These days, it seems like so many blogs and experts give great advice on how to grow your footprint on social media. I don’t know about you, but with social media rapidly increasing in importance and value in the business world, I will personally take any advice I can get!

There always seems to be so much to learn and so many cutting edge new things out there to embrace. The amount of new social sites, new marketing tactics and new ideas is overwhelming! Everyday it seems I am getting bombarded with tips and suggestions on how to grow my own social media footprint. Most, I had never even thought of.

But in the area of "all things cutting edge”, I feel that something often gets overlooked. That is the power and importance of the “old school” tactics that really work in building your social media following. Maybe I still use them because I am a dinosaur and didn’t grow up in the social media culture that we live in now.

But regardless of why, they actually do work!

Here are some of the old school methods to build your social media following that continue work for me:

1) Reach out to people who have strong followings (or who you admire) and simply ask them for advice. I guarantee you will learn something that you can apply to your own social media strategy. Sometimes just asking someone for advice can work wonders. And if you don’t have their email address or phone number, tweet at them or reach out on LinkedIn!

2) Go meet someone (in person) who is also active on social media in your space. Ask how you can help them build their following and how you might be able to collaborate. "Teamwork" often seems like a forgotten word these days.

3) Go to an event and tweet/post insights from the event. Since the media doesn’t cover a lot of events anymore, be the one that does. There is such a void in media coverage at live events and networking parties these days. Be the source of content from that event.

4) Offer genuine comments on others posts. So often people seem obsessed with volume of tweets or posts. But actually taking the time to offer insightful commentary will not only be appreciated by whoever posted the original content, it will also help you stand out as a real thought leader.

5) Take breaks! I know it’s the antithesis of what a lot of experts preach, but in my mind, taking a time-out from posting or writing is actually a good thing. Shows your followers that you a) have a life and b) are more concerned with quality than quantity. I always subscribed to the philosophy that if you have nothing to say, don’t say it!

I heard a great example recently of an “old school” tactic that really made an impression on me. It was on one of my favorite podcasts the James Altucher show (thanks to my buddy Jeremy Neuer for the intro) He was doing an interview with FUBU founder Daymond John. If you aren’t familiar with either, Daymond is a very well known media celebrity and James is well known by many in the tech sector and one of the most popular bloggers on the planet. And so, in the beginning of the interview talking about his new book, Daymond says to James that he was the one who called him up to be on HIS SHOW! Imagine that? One of the biggest media personalities today admitting he called up a podcast to get on his show!

Totally an “old school” tactic. And it worked.