Quora, the online crowdsourced question and answer site, is proving to be a valuable tool for my own blog post research and general brainstorming. The site does have its own conventions, and I've discovered a few tips for getting the best reponses to a question.
Of course, as with any social media site, it's a good rule of thumb to listen and observe first. Try answering a few questions before posing your own, and don't be stingy with responses before asking for insights from others.
A few additional tips:
- Choose appropriate categories and tag your question. Users follow categories they are interested in. For example, I follow Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Management, Podcasting, Twitter and iPhone (for now--more to come). See below the user tagged her question with Social Media and Philanthropy & Charities, so any user tracking those tags will be more likely to see her question.
And we can see from this question's Question Stats in the right hand sidebar that 25,163 people are following those topics, leading to the question having been viewed 360 times. - In conjuction with #1, follow relevant topics. On your account page, click either Suggest Topics or Find Topics and do a quick search for your three favorite topics. As with the rest of social media, making valuable contributions to others' discussions returns value to you in the long run.
- Add your one-line bio. The one-line bio appears immediately to the right of your name when you post an answer to a question. Make it succint, precise or funny--it's up to you. But use it to give some context to the advice or insight you are giving whenever you answer a question.
- Share your profile on Twitter and Facebook. Quora is still relatively new, so be a thought leader by promoting your questions on your established social media sites.
- Vote up responses. Next to each response, Quora provides an opportunity to vote the answer up. In addition to providing additional feedback and replies, vote for answers to your own questions as well as to those posed by others.
- Thank your responders. Quora provides a link to Send Thanks for users who post relevant insights in response to your questions. Be consistent and thank any user who provides a response you find helpful.