Being a part of a marketing department in today’s world is somewhat exhausting. All day I am stumbling, digging, tweeting, liking, and connecting. For some, this may sound like a foreign language, but for an employee in the marketing field this sounds like work, work and more work. Social media is a great and cost effective way to start growing your company brand, so I love the idea; however, there comes a point when enough is enough. I have always felt that pretty soon consumers are going to fall behind, and it will then become harder and harder to introduce any new social networking site. In other words, if another networking platform is going to try and weasel its way into the hearts of bloggers and marketers, it would have to be pretty amazing.
Although I have held this opinion for a while, I have finally found a new site that I think is absolutely worth explaining to the tweeters and stumblers out there – Quora (www.quora.com). Believe it or not, this site is not all that new; it was created in 2009 by the former CTO of Facebook, Adam D’Angelo. However, it seems that it is now finally getting more publicity. It is a site where you can ask a question and then receive an answer from a reliable source (unlike my current, less than reassuring website Wikipedia). Quora seems to pull together a lot of features that you will find on other information/social networking sites:
* Users have the ability to vote for the answers they find most relevant or most correct. This is Quora’s way of making sure the best answers are seen at the top.
* Any answer to a question will be linked to the person who answered the question.
* Anyone can make revisions to a question, and all revisions will be tracked based on who made the revision. This allows for clear and concise questions to appear on the site.
* Related questions and their answers will also be shown when typing in a question you may have.
Quora is also a service you need to sign up for, just as you would sign up for Facebook or Twitter. It is not only a place where you can find quality information, but a place where you can follow people, specific questions, or specific topics that interest you. Overall, the site offers the best of both worlds – you can make connections and show potential customers what you know.
Consider a few of the ways you can use Quora to help brand your business:
5 Ways to Use Quora to Build Your Brand
1. Ask Questions - Start by trying out the website. The world of business can be complicated, so ask your questions on Quora. Make sure your questions are intriguing and well written so that you will get a lot of feedback. Quora is a community of professionals, so they will respect the fact that you often ask quality, engaging questions. This will help your name get recognized, and it will help find you people in your field who you may want to follow. After all, if they know the answers to your questions, wouldn’t they be a good person to know?
2. Answer Questions – As either the owner of a business or someone who works in the marketing department, you should have the answers to many questions found on Quora. Search for questions in your field and prove to everybody following those topics or asking those questions that you know what you are talking about. This will further help establish your brand as something of quality.
3. Follow People, Topics, and Questions - While Twitter allows you to follow a specific person, Quora allows you to follow a person, a topic, or a question. It is a great idea to follow anything related to your businesses so that you can stay in the loop. If you do this then you will know where you should be contributing questions and answers; thus getting your brand name recognized in the right places.
4. Utilize Your Profile – Just as with most social networking sites, you will be able to set up a profile. You can add links to sites in your profile, so if you make this public you will give users easy access to your company website should they want more information from the brilliant mind behind all those brilliant questions and answers you have been posting.
5. Use Others Advice - Spend some time looking at what other experts are saying about their field. Chances are you will be able to gather a few tips about how to brand your business. Indirectly, this is using Quora to help brand your business!
Just as I had suspected, a great site stayed quiet for about two years because there was so much hype around other networking sites. However, now that the business world has StumbleUpon and Digg figured out, it makes sense that a new site enters the picture. Although this may add a little bit more connecting, linking, and following into my job, Quora certainly seems to be worth the extra effort.
About The Author
Amanda DiSilvestro is an expert writer on company credít cards based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as commercial auto insuránce. You can find more of her articles as well as vendors comparisons for your small business needs at Resource Nation or Business.com.
I’ve been reading and commenting on a few SEO-related blogs recently, and noticed something that is both frustrating for me and counter-productive for the sites I am commenting on. On almost every good-quality blog I have visited, my comments have gone into moderation rather then going live straight away. Obviously this is incredibly important if you get a high level of traffic and therefore lots of spam, and don’t want to subject your visitors to a barrage of useless comments when they visit. However, it can also present a barrier to sharing content, and there are ways of avoiding this.