Five Reasons Why Your Company Should Have a Quora Account

Since it was founded the social Q&A site Quora has mostly been restricted to individual users. This year a handful of companies were allowed to have company accounts for an experimental period. Now Quora has opened up company accounts to most businesses. According to the Quora announcement, to qualify for a company account "your company must have at least three employees and a mature and built-out website".

But why should a company have an account on Quora? Here are five good reasons:

Brand Protection. First of all if you don't create an account someone with the same of a similar name might occupy the space. Quora is ranked highly by Google so pages on the site appear quite high in search results. Even if you don't plan to apply much effort to the site it is still prudent to register an account early so that you get the username and URL you want.

Market Intelligence. People often wonder what people are thinking about their products and pay market research companies to conduct surveys. But you can also pick up some useful information about your company, your brands, your products and your services through the conversations on Quora. You can watch the content added by users spontaneously or even post your own questions to spark an interaction.

Crisis Management. Quorans frequently post "Is it true that..." type questions. When these questions concern your company one way to slow false rumors quickly is to post an "official" answer on Quora. This is likely to rise to the top of the answer pile and be recognized as an authoritative answer. This use of Quora for damage control is more important than it appears because Quora content often appears in Google searches, so the impact goes beyond the boundaries of the site, ibfluencing non users.

Recruiting. Quora provides an interesting environment for recruiters because many of the questions are about finding work and how to do interviews. This is an opportunity for companies to respond directly to questions about their company, their recruiting, their interviews and their workplace culture. It's also an opportunity to engage in conversations with people who might be interesting for recruitement.

Media Relations. Quora content also impacts coverage in traditional media. First of all some journalists post questions on the site and use the answers either directly or to identify contacts. Wearing my freelance hat I have done this many times. Some content is also republished directly by Quora's media partners, Time, Forbes, Inc, Newsweek and others. Quora answers -- especially ones about current events -- are also picked up by journalists looking for expert or first person comments about events.

Apart from these five cases, the final compelling reason why companies should consider having a Quora account is that the site offers a relatively safe environment. There is some trolling and there is some harassment, but the site's very strict "BNBR" -- Be Nice Be Respectful -- policy means that all disrespectful, spammy or trolling content can be reported and will be removed. Users who break this rule are also suspended or banned.


Lectures, Workshops, Coaching and Writing

 If you would like to talk to Andrew Hennigan about lectures, workshops, coaching and writing about digital marketing and other communication topics you can reach him by email at speaker@andrewhennigan.com, by phone on  0046 730 894 475 and through his website http://andrewhennigan.com

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