Am I a Twit if I don’t Tweet?

Up until recently I have been too busy to use Twitter.  Well, the truth is that I’m still too busy, but I’m forcing myself to do it anyway.

We hear a lot now about how Marketing is all about Social Media.

I have run into dozens of Social Media consultants lately. Over the years, whenever something new comes along—especially if its Fun and Easy, consultants spring up everywhere. My thoughts have always been that, if it’s Fun and Easy, why do I need a consultant? I need a consultant when the subject is complicated, difficult, and requires a huge investment of time for the learning curve.

The idea with Social Media is that the new Business Model is

1. More/Better/Any Interaction with your customer
2. Using your new friends and connections to spread the word about your product or brand

There are a lot of people who post links to sites or articles that are very informative and helpful, and yesterday a lot of people were ReTweeting my guest post at another site. So for me, Twitter is working nicely. I, in turn, have been doing the same for others.

To be honest, watching the tweets roll by reminds me of Speed Dating. But I have been going for a visit to each website of people who Follow me, or people that look interesting. I have already made some nice contacts that way.

And that’s really where the interaction comes in. It’s difficult to interact with strangers on Twitter, but it’s a great place for introductions. Let’s face it, 140 characters doesn’t allow much depth of conversation. But then, neither do business Mixers, where I talk to people with their business card in one hand and a vodka in the other.

One of the things everyone seems to be doing is collecting Followers simply for the purpose of having high numbers. It looks great on their website, until you realize they simply give themselves as a Follower in exchange for being Followed. I mean, seriously, what is the point of following and being followed by 96,000 people? Are people really going to be receptive to your advertising or product pumping on Twitter? That seems more like keeping shrunken heads hanging on a pole as little trophies. I wonder what my head would look like if it were shrunken.

At this point, I have a few more Followers than I am following. I Follow people back if they have a legitimate website. If their site is a one page high-pressure mini site, I pass. I’m not a collector.

Some that I have Followed, I unFollow within a few days. One person was continually dumping Happy Thoughts, full of clichéd positive thinking babbling that were cluttering up the flow of legitimate content. At first it was funny, but quickly became annoying.

And apparently, one of my Followers is a dog. Seriously. They post pictures on TwitPic of pin-up pups, and talk about wearing their master’s slippers while he is away.

I don’t follow them either.

Maybe I don’t quite “get” the whole Social Media thing because I see it as simply a new way of doing an old thing. You meet people, you connect someplace else, you explore the possibility of doing business. To me, even if 96,000 people follow you, you must still gain their trust one-on-one. Because the hard truth is the 98% of those people don’t really follow you at all.

They’re simply hanging your little shrunken head on their pole.