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Friends (Yes, believe it or not, I do have a few!) often ask me, “What do we do when we have a quick question about social media and you’re not around?”

While the question does help my self-esteem, it does raise a very important issue about looking for answers when your favorite social media adviser happens not to be around.

There are the usual suspects.

Reference books (I’m a big believer in reading which does date me.) are a great source.

However, when you’re in a bind, looking for and searching through a book might not be the best idea.

Also, one problem with books is that with the rapid pace of change with many of today’s social media tools, the answers that you’re looking for may not be in any of the books available!

Training classes can be very helpful but might not be suitable for immediate needs and they can be expensive.

Finally, the social media tools themselves may offer FAQs, user forums, and live help.

Although, their completeness and quality can vary widely from tool to tool.

So, let’s say in the worst case scenario, all the above have failed to answer your pressing question.

What do you do?

There’s actually a lot that you can do.

But, you’re going to have to do it yourself and go looking for your answers.

The good news is that the social media tools themselves can help us!

Here are just a few examples.

In LinkedIn, Groups can be  a great source of help.

My advice here is not to wait until you need a Group to go looking for it.

Start looking now for the right Groups and participate regularly so that you are known to the moderator (Yes, good groups have moderators.) and the other members.

Slideshare in LinkedIn can be another useful source of information relating to social media.

In Twitter, the Discover (search) tool and Twitter Chats can be very helpful and can also be very current.

Facebook can be another important source for answers for you.

YouTube never ceases to amaze me with the depth and variety of videos available on all sorts of technical topics.

Google+ has many groups dedicated to specific tools and topics.

(Although, given what Google’s been doing with Google+ lately, who knows what may be available for us in the future.)

And, of course, let’s not forget the old, reliable Google search engine itself which never fails to find diverse solutions for my problems.    \

One caveat with all these tools!

Check to see how current the material is and if there has been any feedback about it or its creator that may guide you as to its reliability.

There’s a lot of well produced information about many of these tools on the Internet which is sadly out of date.

Be warned!

Another point I’ll make is to remind you when working on your content wells to mark down sources and their authors for future reference.

Remember many of these authors are only too happy to answer thoughtful and succinct questions.

Also, make use of Evernote to document your work!

Nothing like having a well organized set of notes when in a time crunch!

One last point on this subject!

Share out with your community on social media what you learn as you discover answers to your questions!

If you have that question then I can assure you that someone else does too and will be grateful to receive your work.

Playing your knowledge forward means that sometime in the future when you’re in a bind someone may come forward to help you.

And of course there are folks like myself who are available for coaching and running workshops who can help as well!

If you ever find yourself scrambling for an answer please feel free to drop me a line.

I’ll do my best to help you!