June 22, 2023

Looking for a new way to reach out to customers and find new leads? It is clear to you that your audience is not only on Facebook or Google but you are not sure where to focus? You have heard about Quora but you don’t know how it can help you to reach your business goals? Worry not. In this article, I am going to show you how you can reach out to this audience.

 

First things first - What is Quora?

 

Quоrа іѕ an оnlіnе community-driven Question & Answer (Q&A) rероѕіtоrу wіth overflowing іnfоrmаtіоn thаt іѕ of interest to many реорlе and mаnу different interests. Quоrа іѕ useful to all dіffеrеnt businesses. Quora was founded in 2010 and has gained a solid reputation as a good community-driven Q&A engine. They’ve built a network of “experts,” essentially crowdsourcing the best answers to questions.

On Quora, the queries range from “Where is Africa?”, “How is coffee marketed?” to “How to use social media and gain new customers?”. With over 300 million monthly users, Quora can be a powerful platform for reaching your brand’s audience.

With Google being the search engine of all search engines, seeing that it ranks Quora content so highly is a good sign. 

So, you decided that you want to give it a try? Let’s start! 

First, you have to appoint one person from your team to monitor what goes on on the platform. It's better to use your personal authority and indirectly benefit your business brand. Usually, it’s the community manager that does this but if you are a small business you can also do it by yourself (also, please note that it will consume a lot of your time). You should monitor competition, questions, and topics closely related to your brand and you should be ready to jump into the conversation whenever you think it’s the right fit. If you want to leverage Quora for your business, you will need to answer lots of relevant questions and establish yourself as an authority and a product expert. 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.

Then, you should create a profile and optimize it by putting a clear CTA, a short description about who they are/where they work (here you should insert a link of your company), and name your accomplishments if you have any. 

Once you finish setting up your profile, you can start exploring Quora. In Quora, any question has a list of topics that are associated with it. If you are interested in a particular topic, a great way to start is by searching for relevant keywords in the area you want to write in. For example, I am interested in Digital Marketing, so I am following topics like Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, SEO, Affiliate Marketing, and so on. 

Also, you can view the most viewed writers on that particular topic and then start following them.

 

Apart from Topics, there are also Spaces on Quora. Spaces are more like a Group (with an admin, moderator, contributor). Spaces can be around topics, products, or even companies. You can follow Spaces that are relevant to your interests and then “share” into these Spaces after you finish writing an answer. It is very important to share your answers in different spaces in order to gain more views on your answers.

Once you set up your profile, define the topics you want to write in and spaces you want to be part of, it’s time to start answering questions.

Under the Answers tab at the top, you will see Quora’s recommendations (based on topics you are frequently answering or spaces you are a part of). 

Choose the question that you can give the best possible advice and also check the statistics of the question to see when it was last viewed, how many followers it has etc. 

Before you answer your first question, make sure to set your credential on your answer in order to increase your exposure to the brand you want to get out there. You can set several credentials and choose them according to the question you are answering.

The more you answer questions around a certain topic, the more you can become a thought leader in that specific topic area and the more other Quorans will request answers from you. Quora will even notify you if you become part of the top ten most viewed writers in a certain topic area which can help with exposure and people reaching out to you.

Whenever you write an answer, you will be able to see at the bottom of your answer the total views, how many people have “upvoted” you (indicating they liked the content), and how many Spaces the answer has been shared to. 

 

10 Tips on Writing an ideal answer on Quora

1. Use personal experiences: Use a reference to personal experience to explain a principle or a story around your answer. Answers like this build credibility, feel authentic and are more enjoyable to read, and thus typically get better engagement. I personally love reading Flavian Mwasi answers as there is always a story included. No wonder he has over 32 million views on his answers.
    
2. Use bullet points and bolding: Like any social channel, many people will just view your answer for a few seconds. Make sure your answers pass the skim test. Using bolding and italicizing to heighten emphasis around key points.
    
3. Avoid excessive linkings: The general rule of thumb is to not include links to the same domain more than three times per answer and to write up answers without links at 3-4x the rate you write up answers with links. If answers are seen as too self-promotional, they will get removed and you will lose the views. If you have repeated infractions, you can be permanently banned.  
    
4. Break up the content every 3-4 sentences at most: Don’t write long paragraph blocks of text. Split up your answers visually. 
    
5. Use images: Answers that use images throughout typically tend to perform better. However, if any of the answers to the same questions use images then it’s better not to use them so that you can stand out from the crowd. 
    
6. Longer answers tend to perform better: Always write longer answers of 500+ words because they tend to perform best. If your answer is too short it can be seen as spammy and it can collapse.
    
7. Be informal: Use a friendly and explanatory tone. This should not be like a formal blog post. 
    
8. Pay attention to grammar (proofread before you submit): Basic spelling or grammar errors are a surefire way to get people to take your answers less seriously. Make sure you proofread after composing each answer before you submit it. 
    
9. Avoid copying one of your Quora answers for another question: Quora detects if you do this. If you don’t cite the original answer, you can also have your answer removed and thus, lose all your answer views.
    
10. Avoid being self-promotional: It is recommended to include your service among other options, and keep the focus educational or have the link to your service naturally incorporated as part of an argument or statement and not like a sales pitch. 

 

Getting started with Quora ads

 

When it comes to deciding where to advertise online, the first platforms you’ll probably think of are Facebook and Google. However, people are coming to Quora with pointed questions they’re relying on the community to provide answers to. And if your product or business happens to be a part of that answer—hurrah!—you’ve got a perfectly organic way to insert yourself. Quora initially offers you the choice of running a conversion, app installs, traffic or awareness-focused ad. 

As Joe Martinez suggests, the first thing you should do is check if your target audience is on Quora. Adding the Quora pixel to your site is an easy way to determine whether you should be on the platform. You can see if your audience is already on Quora without having to run an ad. The good thing is that you can sign up for a Quora for Business account, start collecting audiences, and see if Quora ads are right for you without having to give up your credit card information.

Quora has advanced algorithms that are good at making sense of high-intent data. Once you set up the pixel, you will be able to upload a .CSV  file with your customer’s data and Quora will give you a look-alike audience.

They have high standards for their ads and expect them to be as high-quality as the content they appear alongside. That said, all ads must adhere to Quora Ads content policies and guidelines and should be clear, well-formatted, and free from grammatical, capitalization, and punctuation errors.

The Headline Sentence fields should be composed of a full sentence, complete with a punctuation mark. Using a full sentence is very different from what we’re accustomed to with 30-character headlines in AdWords and Bing.

• Headline Sentence: Maximum of 65 characters
• Not permitted: Looking for machine learning experts — learn more today.
• Acceptable: We are looking for machine learning experts. Learn more today.

Title case — where the first letter of every word is capitalized — should not be used unnecessarily. Actual titles (such as articles, books, and movies), which justify the use of title cases, are acceptable.

• Not permitted: Learn More About Our Services By Signing Up Today.
• Acceptable: Learn more about our services by signing up today.
• Acceptable: Buy Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone today.

If you’re unsure which topics to target, copy, and paste your top-performing keywords from AdWords, and Quora will provide suggestions for comparable topics. We recommend setting up campaigns by objective + general topic, and ad sets based on locations and devices.

You have the ability to exclude specific questions under topics. In its targeting interface, Quora reveals specific questions that fall underneath the broader topics. At the ad set level, you’ll find Quora offers the ability to exclude certain locations and questions. 

After inputting your targeting, it’s time to set up your bid. Quora gives a suggested bid, similar to Pinterest and Facebook. When a user visits an ad-eligible page on Quora, all ads are considered from all eligible advertisers based on the topic/keyword targeting of their ad sets. The winners of the auction are the ads that — according to Quora’s predictions — have the highest value for the ads slot.

How is “value” determined? Quora determines value by a combination of factors, including:

• the likelihood of the user clicking on each ad.
• the bid of each ad.
• the effect of showing each ad on the user experience.

After your ad will run, make sure to use the retargeting options around that web traffic to run conversion style ads to that same grouping. 

Image Ads give you the opportunity to stand out visually from Quora's largely text-based platform. Whether you are on Quora, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, the rules around images are the same. Use a professional photograph of the actual thing you are selling for the best results. You can read more regarding the details and specifics here. 

Also, on Quora, you can promote your answer. Below is an example:

The great part about Quora ads though is the platform is still far less competitive than places like Facebook, Twitter, or Google. You can use this to your advantage to get cheaper clicks and more eyes around your product.

Final Thought

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. Depending on your company’s sales cycle, you may need to embrace several touchpoints to stay on top of potential customers. 

Thеrе аrе many different wауѕ in which Quоrа саn bе lеvеrаgеd, no mаttеr whаt thе ѕіzе іѕ of thе buѕіnеѕѕ. With millions of members on Quora, it is a Paradise Cove for the generation of free traffic in its domain. Always look for questions to answer on Quora which suit your marketing objective, consider if you already have blog posts that answer the question a user is asking, or if not, sort and write out one that you believe gives an appropriate answer. 

As you can see, there are several clear benefits to Quora. Did you decide that you want to start using Quora for your business? Contact us now!