established your profile, you can then start to promote some of your answers for a fee.

Using Quora ads, you can boost an answer that you or someone else has written and put some ad conditions around it. For example, if a customer left a raving review of your business in an answer or left a great answer explaining your product, you can promote it.

How Quora ads can help you?

A Quora ad can be used to promote answers for anything from top-of-the-funnel awareness creation, to specific targeted engagement campaigns. You can use it to generate a sense of immediacy, generate leads, drive traffic to your own site, and much more.

How to get started

Just like on Facebook, all you need to do if you want to start promoting an answer is to set up an ad account. Go to your profile picture in the top right corner and click on it and then click on “Ads Manager”.

Meet the Quora ads manager

Click on your profile picture on the top right side and you will see the option “Ads Manager”. You will then be directed to a “Create your campaign” page. This is an ideal way to do “Contextual targeting”. Once you have the page open, type in your campaign name, select your objective, set your daily maximum campaign budget, location targeting and the likes. Quora ads manager is extremely precise and will help you reach out to the audiences who ask questions you’ve targeted — thus creating a perfect match between the topic and your ad.

Benefits of advertising on Quora

1. You get high-quality traffic — When you target Quora users based on certain topics, you’re reaching a community that is genuinely interested in what you have to say.
2. It resembles Google and Facebook ad platforms — The fact that Quora ads platform closely resembles those of Google and Facebook, makes it easy to learn and master since you’re already familiar with most of the features.

How do I track my leads I get through Quora ads?

Well, Quora has created a tool called Quora Pixel. This is placed in your website code to track traffic and conversions. When someone clicks on your ad and lands on your website, the Quora Pixel allows you to identify how many people are visiting your website and what actions they are taking.

Additional Quora tips to help you dominate your Quora space

To get yourself noticed, there are some additional tips I would like to give you.

1. Respond as quickly as possible — To get the credit and the attention you deserve, try to answer questions as quickly as possible. The more answers there are for a particular question, the more likely you are to be lost in the crowd. So get ahead of the race by wasting no time and answer the question.
2. Try weekends — Though you might be tempted to post content during your work hours, it is ideal to do this over the weekend as most people will be at home surfing for specific answers on Quora.
3. Use the “@” symbol to tag content partners — This will lend credibility to your answer, so don’t be afraid to tag your competitors as well. Always remember — Quora works best when thought leaders collaborate to help people get the information they need.
4. Dig deep for unanswered questions — Always continue to search for hidden gems by doing a thorough search to find questions that no one has answered.
5. Go against the herd — One tactic most writers use is to take a fresh approach when writing answers. Most answers may tend to be repetitive, so when someone comes along and talks about a different perspective, they take notice. Use power words and make your first few lines controversial. This way when readers get notified of your answer, they will get a review of your answer and it will intrigue them into clicking your answer.
6. Quora takes time and commitment — Success with Quora doesn’t happen overnight. You need to actively answer questions with consistency — say, answering one question per day.
7. Target trending topics — Top writers have grown their view counts in a short amount of time by targeting topics that appear in Quora’s trending topics section.

What are Quora blogs?

In Quora, you actually have the capability to create a blog — besides the standard question-and-answer format. Now, if you are using Quora strategically, then use Quora blogs to only write about topics within your niche as to not dilute your authority.

To get started, click on your profile and navigate to “Blogs”.

Now you can start your own blog on Quora. Click the “Profile” button this time. Scroll down and you will see a “Create a Blog” button. Click it.

Here from, you can start writing your blogs.

Also, just like LinkedIn content, these blogs get circulated around the Quora network, and you can share them on social media to attract readers and followers.

Why should I create a blog on Quora?

The main reason to blog on Quora is that it eliminates the legwork of finding an engaged audience for your own blog. If you already have a blog, it’s as simple as copying and pasting a few paragraphs from it into your latest Quora blog and adding a “read more” link directing people to your original blog post.

It is also great for SEO purposes because your Quora blogs can rank in Google. Keep an eye when you’re looking to Google for answers — you’ll find links to Quora properties on the first few pages more often than not. Make use of that.

How often should I post?

Like any blog you’re running, consistency is key. If you update your Quora blog once a week, you can start to amass a consistent following who knows to check back for new content weekly.

Want more traffic? Quora has many secrets!

The truth is — every blogger is hungry for more traffic. But only a handful of them is looking for it on Quora. However, there is a huge reservoir of opportunity just waiting to be tapped. So what are you waiting for? Create an account, craft your profile and start sharing your wealth of knowledge on which you can build your Quora reputation.

Check out my YouTube channel All About B2B Marketing for more awesome content!