Member-only story
When 60,000 Followers on Quora Mean Nothing At All
The story of a dying social media platform.
I started my online writing journey on a platform called Quora in 2014. Back in those days, Instagram was just starting to be popular among the Indian youth, LinkedIn was still a platform to build your virtual resume, and platforms like Medium or Substack were unheard of.
Quora was the place to be for any digital creator. And if you made a name for yourself on the platform, other doors would open up for you, like speaking gigs, book deals, event invites, and more.
I was a final year college student in 2014 when I decided to start building my writing portfolio on Quora. As you can imagine, I barely had a vision or any writing goals to speak of. I wrote mostly about life as a girl in an engineering college, the sparks of first love, and a few short stories here and there.
The biggest surprise was the validation I got.
No one’s supposed to care about the ramblings of a 22-year-old. But people did. I got 100+ claps on almost every answer, and soon, I was getting 1000+ new followers every day.
Two years later, I was one of the youngest Indians to be selected as a Quora Top Writer 2016. I got the Top Writer tag again in 2018, and my followers crossed the 50,000 mark. People in Guwahati and Bangalore used to stop me on the streets and ask if I was “Anangsha from Quora.”
I knew if any project could take me to new heights, it would be Quora. I doubled down my efforts on it and started taking my online writing portfolio more seriously.
The meteoric rise (and fall) of Quora
Quora had 100 million monthly users in 2016. The number rose to 190 million in 2017. I kept writing consistently and saw my follower base rise proportionately. Some key learnings from my “golden days” on Quora are:
- Define a niche and stick to it. You’ll be tempted to jump on every new trend that comes in the market. But establish yourself as the subject matter expert on one topic, and…
