From Passive Scrolling to Active Engagement: Quora’s Role in Today’s Marketing Landscape
By: Cory Halberstadt, Platforms Senior Supervisor, Social Media
As marketers, it’s crucial to constantly be exploring new opportunities and platforms, to think outside the box, and continuously find ways to test into new audiences. Quora is a platform that is often overlooked in social media marketing plans, and can offer a window of opportunity for brands that choose to harness its potential. Quora has seen incredible growth over the past several years, with over 400+ million monthly users as of 2023. The platform straddles both social and search and can be used for B2B and B2C alike. In all likelihood you have probably been on Quora and don’t even know it.
What is Quora? Quora is a question-and-answer platform where users can ask questions on various topics, and other users provide answers that can then be upvoted or downvoted based on quality. It covers a wide range of subjects, and people use it to seek information, share knowledge, and engage in discussions with a global community. The user behavior on Quora is different from the typical passive feed scrolling observed on most social platforms, resembling the intent users display while using a search engine. Powerful, yes? With a growing amount of people being ad adverse, advertisers need to find new ways to natively reach people. Quora is a great example of a platform that blends together push and pull advertising, enabling native relevancy.
While a question and answer platform may not seem like an exciting addition at first glance, Quora’s user community is composed of professionals actively researching a multitude of subjects, and brands can use this to their benefit by positioning themselves and their products as the solution to this quest for information. Quora simplifies driving business objectives, whether the aim is to enhance visibility, boost website traffic, or effectively target and convert leads – the platform has brands covered with 4 different types of targeting and 5 ad formats.
Quora’s targeting options include – contextual, audience, behavioral, and broad. Allowing advertisers to target specific topics and questions, Quora’s contextual targeting allows advertisers to be featured alongside questions that include designated keywords. Audience targeting allows brands to target CRM lists, create lookalikes and also retarget users, while behavioral targeting is based on user interests and historical actions like keyword and question history. Lastly, broad targeting serves ads based on location and device. While not as niche as other targeting tactics on the platform, this targeting offers the most scale
Similar to other social platforms, Quora also has traditional ad formats such as text, static, video, and lead generation. Quora’s best kept creative secret however is one of their most powerful native ad units: the promoted answer. Promoted Answers enable brands to communicate in-depth details about a product or service, surpassing the character limits of standard ad copy. These ads encourage interaction through upvotes, comments, and follows, serving as a valuable tool to foster engagement. Businesses and employees can effectively participate in, guide discussions, and provide thought leadership related to their brand using these ad units.
Quora also provides brands a platform to have an organic presence and showcase thought leadership. Brands are able to establish a business profile on Quora where they can not only respond to questions within their expertise, but can also gain insights into the interests of their target audiences, participate in discussions, and shape decisions by promoting answers to various audiences and topics – blending together organic and paid opportunities.
Despite its vast user base and unique value proposition, Quora remains an underrated and often overlooked platform for both B2B and B2C advertisers. Unlike mainstream social media channels where content is predominantly personal or entertainment-based, Quora is fundamentally a knowledge-sharing platform where professionals, experts, and curious individuals converge to ask and answer questions.
More and more brands are discovering the untapped opportunities within Quora. From finding new customers to driving lifts in awareness and increases in ROI. We have seen it first hand with brand awareness metrics as well as increases in ROI, that are crushing client goals.
With the continued expansion of Quora’s user base coupled with their dedication to creating new functionalities, Quora is a force to be reckoned with. The internet is filled with ads, so positioning your brand to help potential customers find a way to solve a problem, or being there when they need help can be a powerful way to enhance your marketing efforts.
