Google+ Rises – Google, the company that made its fortune in search, will figure out that G+ isn’t a social network, it’s a content directory. Google+’s best chance at success lies in its bread and butter – SEO – by giving big brands, celebrities and other entities the opportunity to dictate organic search. Look for Google to start showcasing G+ content in organic search results. It’s already starting to happen; expect more of it in 2013.

Snapchat Gets More Buzz – Snapchat, a messaging service seemingly inspired by Inspector Gadget with its self-destructing (sort of, but not really) messages, photos and videos, will go mainstream. It’s just starting to pick up buzz and the teenage demographic. Parents are no longer in the dark about Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but how many know that their kids are on Snapchat? After all, teenagers are always looking for loopholes, so if you tell them they can’t use Instagram, they’ll just go somewhere else. For now, Snapchat seems to be that destination.

MySpace never really takes off – Tom may be sitting on his $580 million while you slave away hoping for another half day off, and Justin Timberlake may have signed on to be the new face of the old social network, but so far, there’s no evidence that every day users have interest in reclaiming their old space on the new Myspace. I’m not holding my breath. Besides, I always liked Friendster better back in the day.

Facebook and Twitter continue aggressive monetization push – Facebook changes the rules of engagement on a weekly basis, and they’re guaranteed to continue to seek out more revenue channels. Now a billion users strong, Facebook has gotten very aggressive about monetization, looking to charge fan pages anywhere from $2-25,000 for millions guaranteed impressions from, get this, their own audience! In December 2010, I predicted in this space that Facebook would charge brands in 2011. Looks like I was ahead of the curve at the time. But it was inevitable. As for Twitter, look for them to follow suit, and look for more tweets from people you never followed popping up in your timeline.

Social Networks Continue to Sell Your Data and Content – Most of us will continue to agree to the Terms of Service without thinking. But no worries, that picture you took of your lunch isn’t valuable anyway. But your data, what you like, and your user behaviors are likely all up for grabs.

Here Come the Commercials – With DVRs and On Demand neutralizing commercials on television, look for advertisers to seek out targeted video ad placements on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Social Media Gurus Go Out of Business – As Corporate America continues to staff up to manage social media internally, it will continue to realize that the only thing many outside social media consultants are actually selling is unquantifiable “engagement,” not to mention their own books. Those who refuse to measure ROI (with ridiculous justifications like, “What’s the ROI of your mother?”) or generate tangible results will be out of business. I think we’ll see more and more of the self-promoting, self-proclaimed “gurus” running for the comforts of a steady paycheck with a full-time job in Corporate America.

Journalism Continues to Die – As the gap that separates professional journalists from citizens narrows and the race to be first with a story intensifies, you’ll see more shoddy reporting from professional news outlets. This trend is well underway, but as traditional media relies more upon gathering information from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, the quality of reporting will continue its steady erosion.

The Daily Deals Industry Finally Dies – Either Groupon, Living Social or both will go out of business this year. There’s a million stories out there about Groupon “deals” putting restaurants out of business. It will finally come back to haunt them and the shoe will land on the other foot. Remember when they turned down a $6 billion dollar offer from Google? Who was dumber? Google for offering, or Groupon for turning it down?

1,000 More Bad Ideas Emerge – They’ll be easier to spot this year. Let’s face it, for every Pinterest, there’s 40 startups out their trying to be Pinterest-meets-Tumblr-meets-Instagram. Trust me. They’re all horrible ideas.

I thought the piece turned out very well, and believe it’s worth a read for sports and digital marketing professionals alike.

Inside Look: How The Boston Celtics Win in Social Media and Digital

There’s a lot more to it than the article covers, and many people in our organization help make this stuff work. Social media is just one spoke on the wheel that runs the marketing engine. It just happens to be the sexiest spoke these days, one in which there’s currently plenty of interest.

One thing is certain: marketing the Boston Celtics has changed dramatically since the days of Larry Bird, and even just in the seven years that I’ve been with the team. When I came on board in 2005-06, it was all about Celtics.com and email marketing. These days, there’s always something new around the corner. Just when we think we’ve mastered Facebook, Pinterest comes out of nowhere. Now that we’ve got Twitter pretty much nailed down, here comes Instagram.

The only real question: What’s next?

Boston Globe: Celtics Applying Themselves with Social Media

They captured a unique ticket upgrade at a recent game when we took fans from the balcony and brought them down to sit in Wyc Grousbeck’s courtside seats — talk about a game-changing experience.

Watch the video below, or check out the article on the Boston Herald’s website: Twitter Helps Celtics Generate Own Buzz

The also talked to the New York Giants, fresh off their Super Bowl win, and Dan Harbison from the Portland Trail Blazers. Much like we try to be at the Celtics, Harbison and the Blazers are always ahead of the curve on this stuff.

Article: Pinsanity: How Sports Teams Are Winning on Pinterest

Also, if you missed it last week, I went into some depth here on this blog about our efforts at the Celtics on Pinterest.

But at the recent Social Commerce Strategies show in Las Vegas last month, something new came up, and it came up more than once. Everyone was talking about something called Pinterest.

Pinterest is the hottest new social networking site, and its user base skews as high as 97 percent female. The Boston Celtics are among a few early adopters in the professional sports industry.

I’d heard about the social media platform a few times before the conference, but in the course of two days in Vegas, I heard the word “Pinterest” more than I heard “Changing $500!”. So it became obvious that I needed to know more about Pinterest, aside from the basic idea that it was a social network dominated by women.

Given that the online fan base of the Boston Celtics, and presumably that of most professional sports teams, is about 75% male, Pinterest peaked my interest. Perhaps it’s a way to reach an underserved demographic? Pinterest’s user base is overwhelmingly dominated by women; it’s reportedly 97 percent female.

Upon my return to Boston, I launched a Pinterest page for the Celtics. Within an a few hours of pinning items like Celtics merchandise, players, Celtics Dancers and ticket packages, we’d picked up about 100 followers. After a Facebook and Twitter post later in the day, we were somewhere around 300 followers.

I posted another notice to our six million Facebook followers on Presidents Day, when many Americans probably spent their holiday planted in front of their home computers, and we doubled our audience within minutes.

As of this writing, we have over 650 followers. What does it all mean? It’s too early to tell now, but I tried to explain what we know about it so far to SportsDigita last week when they noticed the Celtics are among the few pro sports teams dabbling with the platform.