By Chris Lee

Have you used Quora yet? Have you even heard of Quora? Quora is a social questions and answers website, enabling users to ask questions of the user base and benefit from the collective knowledge of people willing to commit their time and expertise to answer.

The site, which became available for public use in June 2010, certainly has a number of rivals in the guise of LinkedIn Answers, Yahoo Answers, Facebook Questions and Answers.com, all of which enable users to crowdsource solutions to problems from other contributors. Quora’s key point of difference is the ability of its users to create a consensus via “upvoting”, “downvoting” and suggesting edits to answers.

Quora’s founder, former Facebook chief technology officer Adam D’Angelo, said in an interview earlier this year that questions and answers “is one of those areas on the Internet where there are a lot of sites, but no one had come along and built something that was really good yet."

Key concerns for business

Drew Benvie, managing director of digital agency 33 Digital, believes that brands are being discussed on Quora whether they like it or not, and as a result their products, spokespeople and competitors are part of the network and the results are appearing high in search engine results. As such, PR people need to listen and advise on engagement, he told NMK.

“There are three areas to focus on which are the bare essentials for brands: reputation management, crowdsourcing information and profile-building,” Benvie said.

For Ged Carroll of PR consultancy Ruder Finn, Quora does not have the same hype that Twitter did when it began to take off and with around 1.5 million unique visitors a month should not be considered mainstream just yet. But Quora does present opportunities for brand managers.

“The first opportunity is research and insight; Quora provides unprompted feedback. You can see how much your offering is recommended against others and get qualitative data on how your brand is perceived,” Carroll said. “It is also a great place for employees to act as ambassadors where they declare their affiliation. There is an incremental SEO benefit from backlinks and attribution because the content should be highly relevant. Whilst Quora has disabled accounts of brands on Quora, there is a place for prominent employees to fly the flag, but within the spirit of Quora’s terms and conditions.”

Engage

Quora is a great place for brands to map out key audiences and influencers, according to Rax Lakhani, director of social media consultancy Onlinefire.  Lakhani argues that using Quora as a search engine throws up interesting results – not just in terms of what is being asked about a particular brand – but also who is asking the questions.

“Companies should include Quora into their current reactive social media offering; responding to questions openly and honestly as and when they are asked. Don’t rely on strangers passing on correct information about your brand,” he warned. “As a brand manager you have the opportunity to engage with new and existing customers directly. Don’t be afraid to answer tricky, uncomfortable questions either. Sometimes, honesty and openness can go a long way in changing brand perceptions.”

Beth Carroll, head of social media at consultancy Threepipe agrees.

“Companies who already have an agency or team responsible for monitoring and managing social media communities should look to champion someone within the team to respond to questions on Quora as part of the wider social media strategy. In terms of time management, this would not add greatly to work load and you can even include links to other posts you have written to save duplicating content,” she told NMK.

The next big thing in social media?

So, despite the amount of excitement Quora has generated within social media marketing circles, is it ever likely to go mainstream? 33 Digital’s Benvie says no.

“Quora isn’t the new Twitter and it certainly won’t change the social media landscape any time soon. It is a slow burn, but will have a lasting impact either directly or through its legacy. It has shown there is a demand for its unique blend of social media,” he concluded.