Pour a steaming mug of hot cocoa and drop in a handful of marshmallows, kids! It's that special time of year when Justice takes a look at the many facets of branding, marketing, social media, cultural trends and related offshoots, and tries to sound smart by prognosticating on what we can look forward to in 2013.

Whether you watched the presidential election results with a “the sky is falling” reaction or a “raise the roof” dance, you can’t argue that we’ve all been affected one way or another. However, the bigger question for me is whether people made their decision early in the campaign season or were influenced by information they picked up closer to Election Day.

When people first construct a “personal brand,” the last thing they're concerned about is juggling the content, data, monitoring and associated analytics that come along for the ride. Personal branding sounds like a great idea on the surface. It allows you to control ownership of your voice, create thought leadership and add credibility to your professional outreach.

You’re producing an upcoming conference, and you have a thousand items on the to-do list. Layer on top of that a budget and needs assessment to go along with the thousand tasks. Reality check: You need to sacrifice a few darlings on your list. Prioritize based on the wants and desires of people attending the event. Your main concern should be the owners of the butts that occupy all those folding chairs. They even supersede your the wants and desires of sponsors. This little detail often seems to escape the novice event producer.

You wanna be one of the cool kids in the marketing lunchroom? Then you damn well better have a blogger outreach program. This is a micro-PR concept in which you research popular bloggers within the context of the client you are trying to promote. More often than not, you want to share a product or service with the blogger with the intent of getting a positive review or mention.

I was incredibly fortunate to participate as a VIP blogger at the recent Smarter Commerce Global Summit 2012. The event was a virtual Who's Who of social media, business, technology, distribution and enterprise experts at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin resort in Orlando Florida.

Trying to explain the thrill of creating a new technology, startup, user experience or integrated marketing tactic is hard to do with just words. But that excitement is ramped up tenfold when you're creating something that affects the real world. Such is the case with the new patent-pending technology that is being released by Starmark. This is the integrated advertising agency that I call home. Here I get to play with some of the most amazingly talented individuals that I've ever had the pleasure to battle for the best ideas. However, when we were challenged to construct the technology that would reward people in the real world, it was a new level.

Ah, yes – the freedom of being a freelancer. The carefree life of the consultant. The pain-in-the-ass clients who pay late. With the exception of ravenous otters gnawing on your extremities during a dip in the ol’ swimming hole, nothing sucks more than waiting for an invoice to finally be paid. Sure, patience is a virtue. And politely standing by without making waves will maintain a good client relationship.

Just like your mom when you came home with that first tattoo – I was shocked when I saw the blog post from Cathryn Sloane entitled "Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25" Shock is the only possible reaction to this story, which advocates that social-media professionals over the age of 25 can’t possibly have a clear understanding of the medium.

Suck it up, put on the big-girl panties and host your first webinar! You know you should produce a webinar to extend your messaging. The problem is that you are intimidated because of the technical challenges. You think putting on a webinar is a daunting, complicated integration of technology, preparation and promotion. Good! Because you are absolutely right.

If you're a digital integrated marketing professional who isn't thinking 50 percent mobile deployment, then you are already behind the curve. Anything less and you’re acting like that last printer in town who refuses to utilize InDesign because he’s absolutely certain Quark will finally version out a better product. I get it. There are only so many hours in the day. And thinking about or learning about ONE more thing means taking time away from the “important things.”

So you intend to hire a social media professional. You come to the point in your marketing where you understand that you have too many social channels, too much conversation occurring and too many metrics to follow to make any sense of it. Consider this a measurement of your marketing growth. Five years ago, to staff for this position seemed ludicrous and something that you would just train for internally. Now we see that this isn't simply a necessity within your business, but an opportunity to serve your customers in a much better and engaging way.

My cohort @shawnvincent recently made a great point about this graphic: "OWNING negative comments. I've always thought a couple negative comments give credence to the good comments. And so often the negative comments are clearly authored by someone who is CRAZY."

Don't go at it alone Integrated marketing requires more than one channel. That's where the "integration" comes from – duh. Look at your advertising campaigns like a theatrical performance; everyone plays a part to tell a much larger story.

Something immediately pops into your mind when you hear the term “social media. But your definition might differ from that of your boss, or your neighbor, or Seth Godin. The fact is that social media is far more nuanced than most people realize. This topic is near and dear to my heart, and I’ve been preaching about it for the last year – "social business."

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the University of Central Florida's COMM DAY, which is a personal-development event for students transitioning into the real world. I was a little concerned that they just wanted me for the “after” example in a before-and-after comparison, but it turned out the whole thing was legit. The students from UCF’s Nicholson School of Communication were a fantastic audience, and even a slightly older dog like me learned a few things.