Should Quora be a Part of Your Social Media Marketing Strategy?
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Have you heard of Quora yet? This question-and-answer site can solve many problems, but marketers are just now beginning to realize its potential in generating traffic and thought leadership. Similar to Reddit but more streamlined, Quora allows you to input your particular interests, and they will give you questions to answer for other people. While great in theory, this platform would only be helpful with an active community. Luckily, when you answer a question, you can quickly get over 1000 views; we have reached over 5,000 views multiple times.
When looking at our all-time views (1 year), we have received close to 50k views on our answers while only answering 75 questions. We are averaging over 666 views per answer without even putting in much effort (1 answer every five days). So, how can this all benefit your marketing strategy? While it may not seem like a lot, we have generated over 60 website visits using Quora. These 60 individuals are people we already know are interested in social media and marketing since they were looking for an answer related to those topics. So you answered 1 question daily, meaning you would have roughly 243,000 views on Quora. That would mean that you would garner approximately 292 visitors; frankly, all you need is for one of them to be a legitimate lead to justify your work.
Another perk to Quora is that it can help improve SEO. Let's say you want to answer a question about how to gain more Instagram followers. Since we had already created a blog post about that, we input a snippet of the blog into the answer for Quora, then directed viewers to head to our site to read more about the topic. This is a great way to get your links (backlinks) on other sites in a responsible manner. One disclaimer is to be careful with this power, however. If you put your link everywhere in the post or even in the signature over and over, you can get locked out. One positive is that Quora will not completely shadowban you, which is something that Reddit will do. If you make a mistake and add an unnecessary link to your post, then Quora will let you know that the post was removed rather than your whole account. Don't let this fool you into thinking you can keep making "mistakes," though. Quora is not the kind of place for growth hacks; it is the place for meaningful conversation where you are helping someone else solve a problem.
So, how else can Quora help your marketing strategy? The platform helps to develop thought leadership on a personal scale. Many companies have a CEO or Founder who is the team's captain. We have had many clients for whom we passed Quora questions so the company's leader could answer the questions and help establish more thought leadership. Without a doubt, potential leads will find interest in a CEO who takes the time to answer questions from random people online. Social media is one part of a funnel about developing trust with a potential lead. A person who needs a little extra push to become a legitimate warm traffic lead will be especially convinced when they see that the CEO of a company is taking time out of her schedule to answer questions.
Is Quora the be-all and end-all of your marketing strategy? No, but it is a great way to generate some personal buzz while attracting your target audience to your site. Furthermore, an "upvote" option allows viewers to like a post that they think really answers the question well. The more high-quality answers you make, the more likely people will view your post. This allows for a touch of virality within Quora, which means your solution could begin to "trend," which bodes well for even more views and website clicks. Quora may not seem like much yet, but it could take over LinkedIn very soon regarding social media performance.
What do you think? Have you used Quora before? Let us know by emailing us or commenting below if it helped your marketing strategy.
