After last week’s Quora invite giveaway, dozens of our friends in the tech community and in higher ed have joined, and may still be trying to wrap their head around the tool. So, we’re doing two things to help you do that, as we’re that confident in this new question and answer community being a part of a larger movement to crowdsource information. We’ve written a six-step guide to getting started on Quora for your perusal and sharing.

Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started With Quora

1. Quora makes signing up simple by including two steps, and by integrating with Facebook Connect, which allows them to trust Facebook with authenticating your identity rather than you having to. Step 1 of the process is to connect with your Facebook account. (And yes, this does imply that the only way to sign up is with Facebook, requiring you to have a Facebook account to get started.)
   

   Creating a Quora Account

2. Step 2 is limited just to confirming your account. You’ll notice that Quora will pull your profile picture from Facebook (another benefit of Connect), which relieves us of the trial and error of finding the best-cropped pic on your desktop.
   
   

   Confirming your Quora Account with Facebook Connect

3. Once you’re in, you’ll be prompted to choose 5 topics that you may be interested in following. Quora does a good job of pulling potential topics of interest from your Facebook friends who have already joined the site. As the community is still in it’s very early growth stages, many of your Facebook friends may not be there, and thus the topic suggestion engine may not be the most relevant. But the system was built “to get better over time,” as the company’s mantra states.
   

   Quora's Topic Suggestion Engine

4. After choosing topics, you have the option to further fill out your profile information, or you could begin to go into the topics that you’ve decided to follow, and begin to answer questions, or ask other questions. But before that, I’d suggest to begin sending out your 10 invites to your friends, family, and colleagues. This way, the community will quickly gain more relevance for you and them thanks to the way that Quora is built. As the people you invite sign up, they will automatically begin following you if you are their Facebook friend, which is also why you “magically” had friends upon signup as well.
   

   People Following You on Quora

5. Before you get all ‘curious george’ on everybody, another step to being suited up for Quora is completing your profile. This is super important for two reasons: One, adding a certain area of expertise on a particular topic adds weight to the answers that you give to questions in that topic. For instance, say you’re an expert on Education, and you start to follow the topic ‘Education’. Next time you answer a question tagged ‘Education,’ your answer will be ranked higher than a person who is not following ‘Education’ (Until their answer gets more votes than yours has, ofcourse.)
   

   Inigral CEO Michael Staton Follows 'College Admissions'

6. And finally, after finishing your profile, you are now ready to receive endorsements. Now, this is the leveling factor in Quora, that allows a person to be validated by others, rather than stroking their own ego. Twitter has ‘followers’ and ‘lists’. LinkedIn has ‘recommendations’. Facebook has ‘fans’. And Quora has ‘endorsements’. The goal of Quora’s endorsements tool is two-fold: to encourage users to participate thoughtfully in the community, and also to create an organic checks and balances function within the community.
   

   An Endorsement on Quora

Quora Palo Alto Meetup (1/14/10 @ 8pm)

Now you’re all set to get started in Quora! If you still have more questions, feel free to send us an @ reply on Twitter, as we will be joining the Quora team tonight at their Palo Alto Meetup in order to answer any of your questions, and learn more about their future plans, along with what their implications for the higher ed space are. For more info on the event, click here.