Tom Cooledge

So, the team at aFinite managed to transplant a hard drive and salvage my data. They worked tirelessly and beyond par (and are still yet to invoice – yoink.) 

So, what did I do first on being reunited with my PC? Facebook, naturally. I take no shame in saying I’m a bit of a fan although, worryingly, it appears this is to be expected as I get older. According to Guardian blogger Mercedes Bunz, the median age of the active Facebook user is up from 26 (as calculated May 2008) to 33. 

However, the Twitter median age remains stable at 31. This seems interesting, especially as the growth of active users seems exponential, according to this same post by Bunz. 

I’ve fallen out of love with Twitter this week. The main reason is the corporate tweeters or, rather, one in particular. On the fourth of November, Topman UK tweeted a total of fourteen times across the day including three times between 1200 and 1300 alone. With their last tweet being a link to a photo of their stylist wearing purple Nikes, I had to question what Topman was trying to accomplish with high frequency messaging that offered little relevancy to the recipient. 

I tweeted back, requesting information about up and coming events in my area and received no reply. 

Although I cannot speak on behalf of their entire PR strategy, Topman demonstrates no sign of symmetrical communication, the public relations ideal model conceived by Grunig. In his article, Beyond Ethical Relativism in Public Relations: Coorientation, Rules and the Idea of Communication Symmetry, Pearson discusses the ‘collaborative advocacy’ and engagement of the stakeholder through two-way communication, both parties (i.e. company and customer) giving and receiving messages to each other. 

Also considering the ideals of Habermas during the seventies, participants, according to Pearson, should feel free to move ‘from one level of abstraction to another.’ In a dialogue, any party is free to question any basic assumption. As Topman failed to enter into any discourse, I was offered no channel of communication at all, let alone the opportunity to question the relevance of purple Nikes, although they were considered so pertinent. 

However, as the Cluetrain Manifesto considers, I could be missing the point. There’s no denying that rule Number One was broken – Markets are conversations and Topman failed to engage. However, the Cluetrain collaborators are dealing with the Online Market, something Grunig and Habermas couldn’t have anticipated. 

Although the ‘conversations’ possible through Web 2.0 were never realised here, there are other ways of gleaning information. As per Thesis 11 of 95 – ‘People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than the vendors.’ Communication with Topman remains one-way but its Twitter account is more than happy to share a whole network of other, more informed followers with me.

Filed under: Cluetrain Manifesto, Grunig, Topman, Twitter