2013: The Year the Social Networks Make or Break Your Brand

Branding Strategy Insider offers 13 tasty predictions for 2013.

Among them is this morsel: brands wll become increasingly susceptible to the chatter on social networks next year.

"Watch for greater influences of engagement and purchase habits via friends and social networks," Insider says.

"Brands will have to factor in the reality that peer-to-peer communications come in three varieties: good, bad and bland. This makes companies more susceptible to consumer indifference, their conversations and social interactions."

Marketers who want to compete need to understand how social networks actually work, or risk  being marginalized.

"The brands that make it here will know the 'how' of this consumer-controlled space," Insider concludes.

Carpetbaggers

During a phone call this week, blogger Michelle Bruno complained to me about the unsavory folks who copy the content of her blog, Fork in the Road, and publish it under their own names.

"I see my stuff all over the place," she said.

Michelle spoke with resignation. 

But I'll take a New York minute to call out these plagiarists.

Or, as I prefer, carpetbaggers.

You'll remember from US history classes that carpetbaggers were opportunists who descended on the vanquished South just after the Civil War. They exploited Southerners by stealing their land and businesses.

The term is synonymous with "crook," "charlatan," "plunderer" and "thief."

Time to Quit Facebook?

Copyblogger's Sonia Simone thinks content marketers should quit Facebook.

Because you can't control what social platforms like Facebook do, she says, it's risky to build your business on another company's "virtual land."

"The minute you actually depend on Facebook for your business, they will change their terms of service in a way that causes you pain," Simone writes.

Publishing on social platforms like Facebook benefits the platforms' owners, nothing more.

They goad you to post content so you'll win a bunch of "Likes."

But that's only a ruse.

In reality, according to Simone, your publishing efforts "are helping them build an audience they can show their spammy display ads to."

Worse yet, Facebook isn't about selling.

"People go to Facebook to share duckface selfies, pictures of grandkids, and memes from George Takei," Simone says.

And while it's still possible to engage people with your Facebook posts, "'engagement' does not equal 'customers.'"

You Facebook posts will get Likes that never lead to sales.

"That’s not marketing," Simone says. "It’s an annoying hobby."

Google+ Boosts SEO

Social media maven Courtney Kettmann, writing for Socialmouths, says that Google+, because it's owned by Google, will boost your company's search engine rankings.

"Posts and accounts will appear high in Google search results," she writes. "This is beneficial to a business, as it can help improve the SEO of a company’s Website."

The extra search-engine hits "alone make Google+ essential for a business," according to Kettman.

Google+ posts with images and videos score particularly high among visitors, she notes.

500 Million Twits

Five hundred million. 

That's how many people now use Twitter.

Pew Research Center says that daily use of Twitter has doubled in one year.

And—among 18-24 year olds—Twitter use has increased four times during the past two years.

The rise of smartphones and mobile apps may account for the growth.

Smartphone users are particularly likely to use Twitter, according to Pew.