Internet completely change our lives. When we want any information and answers to our questions, what do you do? Just ask Google and hope there’s a direct answer? Filter search results to find the relevant answer? And when you find one, how you get to know that it’s the correct one? If you find yourself in this difficult situation, which is common one. At this situation, consider looking into Quora.
Quora is an engaging site that feels like duet of search engine and social media network, but its purpose is to give you the answers and allow you to answer the questions asked by others of subjects in which you’re knowledgeable.
Introduction
In simple words, Quora is a question and answer website founded by two ex-Facebook employees in 2009. Quora has seen huge growth since its beginning, when it’s described as, “a more organized Yahoo Answers, a classier Reddit and an opinionated Wikipedia” according to Vox’s Recode journalist, Theodore Schleier.
In 2018, Quora has more than 300 million active monthly users.
Is Quora a Genuine source?
Quora’s function is quite simply, you can post questions to get answers or provide answers to questions asked by others. Now, the main concern about is whether the information found here is actually genuine, or completely correct. Luckily, many of the industry experts often use Quora to provide the answers, so don’t hesitate about that.
How to Start with Quora?
Let us show you the steps to getting started for success with Quora:
- Sign up on Quora
- Fill your profile details
- Know your feed
- Learn about the options of question and answer post
- Have fun with Spaces
- Ask questions, Give Answers
Sign up
First, Sign up on Quora, you can signup with your Google, Facebook account, or by simple email sign up.
Once you have sign up, next it will ask you to choose upto 10 topics in which you’re interested and have expertise. These will be used to generate your feed. The next step is to join some Spaces groups. After these steps, you’ll be presented with your feed.
Complete your profile
On the internet, a complete profile is a must. Quora, since being a credible source for answers is very important, completing your profile to the best of your ability is more important than compared to other social networks.
To complete Quora profile, you have to fill out different sections, i.e. your profile photo, bio description and profile credential, which can be viewed as your primary industry or sector you have an expertise in or your job title. All these will be shown when someone views your profile.
Addition to this, you’ll find two additional sections on the right hand side, for adding information about your employment, education, and location credentials.
Know your Quora feed
Your Quora feed is best places to find questions about topics you care about. In the beginning, your feed will only include topics that you have selected while sign up, but you can add more. Simply search for the topic in search box at the top of Quora any time, select it to open its page and click “follow”, simple! The same goes for unfollowing a topic, just open page of the topic you’re following and click on the blue marked “follow” button, to unfollow!
Your feed has a lot more than just the topics you follow. You can also discover other people on Quora, as well as Spaces to follow in your feed. In addition to these, you’ll also see suggested questions for you to answer, in which you can answer, pass, or follow them. You can also see the questions that have already been answered and you can then up vote, share, and comment on them.
Set Up Your Account
If you’re new on Quora, feed will also have an additional section on the right, containing a list of tips of using Quora. This section is called as “Set Up Your Account”. This list contains the following:
- Visit your feed
- Follow 5 spaces
- Follow 6 topics
- Upvote 5 good answers
- Ask your first question
- Add 3 credentials
- Answer a question
Learn about options of question and answer post
Get answers to the questions is main function of Quora, so it’s smart to know all the options for the questions posted.
Questions
First and foremost option, you can answer a question. In addition to answering the question, you can follow the question. You can also click the “request” option, after that you can search for someone having knowledge of topic and request the selected person to answer the question.
Above options are the most important ways to interact with a question, but here are some more options:
- Answer later
- Leave a comment
- Follow the question privately
- Share on social networks or copy the link
- Get notified about edits to the question
- Edit the question and source
- Edit topics
- Merge questions
- View stats and log them
- Report
Answers
Answers are displayed below the questions on Quora. Like questions, answers also have set of options.
You want to find the most appropriate answer for a given and upvoting it. Upvotes will change the placement of the answer, and the answer having most upvotes will be placed directly below the question and considered as best answer.
Primary functions for answers are to upvote, share, comment and downvote. Additional to these options, some more are:
- Bookmark
- Promote
- Suggest edits
- Thanks
- Logs
- Report
Have fun with Spaces
Quora announced a new feature called Spaces on November 7th, 2018. Spaces are referred as, “collections and communities created around shared interests and tastes.”
Users can follow any specific spaces to discover new questions and answers related to the topic.
Spaces can be satisfying, as you’re a part of a community whom is interested in the same topic and you may ask questions you want to know about. Users following a Space can post relevant links to share with other followers.
Ask questions, Give answers
You can use Quora to search for the answers of questions already asked by people. Still, you can ask questions, for what Quora is for. Also, you need to give answers to the questions, showing your expertise on a subject your knowledgeable and passionate about. More questions you answer, the more you will build reputation for being the expert that you are!
Moreover, be thankful to the users that provide informative and well-written answers. If you see an answer which factual, informative and well written, be sure to upvote it and thanks the user.