How Quora went Viral and what we can Learn

Quora is a site for users to ask and answer questions. The content are created and curated by its users. A ‘”Q&A wiki with digg”, some might call it.

Quora was opened to beta testers in December 2009 and was opened to the public late June last year. But the service only got popular in the last two weeks. So why is there a sudden hype?

Sysomos analyzed all the Quora related buzz across blogs, forums, news and Twitter and found that the micro-blog has contributed significantly to the volume.

But surely someone influential must have started talking about Quoro before it went viral on Twitter. That someone turned out to be Techcrunch. MG Siegler wrote a blog post, which talked about the cause and effect of Quora on blogging. That article is believed to have caused the explosion. It probably has as Techcrunch is smacked right at the center of the Quora conversation network.

Buzz across different platforms

Quora conversation network

The buzz is loud, yes. But that isn’t the only factor that has made Quora wildly viral. Majority of the users actually like the service. Sysomos’s sentimental analysis has shown that 52 percent of the voices are positive while only 13 percent are negative.

“I like Quora. It’s a great way to learn. The other day I learned why Twitter is so popular in Japan. It turned out that Japanese could express more with 140 characters because of their Japanese characters compared to English,” Aaron Lee said when asked about his thoughts on Quora’s service. Aaron is also one of the influencers who has promoted Quora on Twitter.

What can we learn?

There are two things. First it’s about impressing the influencers. Quora didn’t pay Techcrunch. It just happened that Siegler likes Quora’s service. For digital marketers, it is important to identify and reach out to influencers to quicken the process. Pure pushing of content is going to take a long time before the influencers notice your product. But don’t be too pushy with it.