Leveraging content via social media is a well-known and oft-used avenue by content marketers, but Quora is a one-of-its-kind platform that can be leveraged to great effect if used right. We give you a few tips on how to be an effective content marketer on Quora.

What is Quora?

Like Google or Wikipedia, Quora is a resource for information. However, unlike those two giants, Quora is a user-driven forum that helps brands connect directly and have a conversation with consumers, or spread knowledge about their brand, product, or service via virtual word of mouth.

Here, we shall examine if the platform is a good resource for content marketing.

How is Quora different from other social media platforms?

Quora has 100 million users in India that log on every month. Social media platforms usually get users involved either through brand pages or ads that help make an impulse purchase. On Quora, however, users log on with the specific target of getting a question answered about a brand, product, or service. This is Quora’s USP – in the real world, it would be the difference between a cold call and a customer who’s interested in a product and walks into a store to know more about it.

The quality of the audience on Quora is also different compared with other social media platforms. For one, it is a niche audience, but an upmarket one. Quora also proudly states that the gender ratio is a very healthy 1:1, which is not the case everywhere.

The question-and-answer based forum, Quora, also claims to have a very high level of the unduplicated audience. Going by Quora statistics, 74% of Quora’s audience is not present on LinkedIn, 81% of their audience is not present on Twitter, 54% of Quora users aren’t on Times Internet, and 23% of them aren’t present on Facebook.

How can a marketer use Quora effectively for content marketing?

Quora serves advertisers globally, and India is its second-largest market. As such, there is a big audience that can be accessed by a brand. As we said before, this is an audience that is here specifically to research your brand/product/service, so you don’t have to put a lot of effort into grabbing their attention.

A brand interacting directly with a user or potential customer will give the answer a lot of credibility, but there’s a fine line between sounding confident and sounding like you’re unabashedly plugging your product. Either way, as a content marketer, there is significant value in generating content that is actively being sought out by the audience. This is the difference between a hot lead and a cold call, so from a content marketing perspective, it is difficult to not be excited about Quora.

Case study

GlaxoSmithKline had a requirement to spread awareness about its vaccines in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The pharmaceutical major found Quora to be the perfect platform to disseminate this information since its user base consists of people who are searching for information. The brand integrated text and images seamlessly in its ads during the campaign. The result? Lots of click-throughs that led to GSK’s FAQ page, educating users about the need to keep their regular vaccinations going. The GSK campaign eventually ended up with over 52 million impressions, over half a million clicks, and a CTR of more than 1%.

A writer’s guide to using Quora for effective content marketing

An individual talking about a product that they have used offers an unbiased opinion of the product/brand/service in question. As such, there is credibility here as well. As a writer, there are a few things that you need to pay attention to. Here are some of them:

• Don’t deviate from the question. Never lose sight of the original question in your answer. Be honest, answer as clearly as possible, and leave all sarcasm out of it.
• Be helpful to others who might have the same question. If the next person who has the same question can read your answer and does not have to post their question on Quora, you’ve written a superb answer. You can do this by backing up your opinion with logic and/or credible sources.
• Be credible. The OP is already on the internet, so a fact check isn’t too difficult for them to do. You need to be factually correct, offer an opinion based on as much experience as you have, and link to credible sources wherever possible. Don’t go overboard with the linking though – Quora users are interested in getting an opinion from another user on Quora while on Quora. At the same time, don’t merely link to another site and leave the person asking the question to follow the link. At least a short summary of why you’re posting a link is necessary, to explain why that link is helpful.
• Be clear. Vague answers will not be helpful, and they will be a waste of your time, besides being unhelpful to anyone who comes across it. They are also likely to get downvoted.

There is an incentive to being a good content marketer on Quora because Quora is designed in such a way that high-quality answers get displayed at the top of the page and are shown to a larger audience. Unhelpful answers don’t get as much exposure.

Quora also considers ‘astroturfing’ as spam. Astroturfing is a practice where a user creates a large amount of content on Quora that is factually incorrect, or deceptive. Promoting a product or service is the express goal of astroturfing, and the content is presented as coming from impartial participants rather than from someone with vested interests.

Quora does allow promotion, but only as long as it effectively serves the purpose of answering the question posed. The same answer posted under several different questions will also not get much exposure. If you violate Quora’s spam rules too often, you risk being banned from the forum entirely.

Therefore, with its niche but targeted audience, Quora just might be the right content marketing tool for you to increase awareness about your business or product, or generate more business, either directly or indirectly.

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