Research our organization, GroupM Search, published in Q4 found that less than 5 percent of all search visits from shoppers resulted in a visit to a brand website (click here for the full study). The majority of traffic was sent, instead, to third-party review sites, comparison sites, and social platforms. With the growing options for discovery and information gathering beyond a brand site, it is fair (and wise) for brands to question what role an owned website should play.

In fact, the question for 2012 is: “What role should my online brand destinations play in communicating with consumers about my business and when should I send people to each location?” For a business to be successful in 2012, they must have an answer and strategy to act upon the response to that two-part question.

Two studies we conducted in 2011 found that there is a growing number of opportunities for brands to influence the purchase path a consumer will take. We call those opportunities “signposting” moments; a moment in the journey when a consumer reaches a fork in the road and must decide which direction to go next. As recently as 12 to 18 months ago, these moments occurred most frequently on Google’s results page, but the options at hand were largely brand websites. Now, the choices are more extreme with everything from third-party category sites (Wikipedia and comparison shopping), brand sites, video sites (YouTube), and through social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Google+).

The death of 10 blue links has helped diminish the ease of navigation to a brand site. But, choices are good and the options at the disposal of a brand can be an advantage if brands can answer the role question posed at the onset of this column. That said, brands need to determine the following for each type of property:

1. What’s the point of the assets we own? Whether it is your brand website, your Facebook page, your Twitter stream, or YouTube – what is the primary goal of the destination and how do we continue to further develop the asset to satisfy that end goal?

2. What assets can we leverage on which we have an earned presence? With more users relying on third-party sites (category blogs, review sites, etc.) it is essential to be present in those locations. Though a concerted community activation effort or API feeds of data brands cannot afford to miss out on these locations.

3. Where are we placing signposts and are they clearly marked? For most consumers, the online journey starts with Google. Increasingly, Facebook plays a role as does Twitter and YouTube. Each of these “destinations” can be a gateway to another location. So, what directions are you offering to potential consumers to get them down the funnel toward a decision that includes you?

My perspective for brands, and what I told the individuals from the two Fortune 100s previously mentioned, is that in no way should Facebook be a replacement at the start of 2012 for a brand website. It should have a clearly defined role for the brand as should the brand site. If you cannot articulate both the role and the differentiation from other owned properties, then there is a real problem. The moment you have blurred the lines in your own organization to the point that you cannot distinguish roles and differentiation, you are not positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead with your targeted consumers.

That’s why, in 2012, there will be nothing more important for brands than to know the roles of their digital assets and how differentiation of each will be communicated to their target consumers. The goal should be to make it easy for any consumer to get to the right destination (owned or otherwise) to experience your brand in the most optimum setting that will in turn progress their own journey to an ideal outcome for your business in this new year.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and was  published in ClickZ, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012.  Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss.

I am personally excited because I have my sights set on not just being #1 for me, Chris Copeland, in the engines, but am now turning my focus toward the self-gratification that comes with having the most Twitter followers that hang on my every self-serving and validating 140 burst of brilliance from my @SearchBoss handle.

Actually, the paragraphs above have almost not a word of truth in them, but they do make a point – one that seems to have been lost in the gold rush surrounding the latest digital trend. You see, if you asked me to describe my personal philosophy, it would be more “Act like you have been there” than “I’m a Golden God.” But, apparently somewhere in the last few years, that philosophy came to mean that I wasn’t old-school, just old — at least in our industry.

My job is not about building the brand of Me first. If the adage is true that you can’t take it with you, I have to believe that goes beyond the material possessions to the immaterial of the social sphere. I only need a retweet from St. Peter at the pearly gates when the time comes — not from 1,000 of spambots before I leave this world.

I’m not a rocket scientist or doing brain surgery every day, but what we do in advertising does have a purpose and a meaning. If you care about this business, then you approach your job with a hearty desire to impact the masses – not with your self-fulfilling messages, but rather by connecting consumers with brands and being relevant. It’s not Don Draper sexy 99.44% of the time, but it has its moments.

People in the business of search and social have confused promotion of ideas and material performance with promotion of self. They are measuring their impact by follower counts and printed and spoken self-references. Let’s be clear that this problem is not an epidemic, but more prevalent than ever before.

Some people have “the goods,” and earn respect by the way they handle their business and their unflinching willingness to do the right thing to ensure success. And then there are so-called experts who now advise others on how to construct programs to maximize follower counts and enhance rankings through the superficial and timely with a kind of excess that would make a Kardashian weep with jealousy.

Years ago, I used to joke that people would attend a search conference for four days and suddenly become qualified to hang out a shingle and go into business as a consultant. The acceleration of technology has been such, that in the social media space you can seemingly skip the conference, hit a couple of websites, gorge your Twitter account with meaningless followers chasing keyword-laden tweets, and bypass doing any work.

If Chris Copeland ends up #1 on Google or Bing as a result of an article that celebrates Chris Copeland, written by Chris Copeland, then so be it. That’s the way the game is played today, and I can handle that. But, while others are worried about being experts in self, the Zen of Me, the tao of I, I’m worried about next. And next isn’t about me; it’s about a platform in a garage or dorm room — and it’s certainly not being developed by someone tweeting how friggin’ cool it’s going to be when finished.

Look at the great digital successes of the past decade, and you see companies that have reached the top by doing the work first — not by talking about it. Someday Chris Copeland will walk away from advertising – and, like a majority of the folks in this industry, there will be no highlight reel on the work I did for me. The people, the work, the recognition from others will speak for me far better than anything I can say about me, Chris Copeland.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Wednesday, March 9, 2011. Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss

The Oscars, Google’s search algorithm, the Eurovision Song Contest– they all famously choose the “best” answer to their questions by finding out who recommends whom -or what. The Oscars poll members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) – “the Academy” to its friends – to see who gets the most votes in a series of categories.  Google looks at the number of incoming links into a webpage, and the authority of those pages, to determine the authority of a webpage. The Eurovision Song Contest gives each competing nation several votes of different values that they can cast for anyone other than themselves.  It seems like a democratic system, on the surface;  at least it is if you’re a member of the Academy, own a website, or if you’re on the Eurovision committee for your country. Could you imagine only letting some people vote for your country’s president? It all seems a little elitist to me.  What about your poor huddled masses?  Most are not members of the Academy, don’t have their own website, nor are they living the dream of being part of their country’s Eurovision committee.  I’m thinking a lot more though, are probably members of one social network or another: Facebook (originally an elitist closed eco-system itself), MySpace, LinkedIn, Windows Live, to name just a few. Might there be something there that could  really democratize the web?

Last year, Bing managed to incorporate something that Google has been chasing for a while: true social search – as opposed to just universal search surfacing social content in the search results. Bing’s partnership with Facebook has given them access to the industry-standard social network. A hive of data that can be tapped to give even more personalized search results. If you are looking for a restaurant, and are logged into your Facebook account, then Bing will deliver search results that highlight restaurants that your friends “Like” – a true recommendation from a friend – on top of the algorithmic selections that they deliver. This is a huge step forward for personalization – and is one of the reasons that both Google and Microsoft were chasing a partnership with Facebook – although I don’t think that Bing received the acclaim that they deserve for this innovation.  It’s an interesting -and a positive-system, as there is no “Dislike” button, but as seen with relatively recent developments in Google’s search results, they are starting to consider the sentiment of pages that are linking to other pages to ensure that a page that is linked to with a lot of negative reviews is not gaining a top result, and as such greater exposure and more sales from the SERPs.

The interesting part of this to me, is a question: “What is the next data source?” I realize there are a lot of people busy working on or trying to work out what the next Facebook is, but I’m talking solely from the data perspective: Google needs to find an equivalent to Facebook, which is no easy task. They have made several attempts over the years to foster social networks of various sorts. One that I noticed recently was the Google Profile Pages – an opportunity to have users link through to their social networks, Twitter feeds, YouTube profiles, so that Google can understand what each user is doing and where. Google does not want to be reliant on a third party for their social indicator data if at all possible, and Bing shouldn’t rest on its laurels either. Microsoft has Windows Live, and could integrate a “Like” function – or a grading system if they wanted some more indicative data – fairly easily into the product to start generating their own “peer review data” for personalization purposes.

Either way, there is a potential sea-change in the way that Google, Bing et al are ranking pages – could social peer review be the new link-juice?  It presents an opportunity to ask not only the Academy, web developers, or committee members, but to ask the common person what their take is on a topic, and use that information to make tailored recommendations to their social-network-searcher-friend. Is this the wisdom of trusted crowds?

Can Microsoft capitalize on their lead? Is Google’s brand strong enough to get the data they need to take on the combination of Bing and Facebook? There is a lot to come in this space in 2011 as the search superpowers fight this one out and try to improve their recommendations and personalization.  Bring on the New Year!

This move was to signal the second coming, if not on the basketball court, then certainly across homes around the world of what a superstar athlete can deliver from a personal brand to corporate brands. With that as the backdrop it is staggering to look at the complete airball that LeBron is shooting in the social space leading up to this decision. Let’s break down how the Brand of LeBron has fared poorly in furthering his brand.

Even personal brands don’t get that social media is about the community
On Tuesday, LeBron James officially joined Twitter. Within 24 hours nearly 24,000 people were following @KingJames. So far there have been 2 tweets, one announcing LeBron’s arrival on the platform and the second wishing everyone a good Wednesday morning. In one sense this sums up the value exchange and worth of Twitter for many. On the other hand it paints a stark contrast to the efforts by companies like RadioShack together with athletes like Lance Armstrong and his @livestrong work. Armstrong is LiveStrong and through that support and affiliation with select corporate brands people are now associating him with his Team RadioShack cycling efforts and their combined efforts against cancer. Could this become LeBron’s future on the platform and in a  broader social way? Sure, but the Brand of LeBron is clearly about just that – LeBron at this moment. When the value exchange is so cheap, a follower on Twitter is making no emotional or financial commitment and you often get back what you put in, which is nothing. The brands that have figured out Twitter and other key social platforms are the ones putting more into the community than just themselves.

When in doubt, do it for the kids
Tuesday night brought us the interruption of programming with the bottom-of-the-screen scroll reporting “breaking news” that sources had told ESPN that a primetime special on Thursday night would air to reveal where LeBron is going. The best part? The special is on ESPN. That’s right, “sources” told ESPN reporters that this was happening on the very network that signs their paychecks. But this special was going to do more than just tell us where a guy was going to shoot hoops, it was going to be an opportunity for LeBron to generate monies to give back to the Boys and Girls Club of America through sponsorships which have already been secured with multiple advertisers. So now we have an athlete who is about to announce who will pay him personally in excess of $100 million over the next 5-6 years to play basketball, while he generates nearly $30 million annually in endorsements making himself into a televised spectacle for a few million to build basketball courts around the country. If you want to see the vitriol around this just do a Twitter search for LeBron or “the Decision” as it’s being called now by ESPN.

What we are witnessing is one part media creation, one part gifted athlete with a runaway ego justifying his actions. LeBron is either going on national TV to stick a dagger through the hearts of all his present fans in the area he grew up or he’s going to end months of debate by simply going back to where his heart always was. This is a massive personal decision that he’s putting out there for the world and then asking brands to still buy from his own brand despite the apparent damage.

It was either former NFL coach John Madden or legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor who said “Winning/success is a great deodorant.” Once the season begins, and if LeBron finally wins a NBA title, much of this behavior will be forgotten and matter little. But when corporate brands now spend to not only buy the impact an athlete can have on the field, but also what he can do in the new digital marketplace, it matters far more how an athlete conducts his social business. In this case, LeBron just missed a wide-open shot at further greatness.

“The user interface on Google has changed very little since its inception,
and I think it’s their core vulnerability.”
- Irwin Gotlieb, Global CEO, GroupM

Irwin Gotlieb was quoted in an article for India’s The Economic Times discussing the future competition that would challenge Google’s dominance. Gotlieb suggested that the challenge was likely to come from an unknown in a garage somewhere; he doubted the it be on the algorithm front but rather the user-experience side.

The timing of this article had a fabulous intersection for what was one of the most memorable sporting days in U.S.-England history. Simultaneously, the USA and England soccer (futbol, if prefer) teams were playing for their lives in the World Cup. England carried through with a 1-0 win over Slovenia only to see their pesky afterthought competitors from the U.S. score a stoppage time goal from Landon Donovan to win the Group over England.

As remarkable as the U.S. outcome was, it was not even close to the most amazing U.S.-England sports outcome of the day – and an interesting example of how the commentary about Google’s blind spot could eventually be exposed.

Just as the U.S. and England matches were winding down, a buzz started among some of the sports-specific Twitter accounts I follow about a first-round tennis match at Wimbledon between American John Isner and Nicolas Mahut of France.

The match started Tuesday and was called overnight at two sets apiece. It resumed on Wednesday, and when the buzz picked up, it was, at that time, tied in the fifth set at 30-30. The match was bordering on records for duration and games played at Wimbledon and steaming toward Open Era tennis records. By the time it was over, the fifth and final set qualified as the longest match on its own. The original record for longest match in the open era was just over six-and-a-half hours. This one? It went close to 10 hours!

So, where does Google fit into this? The answer today is nowhere. I use Google and Bing frequently every day. Yet even when I was searching for Wimbledon to shortcut to the live results from the Official Site, I would have had no idea this epic tennis match was taking place. The Google score tracker on the result page failed to possess the AI to discern history in the making. Even a portal like Yahoo didn’t register the history.

Then again, country singer Kellie Pickler (who got engaged) was out-trending Landon Donovan who won the game for the U.S. soccer team, so make of that what you will.

My point, as it relates to search evolution, is that we have to examine what we know (expressed intent) and how we see that delivered to the benefit of users. A few weeks back, Google launched background images on the home page. Not a new idea; Bing has used it since launching last year. Yet, the public expectation of what Google should look like led to a swift removal — the outcry was strong against the change.

In the past, Google and others have tried to incorporate the searches and feedbacks of others, but the general public seemed uninterested. My passion for sports is an expressed behavior. When I get behaviorally targeted ads, they usually involve sports or Vegas. If Google is truly, as John Battelle once contended, the keeper of the database of intention, then they have to gain public blessing to do something with it. Right now, the public is withholding — and their core business is not equipped to capture on it alone.

If change is to come, then perhaps it has to come from someplace new.

If the contract of agreement between users and Google has long since been written, then re-writing that is a daunting task. Likewise, while Twitter and even Facebook have allowed me to become informed of my friends and topics of interest, they are still woefully ill-equipped to respond with advertising that is tangential to my previously-expressed intentions.

Perhaps it’s Apple which has changed the user interface through their devices, specifically the mobile and now tablet devices. Or maybe, as Gotlieb suggested, it will be someone else, in a garage, that writes the contract with users that compiles intent data, like Google, and marries it with a unique experience, like Apple or Facebook. The trick is to do it in such a way that brings more brands into the discovery phase, so when consumers express previous intent, it can benefit them at any time.

As for the tennis match, for a second straight day, it descended and play was suspended, this time at 59-59 in the fifth set. Much like the user interface of the future, still undecided.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published on MediaPost’s Search Insider , Friday, June 25, 2010. Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss

In preparation for this column, I asked the head of my research team at GroupM Search to find a few data points about the difference between true search engines and places where people can search, in addition to other things. The subject line for his reply was “Top ‘Search’ Properties.” His reply provided some of the data I’ll cover in this column, but it also highlighted a major challenge we are now facing in the search space.

Consumers express their intention throughout the digital graph, and our ability to position brands as a proper response is the key to success for advertisers. Today we focus on how much share of voice we can buy in traditional search locations. Every year, studies come out showing the lack of success major brands have in the SEO realm. This bodes ill if they are to take the premise of this column forward into their business. Because whether you consider YouTube or Facebook a “search” property or not, the reality is consumers’ expression of intent is being facilitated through searching and selection on every major site from FourSquare to Twitter to Digg.

The brand opportunity is no longer determining how a brand lives and is found through the sole volume of Google or the full search engine landscape. Rather, the opportunity for brands exists in a broader, more complex group of sites with vastly different approaches to optimization and exposure. Take a look at the chart below from comScore for top “search” properties, noting the volume on sites beyond the Big Three engines:

Observers might not question the volume, but they could certainly question the worth of queries coming from some of these locations.

In essence, what we are facing in search marketing is a challenge of users expressing intent off search engines and, as such, a murky understanding of just how valuable and strong that intent is. Should we devote more time to YouTube since it outpaces Bing and Yahoo in searches done? Or does YouTube simply contain far more searching for fuzzy kittens and queries void of deep interest to the consumer and advertisers alike?

Even so, if nontraditional venues are garnering more attention and inherently building search into the mix, it changes a great deal for us. Take a recent string of queries from a B2B client around search. For years this client has focused its paid efforts on maneuvering around the category leader. In some cases this involved always being on when the No. 1 player was present, and in other cases it meant looking for specific opportunities to buy when competition didn’t exist to differentiate. Now the client is asking about optimizing documents created for the Amazon Kindle store to show up in a prominent location when general searches were taking place.

Additionally, the client’s content manifests itself in extensions of traditional brand campaigns complete with white papers, videos and even content disseminated to third party sites. In each of these cases, presence is a guarantee of nothing. Being there does not equal being found, and as such, an extension of SEO continues to manifest itself. Over the past year we have seen a stark shift where optimizing assets for non-traditional search experiences has moved from being a subset of SEO to being a category of solutions of which SEO is a part.

We call our approach “Owned Media Management,” a process to properly assess, develop, align, optimize and distribute brand-owned elements (video, images, text, press, website) to wherever consumers are searching. Over the past two years I’ve heard both Kevin Lee and Gord Hotchkiss speak about Google as a verb and the challenges that come with the ubiquitous nature of search and association to the dominant player. But for all of that talk – and there is a lot of truth to what they’ve said – the challenge facing marketers is much broader than just Google and it is happening less and less on the desktop and on a search engine.

The brands that invest in Owned Media Management will be the ones that get out ahead of this and enjoy the same advantages that some brands experienced in paid search circa 2005 and before. Because where audiences search and how we classify those sites matter far less than connecting that intent with your content in the moment.

In preparation for this column, I asked the head of my research team at GroupM Search to find a few data points about the difference between true search engines and places where people can search, in addition to other things. The subject line for his reply was “Top ‘Search’ Properties.” His reply provided some of the data I’ll cover in this column, but it also highlighted a major challenge we are now facing in the search space.

Consumers express their intention throughout the digital graph, and our ability to position brands as a proper response is the key to success for advertisers. Today we focus on how much share of voice we can buy in traditional search locations. Every year, studies come out showing the lack of success major brands have in the SEO realm. This bodes ill if they are to take the premise of this column forward into their business. Because whether you consider YouTube or Facebook a “search” property or not, the reality is consumers’ expression of intent is being facilitated through searching and selection on every major site from FourSquare to Twitter to Digg.

The brand opportunity is no longer determining how a brand lives and is found through the sole volume of Google or the full search engine landscape. Rather, the opportunity for brands exists in a broader, more complex group of sites with vastly different approaches to optimization and exposure. Take a look at the chart below from comScore for top “search” properties, noting the volume on sites beyond the Big Three engines:

Observers might not question the volume, but they could certainly question the worth of queries coming from some of these locations.

In essence, what we are facing in search marketing is a challenge of users expressing intent off search engines and, as such, a murky understanding of just how valuable and strong that intent is. Should we devote more time to YouTube since it outpaces Bing and Yahoo in searches done? Or does YouTube simply contain far more searching for fuzzy kittens and queries void of deep interest to the consumer and advertisers alike?

Even so, if nontraditional venues are garnering more attention and inherently building search into the mix, it changes a great deal for us. Take a recent string of queries from a B2B client around search. For years this client has focused its paid efforts on maneuvering around the category leader. In some cases this involved always being on when the No. 1 player was present, and in other cases it meant looking for specific opportunities to buy when competition didn’t exist to differentiate. Now the client is asking about optimizing documents created for the Amazon Kindle store to show up in a prominent location when general searches were taking place.

Additionally, the client’s content manifests itself in extensions of traditional brand campaigns complete with white papers, videos and even content disseminated to third party sites. In each of these cases, presence is a guarantee of nothing. Being there does not equal being found, and as such, an extension of SEO continues to manifest itself. Over the past year we have seen a stark shift where optimizing assets for non-traditional search experiences has moved from being a subset of SEO to being a category of solutions of which SEO is a part.

We call our approach “Owned Media Management,” a process to properly assess, develop, align, optimize and distribute brand-owned elements (video, images, text, press, website) to wherever consumers are searching. Over the past two years I’ve heard both Kevin Lee and Gord Hotchkiss speak about Google as a verb and the challenges that come with the ubiquitous nature of search and association to the dominant player. But for all of that talk – and there is a lot of truth to what they’ve said – the challenge facing marketers is much broader than just Google and it is happening less and less on the desktop and on a search engine.

The brands that invest in Owned Media Management will be the ones that get out ahead of this and enjoy the same advantages that some brands experienced in paid search circa 2005 and before. Because where audiences search and how we classify those sites matter far less than connecting that intent with your content in the moment.

Let’s face it; this is not a new trend. Consumers have always been weary of companies, and companies have always searched for ways to gain consumer trust. Now, social media has become the corporate go to for “connecting” with the audience, forming relationships and humanizing brand image. However, even after the frequent Facebook updates, promotional Tweets and viral YouTube videos, it all comes down to one thing – why should consumers care about your brand?

Unless you can offer a compelling value exchange, customers will not “care” about your brand – state-of-the-art banner ads, expensive flash-enabled websites and integrated media campaigns aren’t enough if your brand has nothing to offer.

So how can we use social media to bridge this brand-consumer gap?

1. Provide Customers with Tangible Benefits
Whether you are awarding your most loyal customers with discounted products or offering free expedited shipping for online orders, using tangible benefits directly incentivizes customers to keep returning to your brand.

Take Dell for instance. After a quick peek at their Twitter profile, it’s no secret that the company’s sole objective is to sell its refurbished products. But Dell’s transparent intentions, generous discounts and added convenience directly benefits consumers searching for affordable computer hardware. Dell has also benefited from this value exchange, having generated over $3 million in sales and crafting a loyal Twitter base of over 1.5 million followers.

There are no creative promotions or fancy contests here, just a simple tangible value exchange.

2. Connect Emotionally to Offer Intangible Value
Many brands falsely believe that by using social media and talking casually with customers on Facebook, they are automatically transformed into a consumer-centric brand. But unless your company can provide content that resonates with customer values, passions and interests, there will not be a strong mutual connection.

Sharpie uses emotional connection as its social selling proposition. Their microsite, SharpieUncapped.com, promotes artistic passion by showcasing galleries of consumer-generated artwork created with Sharpie products. Sharpie also offers site visitors various articles, tips and stories aimed at encouraging individual expression. The brand has created emotional value by adapting to its customer’s lifestyles and interests, while actively supporting them in their endeavors.

If Sharpie can create strong emotional bonds using a product as indifferent as a permanent marker, there is hope for every brand.

There is some truth in the old adage, “The Customer is King” and the brands that discover how to affect change in consumer’s lives will be the ones that will cultivate a loyal consumer base while positively impacting their bottom-line.

Bing has been up to A LOT over the last few weeks. Below is a round up of all things BING!

- Bing Goes Live in the UK
- Bing Integrates Wolfram Alpha
- Bing Updates Home Page with Task-Focused Functionality
- Bing Adds Instant Answers
- Bing Adds Additional Additional City Data (attractions, neighborhoods, local data from newspapers, etc.)
- Bing Upgrades Preview Feature
- Bing Adds Event Search (sort by performances, civic activities, music, etc.)
- Bing Integrates Facebook and Twitter into Search Results
- Bing Updates Maps

And that is just to name a few of the recent upgrades.

Well, if we look at the new data from Hitwise, Bing had a 7% gain in October, while Google and Yahoo both lost 1%.

I think Bing is really trying hard to be a serious competitor to Google — and it is working.

Check out Bing today – Bing Search.

This post was also featured on Traffic Flow SEO. Images used in this blog post are from www.marketmixup.com and WebProNews.

SearchFuel and GroupM Search are doing a blitz giveaway today on Twitter, giving four (4) people a free VIP pass to MediaPost’s OMMA Mobile, a one-day event where advertisers and industry leaders come together to talk all things mobile marketing. This pass covers your registration for the event, plus the breakfast and lunch on-site.

But you have to act quickly! OMMA Mobile is tomorrow, Thursday, October 29 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza from 8am til 5:30 or so.

For your chance for a free pass, follow these three simple steps by 3pm CST today:

1. Send a Reply or Direct Message (DM) to @SearchFuel on Twitter
2. Tell us you want to go to OMMA Mobile
   
3. Tell us your company name (Sorry, I do need this. Not for marketing purposes – but when we got these passes I had to agree they’d be used for brand advertisers only, so I need to keep my promise.)
   

We’ll draw 4 names from all of the Tweeps who DM us and I’ll DM you back by 3:30pm CST if you’ve won a pass. From there we’ll connect by email or phone to get you registered.

So why should you see and be seen at OMMA Mobile? For starters, it’s a gathering of more than 200 advertisers and mobile marketing experts which makes for a great day of networking and conversation about where the industry is going. GroupM Search is kicking off the day by hosting the breakfast session, featuring a round table discussion with Google, Microsoft, Joule, Outrider and JumpTap about current challenges and opportunities facing the mobile marketplace today. The day unfolds from there as MediaPost’s mobile columnist Steve Smith emcees the event, and a handful of industry leaders take the stage, including a keynote address by John Zehr, SVP and GM of ESPN Mobile. Other speakers and panelists include Kodak, Paramount, the AP and the Weather Channel, as well as  Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and many more panelists from across multiple areas of mobile expertise.

You can check out the full agenda here.

SO GET TO IT! Pull up your favorite Twitter client and send us a tweet to enter to win your pass to OMMA Mobile. See you in LA.