To cap off 2012, Quora founder Adam D’Angelo posted a few thoughts on the company’s quest to share knowledge, and where that mission would take the platform in the future. “Blogs are easy to start,” D’Angelo noted, “but unless the author is famous, it takes years to build a following.”
Last week Quora followed up with a feature to combat that very issue. Users are now able to create blogs of their own under the Quora domain. For a firsthand look, check out our blog right here. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and preliminary uses of this brand new tool.
Visibility
As the introductory post notes, “blogs on Quora are great for writers who don’t have an audience,” but is equally useful for those bloggers who already have an established audience but want to reach more people. The main benefit of Quora blogs is visibility; because the platform is organized around topics, anyone who follows a topic you write about may see your writing — unlike other platforms, whether they follow you or not doesn’t matter.
Promote posts with credits
To give your post an extra boost in terms of visibility, you can use Quora’s credit system to promote posts.
Other features
Quora blogs have a number of other features, including the ability to add multiple authors per blog, see exactly who has viewed your posts and a spiffy new mobile interface.
So, how should we use Quora blogs?
Duplicate content to reach Quora’s large and engaged audience
In the introductory blog post, Quora notes that “many bloggers already use Quora boards to re-post their blogs and expand their audience. Blogs on Quora makes this republishing experience even better.” We’ve seen a number of bloggers reposting content on Quora to gain access to this large and engaged audience. For an example, check out this post by Josh Constine, which was originally posted on TechCrunch.
…or not
Duplicate content has dangerous SEO implications, not to mention that it’s just kind of boring. Why post content that someone can find on your blog?
Creating unique content is best…but it’s not easy
Your best bet is to create unique and valuable content for Quora blog — but that’s not easy. Quora blogger Joel Postman put it pretty brilliantly:
“Owning a Quora blog is like buying a puppy or a goldfish. Sure it was cute in the window, but are you really up to the responsibility that comes with ownership? You should have some kind of editorial strategy and a commitment to publishing with a certain regular frequency. Do you have something to say?”
For a closer look at Quora blogs and how people are using the tool in its infancy, check out this recommended reading list from Marc Bodnick of the Quora business team.
