Bidding Farewell to “Wiki Answers” on Quora

What is ‘Answer Wiki’ on Quora?

To all the Marketing Geniuses and Quora wizards out there, “Wiki Answers” needs no introduction, but for regular users, let me introduce my old friend. 

“Wiki Answers” in layman terms is an answer shown right above user answers on Quora, much like a summary or consolidation of the user-written answers for people to skim through and get a gist of all the answers. The introduction of Answer Wiki was to provide the Quora community with an avenue to collaborate and create in unison a single inclusive answer. This feature of Quora works best in scenarios such as:

1. A suggestion based answer like movie recommendations, books to read, etc. 
2. Where all the answers, essentially point to one conclusive answer. 
3. Where every answer points out a different perspective.

‘Wiki Answers’ are Useful For?

Though designed for the community to collaborate, one set of people found wiki answers particularly useful for their purpose – Digital Marketers. Quora is a platform with tons of questions pouring in and tons getting answered every day and the majority of these users? Millennials, of course. 

If an apple were to fall on a millennial’s head today, I’m pretty sure he/she would hit up Quora first. Phew, how times have changed, right Einstein?

How ‘Answer Wiki’ Feature Was Useful?

The user base and the nature of wiki answers presents Digital Marketers with a unique proposition – Get the visibility you couldn’t have gotten with a regular answer while not spending a dime on ads. The perfect blend, I’d say and so did many digital marketers like me. And part of the reason why we don’t see it anymore is also us. I’ll get to that in a minute. 

It was the trump card for all marketers to reach the people who were actively asking or answering questions relevant to their or the client’s brand. Find popular questions, create a Wiki Answer, plug in your brand at the right places and bias the answer in your favor ever so slightly to get through Quora’s screening process and you’re good to go. It proved to be a good channel for branding and drive quality traffic to the website. The best part? It worked. It worked so well that wiki answers became the go-to platform for marketers to position their brand in front of the right audience.   

Is the ‘Answer Wiki’ Feature Discontinued By Quora?

Unlike every happily-every-after-story – this one isn’t happy. At least for the marketing gurus. I woke up today morning to discover that Quora has taken down the option to create an ‘Answer Wiki’ for any particular question. When something works for someone, others replicate. It’s bound to happen, but with wiki answers, we just couldn’t limit its abuse. To combat this, Quora even employed a strict screening process, which even took a whole week sometimes, to approve the answer. But with good content writers, you could slip your brand through the cracks and finally get published gaining access to limitless views and impressions. 

As a marketer, I’d sometimes wonder, why does Quora need Quora Ads and Wiki Answers separately when almost all the users of wiki answers are marketers themselves. 

And to top it off, wiki answers were free to use.  

I bet Quora thought the same too. 

Good Bye ‘Wiki Answers’

It was shocking to see the option to create wiki answers completely gone one morning. Like all good things come to an end, I think Wiki Answers, too have reached the end of the line. Or is it just a glitch? I do wish it reappears tomorrow morning like nothing ever happened. 

But if it’s a goodbye, I just want to say – we had a good run Wiki Answers. So long, my friend. See you on the other side.

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