by: AskPat 307 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 307. I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.
Now, here's today's question from Rochelle.
Rochelle: Hi, Pat. This is Rochelle calling. My question is, is this site and what's happening here on the site current? The last post that I saw was February 2014. This is February 2015, and I just wanted to make sure that everything that I was looking at. . . because things change so fast, especially when you're talking about the internet and how it works or doesn't work in your favor.
I just want to make sure that the information that I'm taking in is current, and the most current information possible.
That's my question. I thank you for doing this and I hope that you're well. Blessings to your family.
Pat Flynn: Hey. What's up, Rochelle? Pat here. Thank you so much for the question.
Now I wasn't sure what this question was about when I got it from my assistant. It was about how do I know how or what the most current info is out there. It was sort of a general way to summarize this question. I was like, “Oh, this is interesting.”
I listened to it and it actually sounded very specific coming from you. You mentioned an article from February 2014, and I wasn't exactly sure what you were talking about. I don't know if you're talking about AskPat, which started in February 2014, but we've been keeping up five days a week since then, for a whole year, which is awesome.
Then, I was like, “You know. This is an interesting question anyway.” The initial one that I thought it was going to be. So, I wanted to talk about that.
Rochelle, this is for you, and for everybody out there who wants to know if a site that they're on, If they're on an article that seems to have been written such a long time ago, or even just couple months ago, how do you know if it's the latest and greatest? The honest truth is, you don't. You don't know. You have to find out.
There's a number of ways you can do that. Something like you just did, Rochelle, is you just asked. I think that's really important.
A lot of times you can go into that blog post, or forum, wherever you found this information and ask anybody, “Hey, is this the latest thing?” In the comments section or the comment thread in a forum. Those are things you can do.
You can ask other people in around social media. Something that would be really quick and easy to do, to verify, would be to ask the owner of that blog, or website, if that particular article that any of you found, if it is indeed up to date. Or if there were any changes that were made, or articles that were written since then.
Something I try to do as a blog owner, and a content creator, is that if I have a topic that has changed over time, and I know that I've written about it a long time ago, I will link to the new stuff that I've talked about. Because I keep up, as much as I can, with the current info in the industry, I'll link to it in the old article.
If anybody ends up to happen upon that old article, whether through an old link that I maybe didn't direct on the site where it should go to the new one; or someone had a link on an old site; or maybe somebody found it on Google and because it's older it ranks higher, sometimes that's the case … I'll link to the new article in the old one, and then people won't get lost.
I've done this many times. In YouTube videos, especially when Facebook kept updating their stuff, I would just link from the old one to the new one. Then I linked from the second to new one to the newest new one, because they made changes. So people were always finding the latest stuff, and that's something that a lot of people don't do. A lot of content creators don't take that time. They think that once they post something that's it. They don't feel like they have a need to go back into the past and either update or link to a newest situation.
Again, it's always best to check if you're not sure, or if it's not mentioned on those particular places.
There's a lot of sites out there that are great, that do keep up and are specific for keeping up with the latest trends on things, that I would recommend checking out. For example, if, Rochelle, you were checking out social media related things I would make sure to subscribe to SocialMediaExaminer.com. My good friend Michael Stelzner is the CEO of that company.
They do an amazing job on keeping up with the latest and greatest news in social media, and all the changes that Facebook's making, everything that Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, and YouTube, and all that stuff. Everything that, obviously, a lot of us are all interested in.
That's a straight up recommendation to all of you. Go to SocialMediaExaminer.com, and that'll help you keep up with all the changes, because they do a good job. That's a website that I know, like myself, like it try to do. . . they feel responsible for keeping everybody up to date as much as possible.
Rochelle, I hope that answers your question in some way, shape, or form. For everybody else out there, hope that gives you some understanding about what I try to do, as a content creator, something you can all try to do as well. It can be hard. It can be hard to catch everything, but keeping in mind that things do change rather quickly, especially in the online space, that it's our responsibility to—if we want to best serve our audience—make that they are currently up to date as well.
Rochelle, thank you so much for the question. If you have a more specific question about whatever it is that you found that was written in February 2014, if it wasn't the first episode of AskPat, let me know. We're also going to send you a t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show, so that's pretty cool. My assistant will contact you very soon about collecting your information for that.
For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like featured here on the show, all you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page.
Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you all so much for just being you, and all the questions that come in. The show wouldn't be here without you. To finish off, here's today's quote from Howard Gossage. He says, “Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it's an ad.”
Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks, guys.