Quora Emailed My Answer to 100,000 People: Here’s What Happened

I’ve been running a few content distribution experiments on Quora lately.

I’m new to posting in Quora. I only began using it as a content distribution tactic about a month ago. Quora lured me to pay more attention to their platform by, well, paying me. Literally.

It all started when I received an unusual notification that I’d been invited to become a “Quora Partner.”

A what, now?

After some Googling, I learned that Quora Partners are users who’ve been randomly selected to get paid to ask interesting questions.

(Now you see why I started looking more closely into the platform.)

Quora Partners are paid based on the reach of their questions. So, how many people have seen your questions, not necessarily how many you ask.

As you can see, my new career as a Quora Partner is going well:

Content marketing on Quora

Despite all that big money *sarcasm* I could be earning asking questions, I’ve instead doubled down on answering other people’s questions. More specifically, I’ve been using Quora as a content distribution technique to drive traffic my clients’ blog posts.

Here’s the high-level, super-simplified version of how content distribution on Quora works:

1. Create a high-quality blog post. (The article you want to distribute.)
2. While the topic is still fresh on your mind, go to Quora.
3. Search for questions along the topic you just wrote about.
4. Answer each question in a way that drives real value to the reader.
5. At the end of your response, find a non-salesy way to link your original article. (Like you’re just citing your sources.)

If your response is popular, you may drive some traffic back to your original blog. Plain and simple.

But sometimes the Quora algorithm likes to turn things up a notch…

How my answer was emailed to 100,000 people on Quora

One of my answers has been featured three times — read it: thrice — in Quora Digest.

What is Quora Digest?

There’s not a lot on the internet about Quora Digest. As far as I understand it, Quora Digest is a topically-segmented newsletter. When a Quora writer — like yours truly — gives a popular answer to a question, an algorithm kicks in that sends that answer, via email, to users who’ve shown interest in that topic.

Got it? On with the story.

One of my answers got a little traction on Quora. The next day, I received a notification that that answer had been emailed to 1,000+ people on Quora Digest.

As you’d expect, I was excited.

A few days later, I got a similar notification about the same post: My answer had been emailed to 11,000+ Quora Digest subscribers.

And finally, a few weeks ago I received another notification that my answer had been emailed to 100,000+ Quora Digest subscribers!

Wait, what?!

But… there’s a sad ending to this story.

Being featured in Quora Digest, for my answer, turned out to be more hype than measurable views. According to my Quora analytics, my featured answer has been viewed 1,160 times. Most of those readers found the answer before it was sent to 100,000 in Quora Digest.

(471 people have read the answer since it was sent to the email list.)

Is that good? Bad?

Was I ripped off?

I assume that views within Quora Digest don’t show up in my analytics, since these answers appear in the body of an email. All I know is that my linked article didn’t suddenly gain an enormous tidal wave of traffic like I would have expected.

In the end, getting my Quora answer emailed to 100,000 people turned out to be nothing more than a fun story to tell.

At least I still have my Quora Partner dollars to keep the bills paid. (Oh, wait…)

Have you been featured in Quora Digest? What were your results?

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This article was originally published by Lewis Commercial Writing.

P.S. The content distribution experiments don’t stop here. Learn about my latest findings here.