Can you say ironic?!

For the past four years Universal McCann has been doing their Wave/Social Media Tracker called "Power to the People." Granted, I NEVER trust research done by an agency or company because it's often biased and done for self-promotion (been there, done that!). But, I thought this one was quite insightful (silly me).

Long story short, I saw that they just released Wave 4 for 2009. I went to download it and saw that this year they required an e-mail to get access to it. So, I sent an e-mail (again, silly me).

What did I get back? A notification of my e-mail being unread. Fine. But, it was deleted WITHOUT being read. Nice, eh?

Power to the people? Let's just call this what it is... a typical BS PR stunt. I have totally lost any ounce of respect I might have had for Universal McCann. I wonder how many people have been ignored due to some lazy ass junior PR person not wanting to send out e-mails they were tasked with sending. And, worse yet, what a wasted opportunity to engage.

Thankfully social media intervened and I was able to download the report from Slide Share. (Share away!!)

Lessons for PR agencies:

1) Don't require an e-mail if you aren't going to fulfill OR engage.

2) When you do a report on social media, make sure you eat your own dog food.

3) We are social...we will share your report and put a glitch in your controlling 'lead generation' system anyway.

Rant over...