"Love it or hate it," writes Niel Robertson at MarketingProfs, "Quora is a phenomenon that can't be ignored." The social media site defines itself as a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited and organized by everyone who uses it—and Robertson argues that the zeitgeist of its principles make it essential to community management and social media marketing. Here's why:

Participants establish credibility and build reputations by using their real names. Consider the question: "How should you launch your company at SXSW?" A response from a Silicon Valley wunderkind will naturally carry more weight than one from socialmediaguy42. Real names also increase the quality of responses and decrease loutish behavior—no one wants to look like an idiot.

Opposing perspectives coexist at an equal level in the conversation. "The problem with many content sites is that they provide only one viewpoint at a time, and you have to search for referencing articles or scan through comments to find counterpoint," he notes. Quora's design, however, flattens the discussion and provides easy access to contrarian views.

User-Generated Content (UGC) is shifting to User-Generated Linkage (UGL). In the traditional UGC model, explains Robertson, individuals post to a central repository; in the new UGL model, the crowd creates the content and the links that connects it all. "One of Quora's subtler, but more important, features is the ability to autolink users, companies, and other objects in line while asking or answering a question," he says.

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