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…