We are so bogged down with extra information that we can’t even think sometimes. And sadly, some people are taking this unprecedented overabundance of data and information, and using the fact that you don’t know who to trust against you.
The very first thing you’ll need to learn to do if you want to learn what information to trust and whose information is worthwhile, is to learn that there is a huge difference between information and data. Data is just input. It isn’t classified into a category or topic, it’s an assorted collection of facts, that may even be random.
Facts do NOT have any meaning until their boundries are defined. If I send you a message that reads 35007, if you don’t have the right parameters to decipher it, you don’t know what it means. Data isn’t information until it has meaning to YOU. Now if you were informed that you had to turn your cell phone upside down to see the word, you’d see that it’s a keypad representation for the word LOOSE.
Which brings us to the second thing you’ll need to bear in mind.
Just because you have information doesn’t mean you have useful information. We all know what the word LOOSE means. But unless you and I had a secret language or code, or were having a conversation where the word made sense, you wouldn’t know why I would text you that message, or why I wouldn’t just type out the word LOOSE alphanumerically, since most phones can now do that.
Enter point number three – information isn’t always useful without context. In our conversation, if in the previous message, you were asking me if I had loose change or folding bills, the one word reply would make more sense. And if you were on a cell phone, while I was at a public computer terminal, and we were talking in code for whatever reason, the use of numbers to represent letters may make sense as well.
The fourth guideline is that the source of information matters. If I tell you to replace your toilet, my words mean nothing if I’m not a plumber. And even if I am a plumber, if I’m a stranger, in offline life, you’d be wary of trusting me unless I was suggested to you by a trusted third party, no matter how good my rates were, no matter how I CLAIMED I could fix your problem.
I said.
If I’m a stranger, in offline life, you’d be wary of trusting me unless I was suggested to you by a trusted third party, no matter how good my rates were, no matter how I CLAIMED I could fix your problem.
The same applies in online life. You won’t always be referred by a trusted person, but you should be able to look the person you’re trusting up on the internet, at least by name. I personally go five pages deep and look at a random back page before I’ll buy something from someone I’ve never heard of. A person isn’t an expert because THEY SAY they’re an expert. They’re an expert because their techniques work, because they have advised other experts, because they have in some public way demonstrated a bit of their expertise.
If a person’s site can’t be found in the search engines, they’re probably not a search engine expert. No matter how pretty a blog is, if the content sucks, they don’t know anything about blogging.
The fifth item is the ratio of time, resources or money savings to the cost of the item you are buying.
Traffic Geysher may not be a perfect product, but if I’m producing 10 videos a week and I need them all uploaded within a day, whether to get traffic, build my brand, or develop an audience for later projects, if my time is worth more than $.47 an hour, the monthly subscription price is worth it. If I’m going to upload the videos no matter what, I might as well pay someone else, and use that time saved to earn the price of the subscription. Even if you made minimum wage, you would still come out ahead, even if I don’t get the expected rate of visitors in return at first.
On the other hand, if you’re uploading one video a week, and you have to decide between spending $100 on a solo ad, OR $47 on a top sponsor ad and the TG membership, then it makes sense to do what you Know has been working.
Let’s review:
- Data and information are not the same thing, data is information in its raw state. IE – Just because someone has 300 pages of data doesn’t mean she can find her behind with both hands.
- Just because you have information, doesn’t mean you have useful information. Don’t be fooled by people who quote statistics at you without putting them in perspective.
- Information isn’t always useful without context. We say it all the time “that was taken out of context.” If we were talking about movies, and I said I love the film Octopussy, missing part of that sentence would give you some very incorrect perceptions about me. Not judging. Just saying that I like men.
- Source matters. I am the wrong person to ask how to successfully write a best-selling novel, though I have aspirations to do so in about three years, as yet, I have no experience, instinct or background for this, only speculation that is based on nothing more than idle whims. But if you want to know what the next hot traffic trend is, I can give you an educated guess based on my background. And if someone says that to you, make sure it’s a background you can look up.
- Balance time, resources and money when considering the cost of an item. SEO may be an incredible idea for generating traffic, but does your market and expected traffic justify the cost of an expert? If you can only get ten visitors a day for your obscure market, you might be better off hiring a search marketer to write ads for you.
In Part Two, we’re going to talk about what tools to use for researching an information source. How do you search Google for a person? How else can you find out about their background or product? I still have yet to sleep, so this may happen later in the weekend. Ta for now.
[...] Continuing the TrustBait Series : How to Learn What Information to Trust Part One [...]