Well, that is a question that would send a paranoid conspiracy theorists into panic attacks.
What a question!
How do I know what I know?
Is it the time I put into the research on a topic, reading up on everything and checking at least 10 sites or more for a reasonable answer to a question? For example, why is the grass green, or pale green, or even brown? Do you take into account the cause and effect of why the grass is green, or do you just take a simple moment in time when the grass is for certain green and go with that for the meantime. Or do you take into consideration who is looking at the grass and what they are seeing? For example, those who are color blind, or even blind, and maybe even those that always seem to view everything through rose colored glasses, oh and we cannot forget the nay sayers who always view things with dim desperation. You have one who may not even see the grass as green but grey thanks to being color blind, you have another who does not see the color of the grass but is instead told what color the grass is and even then who is telling them what the grass color is? Along with those rose colored glasses who may see the grass as teal or blue green instead of just green, and that nay sayer might see the grass as dead or brown and not growing with plush life.
How do we know what we know? Well one way is to collect all sides and test them all out, you can test them all out by interviewing people who are stating the data or better yet you can write your own point of view and check out the response and see what others think, and if they are right there along with you and your view on things, and then there is personal experience. Maybe you sat there for a whole year 24/7 365 days (if it isn't a leap year) with pen and pad and even a camera taking pictures and recording the seasons and the colors. There really is no clear cut way to know what you know other than trial and error and comparing notes with a diverse landscape of people with all types of backgrounds.
I am aware of all the types of Social Media there is, but I am not social media wacked, meaning I am not living and breathing social media, but I do enjoy it for entertainment and fun. I do not state my facts from social media, but I do however check it all out for myself, if I did not check it all out then that would make me a very lazy professional in the blog, media, and marketing field as well as a person who values opinions and options.
This is how I make social media credible to me and for me, and then if I have found something that needs a different perspective I can state those facts I found as well as some facts that still need to be proven or looked into on a higher scale. I use Facebook the most, this is my source of Social Media, considering there is Tumblr, Twitter, Foursquare, and many that are not as popular as Twitter or Facebook.
Today I used my Facebook to find music and entertainment. I enjoy reggae, rockabilly, and from time to time hip hop, so with Facebook I am able to "like" music pages that are both mainstream and underground and therefore find a band or genre that speaks to me personally.
For example, 22tracks.com, this is a great overseas source of music. I do love artists from the awesome U.S. of A., but I want a variety that I have never even explored or heard of and so I found 22tracks thanks to Facebook. I know this is credible because I have checked it out, it promised to be a great new way of finding underground inspired and renewed music and it was indeed just that, and I challenge you to go and check out 22tracks for yourself to give it your own credible stamp of approval!
I used my source on Facebook, who is a friend, a hip hop lover, music enthusiast, and a break dancer at the Jinx on every Tuesday for Hip Hop Night, known as KT. Therefore, since he is a break dancer and knows great beats when he hears them I knew he was a credible source to rely on when it comes to new music for me to enjoy, not only that, but I have seen KT in action on the dance floor and wow, just wow. This is how I know 22tracks, via KT, on Facebook, is a credible source and worth sharing to others.
Social media is definitely a great source for credible research, I say this with the hopes that others will know that they will also have to double check it, just like anything else whether it is social media or not. Social media has so many different avenues and paths to go down, you can find just about any and all topics on Facebook. Therefore due to its variety and dynamics I would suggest using it because you can find people to interview or ask questions about a topic and source, communication is open and free without charge, and it also depends what you are searching for on social media.
What is your topic? What is your hopes in finding information for this topic and who are you going to share it with? If you give a social media source acknowledgement will people laugh you off your pedestal or will they agree? Not only this, but you can chat about it in real time and this can be valuable along with just about everyone having a social media account. So, perspective plays a role in social media sometimes being credible, and research, tons of research because you should always check things out for yourself and not always take someone's word for it, no matter how famous or well liked the person or organization is in the public eye.
So go forth, and dip your quill into the knowledge pond, known as the Internet, and begin writing your own gigabytes of knowledge for everyone else to read, view, and watch!
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