#ThankYou but watch out or #illpunchyouintheface

The two twitter trends that caught my eye this week ranged from nice to not-so-nice.

1. #ThankYou grabbed my attention because it was a promoted trending topic. At first, #ThankYou seemed like a random trend, and I wondered what company promoted this. Coca Cola was the force behind this trending topic. Its tweet stated: A great show from all our performers today, and a great show of support from our fans the last 125 years. #ThankYou 

I like to think of twitter as a market place of consumer ideas. In this context, promoted hashtags are important because it makes Twitter a viable option for companies to influence conversation in a non-invasive way. What's interesting is many of the hashtags for #ThankYou were not even about Coca Cola; users were thanking people in their lives from moms to Justin Bieber. Yet, any user viewing the #ThankYou conversation saw Coca Cola as the first tweet.

The simplicity of #ThankYou made me wonder if companies could or would want to claim rights to certain hashtags? I'll let that idea marinate.



2. After feeling good about my mother, Justin Bieber and Coca Cola, #illpunchyouintheface caught my attention because it was so harsh! Lord_Voldemort7's tweet was the instigator to this negative energy in twitter world. His tweet stated: #illpunchyouintheface if I want to and I bet you'll think it was awesome.

Unlike, #ThankYou, #illpunchyouintheface was not promoted. Lord_Voldemort7 is one of the most highly followed users with more than 1 million followers. His market reach is significant; promoted trends are not the only way for companies to reach consumers. Companies can target specific consumers using key opinion leaders -- or tweeters! -- to reach even the narrowest of niches.

What does this say about the collective conscious of twitterland? Businesses can use promoted tweets to reach the masses, but use non promoted tweets to reach smaller, narrower groups of consumers. Finally, these trends make me wonder if negative or positive tweets are more likely to trend? More on that later.