Quora is a social media website built around questions and answers. Essentially, users either ask or answer questions (or both). Like other social media sites, you need to register for a free account in order to participate. Once you become a member, you then “follow” specific topics of interest. For example, if you’re a web developer, you’d probably want to follow “web development” and “search engine optimization” topics. On the other hand, if you’re a fashion designer, you’d probably follow fashion-related topics.

In any case, once you’ve joined Quora, you can use it in several different ways. Below are a few ideas:

• Share your expertise – To start, you might want to use Quora as it was designed: for asking and answering questions. Answering questions about your area of expertise is yet another way to build your personal brand. In addition to questions and answers, Quora also has a blog feature built in. If so inclined, you could create your own Quora blog and contribute to it regularly. These blog posts are visible to the public, so blogging on Quora may be an opportunity to gain additional exposure both within the Quora community and the Internet at large. Keep in mind, however, that any content you post to Quora can be reused by others elsewhere with proper attribution. If you are uncomfortable with this, then don’t create content and post it there.

• Get ideas – Not sure what to blog about or discuss on other social networks? Quora can provide you with a wealth of potential topics. Follow all topics related to your niche and regularly log into your Quora account. You’ll be presented with dozens of burning questions that are relevant to your audience. While you could certainly answer questions as you see fit, there’s nothing stopping you from creating your own blog post around a question you find on Quora. In fact, one of the web’s biggest sites, BuzzFeed, regularly uses Quora for inspiration.

• Follow Quora blogs – By following other users’ blogs in your niche, you have yet another source of potential topic ideas as well as interesting links to share on your social networking sites. For example, if a thought leader publishes an interesting blog post on Quora, you could link to it on Facebook and start a conversation around that post. What types of thought leaders are on Quora? Naturally, it depends on your niche. However, in March, President Obama answered questions about the Affordable Care Act on Quora and movie directors make regular appearances answering questions about their upcoming films.

Finally, you can use Quora simply to have a little fun. For example, Quora’s Game of Thrones topic has over 138,000 followers asking and answering questions about HBO’s wildly popular television series.
No matter what you’re interested in, others likely share that interest on Quora. Share your expertise, get inspired, and acquire additional knowledge about the topics you’re most passionate about.