Should you be using Quora for marketing?
In 2019, Quora turned 10 years old. However, you might have missed that it can also be a powerful platform for reaching your brand’s audience. More than 300 million monthly users are scouring Quora at any given time and now marketers have a variety of ways to reach them.
If you’re looking to develop your thought leadership presence, confirm your authority in your niche or simply spread brand awareness, Quora is the way to go.
However, just like any social marketing campaign, you’re going to need a strategy.
Here’s your guide on how to use Quora for marketing.
Q&A: What is Quora?
Quora is an information-focused site where people ask and answer questions.
The queries range from “Who would win in a fight between Superman and Captain Marvel?” to “How to market on social media.”
With around 400,000 topics on Quora right now, you’re sure to find something worth talking about. Similar to Reddit, Quora relies on a credit-based upvoting system. The more people that upvote your answer, the more exposure it gets. On Quora, you can:
- Publish content like you would with LinkedIn’s publishing platform.
- Target your questions to specific Quora users to collaborate with industry influencers.
- Search for specific topics and keywords related to your business.
- Spend money to get your questions in front of more people.
Why you need a Quora marketing strategy
A question and answer site might not seem like the most exciting addition to your social media marketing strategy. However, Quora is excellent at generating organic awareness, improving your reputation and even helping you to learn more about your audience. On this platform, you get:
- Exceptional reach: Share questions and answers with over 300 million monthly visitors. Quora is one of the best-respected UGC platforms around.
- Search visibility: Quora questions are searchable through Google. Your content here remains evergreen, driving people back to your site whenever a problem is trending.
- Thought leadership potential: There are already countless high-profile writers on the platform, including Noam Chomsky, former President Obama and Justin Trudeau. Join their ranks and boost your brand.
- More high-quality traffic: Drive customers back to your website by answering their questions and demonstrating how your product or service solves their problems.
- Insights into your audience: Quora is a platform for real people in search of real answers. If you help your audience, they’ll support you in return by investing in your products and services. You may even end up with a few new brand advocates.
How Quora magnifies your marketing
Social media marketing on Quora is powerful.
The platform doesn’t just give you another way to reach your audience. It also provides a roadmap into what they’re looking for from your business.
Why spend money on expensive consumer surveys when you’ll find out what your customers are asking for on Quora? Questions and answers are an excellent insight into your customers, how they think and what they need. What’s more, if you’re struggling with writer’s block and you need to update your blog, your Quora marketing strategy will help.
If countless people are talking about a specific topic like “How do I increase my Instagram followers?” you know it’s worth writing about.
You can even follow topics on Quora to see what your competitors are doing. Getting ahead of them and actively catering to the problems your customers have ensures that you remain relevant.
Paid advertising on Quora
When you create a Quora account and log into the platform, you’ll see your Ads Manager under the Create Ad option in your profile. You’ll need to create an ad account to get started. From there, when you go to the Manage Ads page, you’ll be able to see your spending summary, divided into four sections:
- Clicks
- Conversions
- Impressions
- Spend
There are a variety of ways to use Quora for marketing. When it comes to paid ads, the best option is often conversion targeting. Quora’s conversion optimization campaigns use a specific “conversion” pixel to allow companies to track the impact that Quora ads have on their website.
To use the conversion pixel, you’ll need to place it on your website so that you can track the movement between your site and the platform. You’ll also have to set a Cost Per Action (CPA) and pay on a CPM basis.
Like most forms of social media advertising, you’ll be able to target your ads to show up for specific keywords. Additionally, you’ll be able to choose the kind of customer you want to reach by selecting “interests” that your ad relates to.
Best practices on using Quora for brands
In an age when customers are growing increasingly tired of traditional marketing campaigns, advertising teams need to think outside of the box.
Successful promotion isn’t just about disrupting your audience and dragging them to your website anymore. You need to find your customers, wherever they are and deliver the kind of value that makes them want to follow you. Quora is a great tool for this type of marketing since you’re demonstrating value when you create detailed answers to audience questions. It’s important to remember that the mission on Quora is to answer questions meaningfully rather than just blasting an advertising message to as many users as possible. This means you’ll need to spend a bit of time getting to understand the nuances of this platform’s community.
So, how do you get started?
1. Create a brilliant bio
No matter which social platform you’re using, a great profile is always essential. Quora is somewhat unique in that you can’t create a profile for a brand in most cases, only individuals. You’ll need to identify who in your organization will be posting answers.
Quora shows the first 50 characters in your profile as a tagline above each answer you give. It’s a good idea to include your company name here, so readers can see where you come from. Your full bio can also include clickable links. While it’s essential to use these links sparingly, they help drive traffic back to your most useful website-based resources.
If your brand focuses on multiple niches, create topic-specific bios. For instance, you might have one bio that demonstrates your expertise as a healthcare marketer and one where you thrive as a personal trainer. To create topic-specific bios click on your profile page. In the right-hand side, you’ll see the Knows About column.
Next to each topic you choose, you’ll be able to describe your experience in that area. Once you’re finished proving that you know your stuff, fill out the rest of your Quora profile with:
- Your interests: Make sure they relate to your business or specialist area.
- A detailed “About Me” section: Include information that shows your thought leadership. Add links to your website (sparsely) if it means you can offer greater context.
- Your employment and education credentials
- Your location or the cities that you visit regularly
- An eye-catching profile picture. A clean head and shoulders shot is often the best choice for professionals.
A complete bio helps you to get found on Quora and it also makes you seem more credible when you answer.
2. Track relevant topics with notifications
One of the best ways to use Quora for marketing is to conduct research.
You’ll be able to learn about what people in your industry are saying, track topics and have questions sent to your inbox. To begin, type a keyword into Quora’s search box that you want to follow.
Quora delivers a list of autocompleted topic suggestions for you to explore. When you click through to a topic page, you’ll also see another list of related topics at the side.
Hit the Follow button to start following a topic. You’ll also need to make sure that your email notifications are set up correctly if you want to get alerts. Go to your Settings page and click on Emails & Notifications. You’ll be able to choose the frequency and types of emails you get from Quora.
3. Find the right questions to answer
An essential part of learning how to use Quora for marketing involves knowing which questions to answer. There are millions of queries floating around on the platform today. However, not all of them will deliver value for your business.
After all, you want to show people that you’re an expert in a specific space.
One of the easiest ways to find relevant questions is to type a keyword into the query box at the top of the platform and select Search. Once you’ve brought up a list of questions, filter your results to queries from the last month or so. You’ll want to focus on topics that are relevant right now both to get visibility and add your authoritative voice to completely new discussions.
To get the most out of your Quora marketing strategy and build brand presence:
- Choose topics that fit your business: Look for terms that you’ve written about recently, or a problem that your product/service solves. Any question that you answer with meaningful stats and case studies is excellent for social proof.
- Find threads with a lot of upvotes: When you’re browsing through Quora, you’ll see an Upvotes section under each question. Threads with a lot of upvotes often have the most views. If you give an insightful answer, it may get thousands of views a day.
- Answer new questions too: Don’t focus exclusively on the most popular queries. You’ll have a greater chance of filling your profile with evidence of your knowledge if you answer new questions early.
4. Answer questions with passion and authority
Once you’ve found questions that are relevant to your business, make sure that your answers stand out. One or two sentences on “How to use Pinterest” won’t impress anyone. However, an insightful response with links to relevant content on your blog, case studies and statistics demonstrates your thought leadership.
Remember, show your passion for the topic and don’t be afraid to let your brand’s unique tone of voice shine through. If you’re trying to appeal to a younger audience, you might even try Quora’s version of emojis.
One of the easiest ways to construct a fantastic answer is to pull snippets from the content you’ve already created. Grab a crucial quote from a recent article and expand on it, complete with a link back to your site. Here’s a great example of a useful answer:
If it’s helpful, add an image to your answer too. Graphs and charts are excellent at capturing attention. Remember, people follow visual instructions up to 323% better than written ones.
5. Connect with other Quora users
Quora isn’t just a search engine; it’s a social media platform. That means you need to be “social” with it. When learning how to use Quora for marketing, don’t forget about the importance of engaging with potential leads and customers.
Like most social channels, Quora allows users to communicate directly with other people. For brands, this is a great way to enrich your relationships with customers. On Quora, you might even find that people are asking questions about your specific product or company. Who better to answer those queries than a leading employee of your business?
Find people to connect with by:
- Tracking the top answers and followers of relevant topics
- Creating and contributing to boards that cover topics in your industry
- Sharing content outside of Quora that links back to your solutions in the platform
Quora is an excellent way to address any concerns or queries your customers have too. According to Sprout Social data, 55% of people call brands out to get a response or resolution. Find people talking about your company and respond to them in a meaningful way. The more value you give, the more likely it is that you can turn unhappy clients into advocates.
6. Review your analytics constantly
When you run any other social campaign, you use tools like Sprout Social and native analytics to track your results. The same rules apply to your Quora marketing strategy.
Being active on Quora is an excellent way to build credibility and thought leadership. The more answers you give, the more your presence and reputation will grow. However, you’ll also need to find out exactly what kind of impact your efforts are having. That way, you prove the ROI of your Q&A sessions.
On your Quora page, you can review all of the analytics for the questions you’ve answered. You’ll be able to track everything from how many people viewed your response, to how many upvotes you got. What’s more, when you add a tracking link to your answers, you’ll also have a way to measure how many valuable click-throughs you’re getting too.
With this information, you’ll see which questions are generating the most value for your brand. That makes it easier to determine where you’re going to continue sharing your knowledge in the future.
It’s time to start marketing on Quora
Learning how to use Quora for marketing is a fantastic supplement to any promotional strategy.
With Quora, you highlight your position as an industry thought leader, drive traffic back to your website and build valuable relationships with customers.
While there are many tricks and tips to grow your presence on Quora, the most important one to remember is that you need to deliver value. Present yourself as a helpful, knowledgeable resource and your customers will flock to you in search of answers.
Do you have a Quora marketing strategy yet? Let us know what’s worked for you in the comments below.