Quora is probably one of the least advertising focused social media platforms today. Our belief is that only Reddit beats Quora when it comes to keeping its community protected from paid advertisements. The fact that there isn’t a lot of advertising on Quora is actually an opportunity for an aspiring business. In our last post, we actually explained why Quora is useful for marketing for a business.
There are many reasons ranging from an involved community to diversity of subjects but nothing is more important than the fact that Quora is relatively free from marketing noise. Because users are not inundated with marketing messages, they’re more open to communications from businesses. However, you can only leverage this openness if you approach it in the right manner. People’s minds are like the Touch-Me-Not plant. They’ll retract and shut down the moment you make a mistake.
So, how should you go about using Quora for business? Here are some tips from your friendly researchers at Office Hacks by Inkjet Wholesale.
Quora for Business Tip #1: Focus On Keeping Your Persona Real, Personal, And Multiple
The Quora community, or Quorans as they like to call themselves, hate promotional content. They’re on a perpetual crusade to keep promotional content low on their platform. They do this by avoiding engagement with promotional content which includes questions and answers. A promotional question will not get many answers while a promotional answer will be downvoted ruthlessly. This means that traditional marketing and advertising is out of the picture (although Quora has started some paid advertising). What you need to do is promote your business by showing off your knowledge and skills.
This begins with your profile. You need to keep your profile as simple and genuine as possible. This especially holds true for your bio or description. You can, however, choose to have multiple bios for multiple subjects. This, if used right, can help you customise your bio (and include your business name or services) to get the right exposure. All this would be pointless without the right answers though.
Quora for Business Tip #2: Answer Carefully and Answer With Authority
How you answer questions will define whether you’re successful in your use of Quora for business or not. You can mess up all other tips in this article but get this one right and you would’ve had some positive impact on your business. That is how important it is to answer questions with authority.
Authority is something that is subjective though. How do you define authority in content? There is only one way – give an answer that is more concise and detailed than all others out there. That’s right, we did say concise and detailed both. This means that you need to provide as much actionable and helpful information in your answer as possible while keeping the length of your answer down too.
We’d also like to point out that when we say “all others out there”, we’re not only referring to all the answers on Quora but all other content online. If you have a business, then you must be an expert on the subject or, at the very least, must have experts on the subject. It is this expertise that you want to convey to everyone on Quora and beyond.
If you’re looking for quick markers on what your answers on Quora should be like. Here’s a quick list.
- Focus on the point. Don’t ramble. Be specific.
- Offer statistics and citations where possible.
- Add humour if appropriate.
- Introduce personality.
- Offer interesting anecdotes.
- Describe case studies.
- Format it right. Remember bite sizes.
Quora for Business Tip #3: Use Inbuilt Notifications and Google Alerts to Track Subjects and Questions
So, that was about how to write your answers. How do you find which questions to answer on Quora, though? You do this through two ways. The first, and the simpler, one is through the inbuilt notifications. Quora’s inbuilt notifications system is very detailed and elaborate. You can get Quora notifications for answers, people, comments, edits, followers, posts, questions, requests, upvotes, and other elements too. You can get these notifications in your inbox too. You can choose the frequency of these deliveries as well.
The other and possibly more advanced option is to use Google Alerts. You set up Google Alerts like you normally do but you use “Quora” with the keyword. You can set up any number of such alerts but there are three things you should absolutely set these alerts for. These are
- Your name, your business’s name, or your brand name.
- Your competitors’ names.
- Your industry.
This will give you access to the questions that people are asking while referring to subjects that should be relevant to you. In fact, these are subjects that you’re already an authority on. So, when you find such questions and mentions, it is time to weigh in on them.
Quora for Business Tip #4: Build a Quora Company Account and Use It to Ask and Answer Questions
Generally, it is recommended that you use your personal account to ask and answer questions on Quora. However, you should supplement this with a company account too. Yes, you can create a company account with logo et al on Quora. You should be careful with this account, though. People typically relate more to individuals than companies. This is something that will reduce the impact of your company account.
You should use this company account to ask and answer questions but only sparingly and very cautiously. It would be wise to use this account only in some cases. Which situations you find relevant for the use of your company Quora account depends entirely on your marketing campaign and strategy. One situation where you can use this account is while trying to answer customers’ questions about your company or even trying to resolve complaints.
Quora for Business Tip #5: Pinpoint Marketing Campaign Ideas and Trends
Like a lot of active User Generated Content (UGC) repositories, Quora is a wonderful resource for market research. You can use Quora to figure out what your customers are talking about and what is trending amongst your target audience. You can then use this information for a number of things including:
- Developing marketing campaigns,
- Refining your business strategy,
- Drilling down on the right facet in product development,
- Identifying weak points of your business,
- Delving into the strong points of your competitors, and even
- Formulating an in-depth and highly current content strategy.
Quora for Business Tip #6: Use Quora to Research and Learn New Things
Quora isn’t just about customer engagement and marketing. You can use it to improve your operations also. There is a lot to learn on Quora even for experts. In fact, Quora is especially beneficial for experts because there are numerous resources on the internet for beginners.
If you’re starting to learn about a subject, technique, or concept, then you’re likely to find a wide variety of sources for learning. However, if you’re an expert, you’ll soon realise that the online resources for learning don’t have anything that you don’t already know. More specifically, to find items of interest and learn something new, you really will have to drill deep. This process of drilling down becomes easier on Quora particularly if you choose your interests wisely.
While there are novice respondents on Quora, you’ll find a few industry luminaries on it too. For example, you’ll find Rand Fishkin on Quora, who is widely recognised as an authority on SEO all over the world, answering questions on SEO!
Quora can be a treasure trove of resources for a smart student, marketer, and entrepreneur. It all depends on how much time you invest on Quora and how wisely you do it in the end.
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