Last week Quora announced that the buregeoning Q&A platform will be flip-flopping on its prior promotions policy, which until recently had prohibited answers that were “primarily self-promotional” in nature. The rationale for the abrupt change, according to a Quora spokesperson: “Personal experience is an asset, not a liability, and is a key element of many of the best answers on Quora. The quality of the answer is what we care about.”

Why should marketers take notice? The most obvious and immediate benefit to answering questions in Quora, aside from engaging a growing community of information seekers and consumers, is the increased weight Google has given to the platform.

Since inception, Quora has ranked high in organic results in Google for many in-market phrases and questions. Recently, Google started including Quora results in it’s realtime search results, providing further evidence of the search giant’s belief in and commitment to the platform (and social search in general).

Marketers who decide to jump in with both feet will have the benefit of being “first to answer,” therefore increasing their chances of being the highest voted Answer for a given question.

What types of questions are ripe for marketer responses? Questions such as: “What is the best < $25,000 car to buy for a daily 1-hour commute on I-280?”, “What is the best store bought cookie?” or “What are some healthy natural deodorants?” are all examples of places where relevant marketers could add real value.

Here are 5 tips for marketers to consider when getting involved on Quora:

  1. Think through the long-term implications of having individuals from your organization respond in a public forum.
  2. Choose credible respondents within your organization who are best suited to provide a satisfactory answer to the community — and always provide disclosure of relevant affiliations.
  3. Answer questions related to your brand first.
  4. Think like a consumer to find in-market questions that your organization can respond to and provide additive value.
  5. Stay active. As new questions, responses and follow-up questions build around a given topic, it’s important to remain an active participant in the Q&A dialogue.

What do you think about Quora’s new policy on self-promotion? Drop us a note in the comments below.