Driving home from the airport this weekend, I saw a curious billboard advertising Hewlett Packard that said “Capture the power of a million tweets.” It was confusing. You’ll see why.

And as I sat there considering it, I neglected to grab my phone fast enough to snap a pic. But fortunately, someone else took a picture and shared it on Twitter. So I took HP’s advice and “captured the power of that tweet” to share the image with you here.

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Influencers, beware: your mystical Twitter powers might be little more than smoke and mirrors. You’d like to think that you have something to do with those trending topics you see on the right-hand panel of Twitter.com, but a new study from HP suggests that you’re little more than an amplifier for the mainstream media.
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As more companies jump on purchasing Promoted Products on Twitter, we’re beginning to see some interesting uses of certain phrases, hashtags, and topics. The Washington Post captured a significant portion of chatter around #elections, CocaCola was at the center of World Cup buzz with the purchase of #WC2010, and Target had the first tweet for #BlackFriday. These are smart marketing moves, designed to promote brand awareness through secondary topics. However, when one brand capitalizes on the popularity of another, we have to ask ourselves: should Twitter sell permanent control of certain Promoted Products to brands with trademarks?
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