Social Networking and Traffic with Yahoo Answer
Yahoo! Answers are to share knowledge, help others, while earning earn points in the process. A leading competitor to Wikipedia, Yahoo! Answers has taken the traditional way to search for information into a new avenue of opportunity with its community-driven network. Since each user can earn points, there is an extra incentive to create a profile and network with other users. Its simpler than ever to share a message, thought, idea, or advice. Social interaction becomes incentive-driven, and provides a fresh area of opportunity for marketing and promoting purposes as well. Although Yahoo! Answers launched in December 2005, it reached impressive numbers for web traffic in just six months.
According to Hitwise, Wikipedia earned a 6.76% market share in May 2006, with Yahoo! Answers trailing far behind with 2.94%, Dictionary.com came in at 3.80%. However, the important thing to note here is that Yahoo! Answers was only a few months old when it reached the number three ranking; even sites such as Google Scholar and City-Data.com didn’t reach the level of success that Yahoo! Answers managed to acquire. Yahoo! Answers has often been compared to Wikipedia, but the difference may trace to the addictive component. Yahoo! Answers often makes use of references to Wikipedia as a resource; but since each user is involved in interaction, building up their profile, and sharing independently researched information for review by other users, it becomes a highly evolved social networking community naturally.
Users can compete for a position on the ‘best picked’ answers of the day or week, look to the leader board to find the most valuable users, and pitch all sorts of questions. Users can contact each other by setting permissions on their account and allowing other users to contact them by e-mail. Adding communication permissions is easy by selecting the appropriate editing option in the profile page. E-mail addresses are never shown to the users, but are sent through a messaging system instead.
Asking and answering question
Once a user is logged in, it’s easy to ask and answer questions on any topic. The search feature on the left side of the page allows you to access each part of the site and view the different categories available. The most popular categories on Yahoo! Answers include:
* Beauty & Style
* Computer & Internet
* Health
* Local Businesses
* News & Events
* Movies
* Education & Reference
* Business & Finance Yahoo!
Answers also has a ‘Best of Answers’ category that indexes the days most popular and most visited topics. In order to ask a question, you simply click on the ‘Ask’ button on the top-left corner of any page. Type in the question with any details and similar questions will automatically appear underneath; this can be helpful in having the question answered immediately. If nobody has asked or answered a similar question, you will need to select a category for it. This will allow your request to be indexed and searched by the community easily. Next you’ll need to decide whether an e-mail should be sent to you when someone answers the question; this can be helpful if you are asking multiple questions, and do not want to log in each day to find responses.
After clicking on the Preview button, you will need to choose ‘Submit’. The more clearly that the question is stated, the more likely that you’ll receive a valuable response. Vague questions re difficult to research, and most community members will not even respond to a too-basic request. Choosing the right category is another important step; this will help any user access the right information. It’s a good idea to review the different categories and options available, as well as brainstorm multiple niches that you can post relevant answers to. Yahoo! Answers categories are broken down into:
* Best of Answers
* Arts & Humanities
* Beauty & Style
* Business & Finance
* Cars & Transportation
* Computers & Internet
* Consumer Electronics
* Dining Out
* Education & Reference
* Entertainment & Music
* Environment
* Family & Relationships
* Food & Drink
* Games & Recreation
* Health
* Home & Garden
* Local Businesses
* News & Events
* Pets
* Politics & Government
* Pregnancy & Parenting
* Science & Mathematics
* Social Science
* Society & Culture
* Sports
* Travel
* Yahoo! Products
A few tips to narrow down the scope of your product and business are as follows:
1. Summarize your business or idea using keywords
2. Organize your responses so that they deliver a specific message
3. Tailor different question and answers to suit your specific message
4. Branch out into similar topics and industries whenever possible
5. Think ‘outside the box’ so that you an extend into different domains with ease
Each question must also follow specific community guidelines. If these are not adhered to, you can forfeit your ability to ask and answer questions on the boards. Yahoo! Answers cannot be used for:
* Insulting, harassing, or threatening other users
* Posting adult, vulgar, or obscene content
* Exploiting or soliciting minors
* Posting content for advertising or commercial purposes
* Posting links to sites that force a download of a virus program
* Create multiple accounts to violate community guidelines
* Solicit others
* Engage in chatting
* Post the same question excessively
