I'm not going to lie... I'm a bit hesitant to write about the power of Quora, because it's one of my favorite social media secrets, and I'm worried about the abuse that is highly likely to occur there once the masses figure it out.
That said, progress never came easy, and it's just a matter of time before they are flooded with the noisy nonsense, and I'm going to help you leverage your program in a way that isn't going to ruin it, but rather, contribute to what makes it so great to begin with.
The truth is that Quora is a freaking GOLD MINE if you know how to use it, and I'd love nothing more than to see you reap the rewards of my journey with it.
If you haven't been there yet, go check it out at www.quora.com. Don't expect it to take your breath away. As far as social media platforms go, it's not very pretty. But that could be because it's still somewhat new, or that it's not built to act like Facebook or the other popular mediums. It's built to act like Quora.
It is merely a forum of aggregated questions from the public and their respective answers. In there you'll find questions to everything from recipes to business strategy to start-up lessons, and more. You simply type in a phrase or keyword in the search bar, and you'll be greeted with questions related to it.
Sound interesting? Well, here are 5 reasons your business should be actively answering questions related to the problems you solve:
There's nothing more frustrating as a marketer than to create content based on misconceptions. It wastes time, and angers business owners looking for quantifiable evidence that their marketing investment is actually worthwhile, and that's not good for anybody.
By searching this forum, you'll find real questions, not just those posed by marketers trying to flood your timeline. You'll also find real answers from people who don't always know what they're talking about and maybe even some from competitors (the latter will likely be few and far between, although SOME are finding their ways there).
You can jump in to the conversation at anytime by asking more questions, providing direct responses, or both. For start-ups, this is especially helpful.
Use this information to learn about your buyer personas.
(use the buyer persona template by Orange Pegs Media to make sure you're gathering the right information).
Sometimes the other answers are more telling that the actual questions. You can find holes that help fuel the strength of your post and even attract those who think they know the answers but actually don't - to your website.
You may even find your competitors in here, and you can see how they respond.
When you're in there answering the questions, you can help people resolve their challenges by providing educational resources for them to click on and download.
If you have any content housed on your website, you can link to it with your answers.
The key to successful linking is to have answers that go beyond what you can reasonably provide in your quora post. For example, I posted an answer to the question, "Where can I get digital marketing templates?" In there I posted a direct link a template that we created for our visitors. Here I've received 122 views, which isn't bad, but it's going to be there forever, and could get views for years to come
Recently, I came across the question, "Where could I find some good persona templates online?" This one was published 3 years ago, but I saw it as an opportunity because even though it's old and there are a lot of answers, there are several dozen followers, and they are notified when somebody new responds. The results here were really interesting too.
I only posted this a few weeks ago, and so far it has driven a little traffic - 49 visitors, to be exact. The initial post brought an immediate surge, but it wasn't converting at a very high rate until the latest. We went from 0% to 8.33% to 17.56% visitors converted to leads.
Not bad, huh? And that's just one post. Imagine if you had 10 like this every month. Imagine what happens when you find a post with hundreds of followers, or if you happen to be one of the first to answer on something that goes viral, and eventually attracts thousands of followers!
Going back to the figures above, let's think about your existing lead conversion ratios. Normally, you can expect 1 - 3% on the high end for the rest of your sources if you don't have an active inbound marketing program in place. Sometimes it's quite a bit lower. In fact, most of my clients start well below .5%, but that's usually because their only conversion points are the blog sign-ups or contact us forms. Our SaaS clients also have their "buy now" and "trial" forms.
The bottom line is that these visitors are going to be your most engaged, because they are actively seeking out solutions, and you are positioning yourself as a thought leader as you send traffic to your company's website.
Numbers don't lie.
(Download Orange Pegs Media's free Marketing ROI Calculator for smarter marketing objectives)
CONCLUSION:
Quora is a fantastic new social site that is ripe with opportunity, but it requires that you follow the cardinal rules of social media, which is that you must be social. It will pay dividends, however, because the traffic you will drive will be some of the most engaged traffic that ever visits your site.
Of course, I'm always going to recommend that you have a system in place to help convert as many of those visitors into leads as possible. This is where inbound marketing will transform your posts into revenue.
What else is your social media marketing missing? Speak to a social media strategist from Orange Pegs Media today!