I was an early adopter of twitter. My first follow was Robert Scoble, he only had a few followers then and 
was brilliant at this “social media” thing. We talked on line. I listened and learned, asked questions and engaged. Same with Guy Kawasaki and Chris Brogan. We were all figuring it out together. Rules were established as we went along.
Things began to take a turn when the get rich marketers came in and everyone started focusing on talking instead of listening and learning. It now seems as if you have to scream to get your message across.
My followers may not be in the 100K plus (not even close) and I like it that way. I guess I am “old school”.
Here is my list of ways you know you are an old school twitter user.
Before following someone I do not personally know I like to:
1) Read their biography to see if we have any common interests
2) Check their links to see what they write about and if they are serious about engaging in conversation
3)See who they follow
4)Follow and send a personal note. See if it comes back with a canned message
5)Follow for a while to see if we can add value to each other
All this takes time. Just like relationships. I don’t want to shout about my business to people. I like to think that twitter will build relationships with people I have things in common with but would not otherwise have the time or the opportunity to get to know in the offline world.
So much of that is changed now.
So here are the questions:
Are you “old school”?
What do you continue to do that seems rather outdated as twitter moves to a more traditional marketing tool (everyone shouting no one listening)?
You can comment here or use the hashtag #oldschool on twitter.
Would love to hear your comments.
