As parents we are the last to know about the hottest and most useful sites out there for parenting. It’s hard to keep up with trending social media sites since there seems to be one that pops up every other hour. Therefore I want to discuss the most important social media site that you probably have no idea that it exist. The site is called Quora. Quora is a Question and Answer platform that is a more advanced version of Yahoo Answers. Quora stared in 2009 but has recently gained a lot of popularity within the past three years. Quora currently receives over 100 million unique views a month. Based upon Alexa rankings, Quora has now become one of the most popular websites on the planet. It also doesn’t hurt when the President of the United States answer’s questions about the Iranian Nuclear Deal on Quora.
How Quora works is very simple, you ask a question and members will provide an answer. Answers will be either up voted or down voted by users based upon the merit of the answer. The beautiful thing about Quora is that the community consists of experts with years of experience within their chosen field. These are people that are CEOs, CFOs, authors, teachers, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, etc. that love to answer questions in order to demonstrate to the Quora community their level of expertise and knowledge. You are not going to get a lot of spam or bots like other sites. The people on Quora are legit. As a parent that answers questions on Quora, I have found the site to be extremely useful. Here are the top 5 reasons you should be using Quora as a parent.
1. It’s The Best Search Engine On The Web
Your child can get questions answered through any search engine. They can type in a question like Why do girls like Tall Men?and get multiple blogs with links to their promotional items but Quora actually provide answers. When you type your question into Quora’s search field, you are going to get other teens responding, parents responding, and more importantly experts within the field responding. The answers are going to come from great sources. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, you will get a search feed filled with relevant answers and questions. More importantly there is less of a chance that your child will click on a site on Google that maybe loaded with viruses.
Read Adam D’Angelo‘s answer to Is it bad to ask questions on Quora which could be easily answered via a Google search? on Quora
2. It’s Easy to Find A Mentor
Quora is full of experts that love to provide feedback for free and help others. It’s like a social version of Linkedin. Whatever your child’s interest there is guaranteed to be an expert on Quora that will be more than willing to answer any questions about a given subject. There is a proven process to finding a mentor on Quora. First, your child has to prove his or her knowledge and passion for the subject that he or she wants to be mentored. Quora has a feature that allow users to ask specific people for answers to their questions. Your child should request answers from the person that they want to be their mentor. Make sure that your child is not spamming people for answer requests but looking for genuine answers. Hopefully, a connection starts that can take place outside of Quora thorough Skype. A lot of life coaches and online seminar instructors use Quora for lead generation to recruit new clients.
3. Quora is Becoming a Part of the Classroom
Teachers use it to obtain information on different subjects and also to bounce ideas off each other. Educators are also directing their students to turn to Quora for research purposes. It’s a great tool to teach students how to answer research questions. Quora gives you a list of questions people are asking about any given subject. Students have become hip to Quora and have started asking the community for answers to homework questions. Since the community thrives off answering questions, students are getting multiple answers to homework questions. This has become a controversial issue within the community. Currently Quora hasn’t taken a stand against students posting answers to homework. As parents we need to monitor the site to ensure that our children are not using the site and community to cheat.
Read Tracy Chou‘s answer to How can I use Quora as an educational tool? on Quora
4. Your Child Becomes an Expert
Quora allows teens over the age of 13 to answer questions. If your child has been an expert dirt bike rider, then he or she has a ton of experience riding dirt bikes. They can use their knowledge to help out other teens that may be looking for answers. If your child ever starts a blog or create a product around their talent, then they will already have a built in market for their product. A small group of Quora users are teenagers that answer questions of topic areas of interest. Answering questions on Quora could increase your child’s status on the platform that would be powerful social proof on a resume or application for college admission officers.
5. You Become an Expert Parent
The beauty of Quora is that you can ask questions and get immediate feedback from experts. If you lean about kids at your child’s school using the drug Spice, then ask a simple question in regards to Spice and teens. You will receive answers from other teens that have used Spice and had bad health reactions. Those answers becomes a powerful anti drug message when you talk to your child about Spice. Maybe there is a new app or website that all of the kids are using. Instead of using Google to search for the app or site, search Quora and get answers from the developers and heavy users.
If You are a parent that are currently using Quora, then please leave a comment below on how you use the website or how your child uses the website.
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