6 Steps on How to Use Quora for Your Business

Some of the most popular internet search queries are questions: "How long does yogurt last after its expiration date?" "What is Narcos?" "How many nickels are in $58,000.33?" While most of these questions can be answered from various links containing particular keywords, few sites offer a forum to answer questions in a credible manner. Ask.com, Yahoo Answers, and even Reddit and Tumblr have tried to tackle this need to answer internet users' questions, but they have failed. Most answers on these sites are either biased, spammy, or outright unrelated.

Quora, a question-answer platform, has tackled this niche successfully. Founded in 2009, it recently doubled its user based this past year to over 200 million monthly visitors – that's nearing Twitter's 328 million monthly users. According to Alecia Morgan, Quora's Content Marketing Evangelist, the platform's main goal is to foster high quality. In other words, Quora is all about presenting the right information to the questions its users ask.

Along with ranking as high as Wikipedia, Quora has multiple publishing partnerships, like with Forbes and Newsweek, where tons of high quality content is distributed to various audiences. The platform has flourished over the years. Leaders in business, politics, and culture all have contributed to Quora, including Barack Obama, Sheryl Sandberg, Mark Cuban, and Craig Newmark. These leaders, along with other knowledgeable users, have given Quora an edge over all other question-answer sites: credibility.

Here's how to use Quora for your business:

Getting started

Quora has a very strong community of users who freely moderate content alongside Quora's actual team of moderators. Users are able to approve of answers through upvotes, disapprove through downvotes, and even report answers for a number of issues including spam, irrelevance, and improper content. The answers that end up highly approved, i.e. gain the most upvotes, are organized at the top of question pages and even can be part of search queries via Google and Bing. If they are downvoted, the lower they fall on the page, and they even can be collapsed and grouped under the "Collapsed Answers" footer of the question page. Quora is SUPER SEO friendly, so the top upvoted answers are listed high in related search queries. As such, this is a perfect place to pitch ideas, become a thought leader, and even MARKET YOUR BUSINESS!

There is a deeper trust level between the users and the content presented on Quora. Marketing on this platform is specific in the sense that you will only succeed if you present valuable information to an applicable question. Quora also allows anyone to view a user's activity on the platform, so readers can truly judge someone's intentions through seeing their activity. With all this in mind, marketers must take the following into consideration while making a Quora strategy for their business:

1. Stick to what you know

It cannot be emphasized enough that Quora is a very high-quality site, and so posting irrelevant content to random questions will not help. If you consistently end up having your posts downvoted for irrelevance, they will not only end up collapsed, but your account itself might be suspended.

2. Knowledge First

Success on Quora is based on authentic contribution, and although most of your contribution can be rooted in your business experience, not every answer requires a hyperlink or mention of your business. Good answers on Quora spread knowledge, and while there are certain questions where you can mention and promote your business, remember the intent of Quora is that experts share knowledge with others.

3. Don't oversell

Along with quality, quantity matters on Quora. The average active user will answer 3-7 questions per week, and any users above that quota will be scrutinized for misuse of Quora's policies, resulting in your answers being removed and your account suspended. Even after an account suspension, users can see an account's history that details removed answers.

4. Attachments and republished content are fair game

Once you get established with the ins and outs of Quora, creating unique answers is necessary to rising to Quora prominence. Make sure to utilize all the tools Quora gives you while answering questions: hyperlinks, photos, special text (bold, italics, and underlines), quotes, as well as code! Some users simply answer a question by quoting a blog post they wrote beforehand, and while this is allowed, it should be noted that to be eligible for Quora's publishing program (Quora Digest Email, Forbes, etc.) an answer must contain 50 percent original content.

5. Official Company Accounts

Marketers worry about mixing their personal accounts with business, so Quora encourages businesses to have their own accounts. While individual accounts can provide personal leadership and actionable advice, business accounts can address technical questions, industry questions, as well as business FAQs. This helps businesses truly form their own persona and interact with current, past, and future customers.

6. Advertise as you like

As mentioned already, Quora is not a platform to promote the heck out of your business, so recently Quora has opened up to advertisers. Ads can appear as text with a call to action button below the question and in between the answers. Ads are paid by clicks, priced through online auctions, and placed based on location and keywords.

With these tips in mind, you now know what and why you should be on the internet's most knowledgeable open resource site. So go out there and get Quora-ing!

To view the original article, visit the Contactually blog.