“So…we know we need to do social media, but where do we start?” It’s a question that crops up a lot. The answer changes every time, according to who your audiences are and how they like to spend their time online.
“Is it really just Twitter and Facebook?” The answer is an emphatic “no”. Emerging platforms and niche communities can provide fantastic loci for devoted consumers and interesting discussions about your brand.
Exhibit A: Quora.
The platform’s inception generated a lot of buzz a few years ago, touted as a spectacular Frankenstein of social media platforms – with the “follow” aspect of Twitter, the community traits of Facebook, and the voting and competitive spirit of Digg – all packaged with remarkable SEO, a high quality of information and the refreshing authenticity of real people using real names.
Let’s dissect this “potentially world-changing idea” and why these ingredients matter to your marketing strategy.
Bill Gates, back in 1996, coined the phrase “content is king” which remains a golden rule among site developers today (click the link for a nifty infographic from ReadWriteWeb). This is where Quora kicks butt. The Q&A-ish platform allows user to post questions whose answers are then peer-reviewed, peer edited and voted more- or less-useful by discerning followers. Quora prides itself on sourcing information from experts who eagerly provide checks and balances for each other. Twitter doesn’t allow you to filter out the useless responses. Yahoo! Answers doesn’t ensure your question is answered by the top six most capable experts. Quora offers insight from industry leaders and practitioners across many, many industries.
“So what kind of information are we talking about?” Gems, my friend.
The inside perspective:
Say you want to find out what your employees are saying about your work environment. You could type #linkedin into a Twitter search and sift through the millions of users sharing their latest purchases/sales, or you could hop on Quora, type ‘linkedin’ into the search bar and choose from a list of discussions with titles like “working at LinkedIn” and “which is better to work at as a software engineer, Google or LinkedIn”. You’ll most likely find in-depth, considerate responses from readers using their real names and job titles – wheat from the chaff.
…And outside:
As a marketing professional, Quora also provides you with a vast and – again, in-depth – resource for listening to what influential voices are saying about your company. *Disclaimer* – I say “influential” tentatively. Influence is currently a fiery topic being debated in media evaluation circles, so for now, it’s up to you to decide whose voices you find most influential. Take this into consideration though: founders and CEOs of companies including Wikipedia, Spotify, Netflix, Mozilla, Instagram, Expedia, and AOL (among many others) all post answers within their respective areas of expertise on Quora. Follow them for industry insight, engage with them to widen your network, and check out who they follow and whose ideas they respect. In networking terms, if LinkedIn Answers is the caffeine-fuelled, business-card wielding, east-coast MBA grad of online networks, Quora is its west coast, tech-saavy, maté-drinking, doctoral cousin. And who doesn’t like to build business relationships over a maté?
Building relationships and profiles:
Quora also offers the opportunity for your spokespeople to build their influence, with a resultant positive impact on the effectiveness of your PR activity. When your CEO/ founder is active on Quora, he/she builds a profile that highlights his/her expertise and allows followers to gain insight into not only their professional but also personal interests. For example, Jonah Peretti, CEO/founder of BuzzFeed, engages in discussions of industry insight but also offers up his experiences in the thread: “What does manatee meat taste like?”. If I was trying to get an interview, I’d bring up the manatee.
And as Matt Ingram of GigaOM and Alexia Tsotsis of Techcrunch write, Quora is the platform to keep an eye on at the moment. It recently secured investments in the ballpark of $50 million, implying there’s something neat about to kick off. Ingram quotes Quora co-founder Adam D’Angelo and writes:
“D’Angelo has said that one of the reasons Quora raised the funding is so that it would have more “runway,” or room to prove itself and its concept before it has to start making money. And it’s clear, based on interviews with the founders, that the company sees what it is building as a potentially world-changing idea”.
Whether you’re new to social media or jaded from too many conversations about too many ‘up-and-coming’ platforms and apps and ways to connect, Quora is inviting, addicting, and particularly insightful. Setting up an account is quick and easy. Start by making a list of all of the brands, people, and topics that you want to follow. Get a few colleagues on board, and spend some time building your profiles – specifying which topics you’re interested in and declaring your areas of expertise. Then sign up for a customisable daily alert to be sent to your inbox with the most relevant conversations for your brand.
Check it out and see what people are saying about your brand … and leave a little browsing time for a few Quora gems as well.
