As 2014 approaches its final days, no matter the industry, we look towards the New Year with hopes to see improvements. Fortunately for the travel industry, a very positive outlook has been forecast.

For a luxury brand, every motion in its social marketing strategy has value. In an environment as personal, and personalized, as social media, it's very important to capture not just the attention but the imagination of luxury consumers, and to keep those audiences engaged with the brand over time. When we look at brands in general that have achieved quantifiable success in social marketing, we see them performing well in three metrics in particular: engagement, impact and responsiveness. But can the same be said for all luxury brands? It depends.

There's been lots of conversation in the marketing community this year about marketing to the Millennial generation - those consumers who are currently younger than 34. Although Millennials currently control a small portion of the nation's wealth and spending power, it is important for financial services marketers to work on fostering relationships with them today, particularly the emerging affluent subset who are working their way up the corporate ladder and starting to accumulate wealth.

In our previous column, we reported on how advertisers and marketers can reach and engage with affluent shoppers (adults living in households with household incomes of $75,000 or more - the top 41% of American adults) using 68 different ways (40 potential advertising platforms and 28 potential word-of-mouth approaches). That column generated reader requests to provide some topline insights regarding how advertisers and marketers might communicate with these 99 million adults according to their generation.

In our ever-evolving, digitally obsessed, internet-driven world, it is no surprise that the affluent consumers - those with the most disposable income to spend on tech-toys for both themselves and the entire family (if they have dependents) - play a large role in driving the e-commerce market.

Complying with COPPA is a challenge all marketers, gaming companies and app makers face, even if their websites, online services and apps are not specifically geared towards children under 13. But marketers that cater to affluent consumers are at greater risk for three reasons.

We recently engaged hundreds of affluent women nationwide, in a week-long conversation about a high-end champagne brand, hoping to uncover how to make this brand more relevant to them.

In our previous column, we reported on the upcoming holiday shopping plans of affluent adults whom we and many of our clients define as those 18 years of age or older, living in households with household incomes of $75,000 or more (the top 41% of American adults).

Automakers have found interesting ways of getting people into their cars through fleet partnerships that give people an experience of a vehicle without the ignominy of the rent-a-car.

Do Millennials care about luxury? It's a question we hear a lot. We've done a deep-dive on the topic, and we know that the definition of luxury has blurred for the generation.