Greg Jarboe discusses strategies for optimizing engagement with influencers, which he calls "schmooze optimization". He outlines tools for identifying the right influencers for creators, marketers and brands based on reach, resonance and relevance. Jarboe also discusses tactics for engaging with influencers genuinely, including providing value through embargoes and doing research, as well as measuring the performance of programs using metrics like views, engagement and earnings for creators, and goals and conversions for marketers. Finally, he introduces Octoly, a marketplace connecting brands with micro-influencers to offer product reviews at scale in an authentic way.

1. Schmooze Optimization:
How it Increases Views, Improves
Engagement, and Boosts Earnings
Greg Jarboe
SEO-PR Co-founder
VidSummit 2016

2. Schmooze optimization is “making casual
conversation with influential individuals”
• According to Wiktonary, schmooze means
“to talk casually, especially in order to
gain an advantage or make a social
connection,” and optimizationmeans
“the design and operation of a system or
process to make it as good as possible in
some defined sense."
• So, schmooze optimizationis the process
of making casual conversation with
influential individuals who can help you
increase views, improve engagement, and
boost earnings on YouTube.
• But, this concept now has another name.

3. While the term schmoozeoptimization hasn’t
taken off, interest in influencer marketing has

4. So, what could be driving a 14X increase in
interest in influencer marketing since 2007?
• According to the American Society of
News Editors annual newsroom census,
the total newsroom workforce has been
cut by more than 40% -- from 55,000 in
2007 to 32,900 in 2015.
• Influencersare filling the vacuum.
• They are topic experts, thought leaders,
or brand advocateswho possess strong
credibility with your target audience.
• Research shows that 3% of individuals
generate 90% of the online conversations
that impact brand lift as well as increase
traffic, leads and sales.

5. You need to overcome 3 main challenges when
rolling out an influencer engagement strategy
• According to a survey, marketing and
communicationsprofessionals worldwide
face 3 main challenges when rolling out
an influencer engagement strategy:
• Identify the right influencers (75%).
• Find the right engagement tactics (69%).
• Measure the performance of your programs
(53%).
• So, whatever you call this concept, let me
share the latest best practices and
strategies for keeping the digital video
industry’s top creators, marketers, and
brands current and competitive in an
ever-changing market.

6. How to identify the right influencers, who are
different for creators, marketers, and brands
• In the past, influence was exerted by a
select few journalists, analysts, and
celebrities.
• Today, influence is spread out.
• So, your first challenge is to find the most
important people for your channel,
business, or brand, whether they’re
passionate fans, industry experts, or rising
stars.
• There isn’t one tool that does all this.
• So, you’ll want a toolkit of different tools
to identify different kinds of influencers.

7. BuzzSumo helps creators find influencers,
bloggers, and journalists for any topic
• YouTube no longer offers the Fan Finder
Program or the Top Fans feature.
• But, creatorscan use the new Community
tab on their YouTube channel to engage
with their fans in between uploads.
• Tools like BuzzSumo can find influencers,
bloggers, and journalists for any topic.
• BuzzSumo Pro provides insights on:
• Which networks that are getting most
traction;
• The days of the week successful content is
published;
• The amplification by influencers.

8. Traackr helps marketers identify the right
influencers by reach, resonance, and relevance
• Reach: Total audience size.
• Things like the number of YouTube subscribers
go into this metric.
• Resonance: How much activity someone
creates when they publish and the level
of interaction with this person’s content.
• Things like engagements are good measures
of someone’s resonance.
• Relevance: How relevant someone is to a
topic and how much they talk about it.
• This includes: How often someone creates
videos that use keywords; how recent these
videos are; the diversity of the keywords
used; and the placement of keywords.

9. Tubular enables brands or agencies to discover
and then contact over 5 million video creators
• Tubular Creator Profiles enable brands
and agencies to discover and contact over
5 million video creators across YouTube,
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Vine.
• For example, e.l.f. Cosmetics used Tubular
Creator Profiles to identify key influencers
aligned with their brand.
• They achieved 16 million views from videos
generated about their brand.
• Edelman, the social media agency, used
Tubular software to identify and contact
influencers for brand integrations.
• They have set up brand deals with over 10
influencers in the last 3 months.

10. How to find the right engagement tactics that
will optimize schmoozing with key influencers
• Provide value: What makes excellent
influencer engagement stand out from
mediocre attempts is creativity and
customization.
• Be relevant: Before reaching out to
someone, find out their topics of interest,
how often and where they publish, and
what they enjoy doing outside of their
influential zone.
• Be genuine:Engage by joining their
conversations, leaving comments, asking
them questions; they’ll notice, so there
will be opportunities to connect.

11. Provide value: Tell journalists and bloggers
about your new video under a news embargo
• A news embargois a request by a source
that the news or information provided in
advance to journalists or bloggers not be
published until a certain date.
• For example, Kate Larkin of Larkin/Volpatt
emailed me before Google and YouTube
announced they were extending the
capabilities of Brand Lift to TV campaigns.
• This enabled me to include this news in a
post that I was writing ahead of time for
Tubular Insights, even though my post
wasn’t actually published until after the
announcement at Advertising Week.

12. Be relevant: Do your homework; always start
your influencer outreach with some research
• Dig into each influencer’s interests,
communication style, and resources.
• For example, Jesse Hamlin, VP of Client
Services at Eastwick Communications,
was struggling to get a client on the radar
of an influencer and after some digging,
she discovered that he had a side blog
covering his interest in sports technology!
• When her client (a tech company) held an
event at Fenway Park, she was able use
that knowledge to send him exactly the
right information to secure his attendance
and long-term interest in her client.

13. Be genuine: Create an unlisted video and send
the link when pitching your story to influencers
• Orabrush created an unlisted video and
emailed a link to Rob Beschizza, the
managing editor of Boing.
• Two days later, Breschizza wrote a post
entitled, “Orabrush tonguescraper.”
• It said, “Orabrush makes an inexpensive
modern take on the classic tongue-
scraper, bristling with rubber fronds that
‘reach deep into the uneven crevices of
your tongue.’ Alternative uses: muffin
tenderizer; cat de-dandruffer; scoring
paddle for kinky lawn bowlers. Also, best
PR pitch so far this year. “

14. How to measure the performance of your
programs using metrics that really matter
• Creatorsare trying to build valuable
audiences like the highly coveted 18- to
34-year-old demographic.
• Marketers are trying to get more
customers to make a purchase (for an
ecommerce site), complete a game level
(for a mobile gaming app), or submit a
contact information form (for a marketing
or lead generation site).
• Brands are trying to increase brand
awareness, ad recall, consideration,
favorability, purchase intent, and interest
in a brand.

15. Creators can start using Tubular Video Ratings
to measure the performance of their programs
• Views: There’s no standard definition of a
“view,” but we can’t compare“watch
time” across video platforms, either.
• At least, Tubular Video Ratings provides V30,
which measures the number of views a video
gets in the first 30 days.
• Engagement:This includes likes, shares,
and comments across video platforms.
• Tubular Video Ratings also measures ER30, a
video’s engagement rate across all content
(e.g. 2.2x more engaging than average).
• Earnings: The estimated earnings report
in YouTube Analytics was renamed the
“revenue” report in February 2016.

16. Marketers can use the Campaign URL Builder
to measure the performance of their programs
• Marketers can use cards to link directly to
their associated website from their video.
• They can use the Campaign URL Builder tool
to add campaign parameters to URLs to track
Custom Campaigns in Google Analytics.
• They can use Bitly or the Google URL
Shortener to make links more sharable.
• This enables marketers to measure an
organic video campaign’s performance
using these metrics that matter:
• Acquisition – Sessions, % new sessions, and
new users.
• Behavior – Bounce rate, pages per session,
and average session duration.
• Conversions – Goals and goal value.

17. Brands are using Google’s Brand Lift solution
to measure the performance of their programs
• Awareness:Google’s Brand Lift solution
measures the impact of an ad campaign
on brand awareness and ad recall.
• Attitude: Brand Lift also measures an ad
campaign’s impact on consideration,
favorability, and purchase intent.
• Behavior: Finally, Brand Lift measures the
impact a TV campaign as well as YouTube
campaign has on creating interest in a
brand by using organic searches on both
Google.com and YouTube.com.
• From early tests, YouTube generates almost 2x
more searches per impression than TV
generates.

18. How to reach thousands of creators who’d love
to review your brand with 1-click schmoozing
• With the challenges still facing creators
and brands, the schmooze optimization
process is ripe for disruption.
• For example, Octoly is a new marketplace
connecting brands and micro-influencers.
• Octoly provides free products from
leading brands to up-and-coming
creators, allowing them to provide
unbiased and authentic reviews on
YouTube and Instagram.
• At the same time, Octoly helps leading
brands to identify micro-influencers and
activate rising stars at scale.

19. Micro-influencers get free products to review
without compromising their authenticity
• “I just love receiving alerts about new
products from Octoly. I especially like
being able to choose which ones to
review without any pressure or
constraints,” explained Katie Legate,
creatorand owner of the Katie Legate
channel on YouTube.
• “Octoly makes it a dream for me to share
my passion so easily while allowing me to
connect with the brands I love. I also
appreciate the freedom to give my
personal opinions, which is exactly what
my fans want: 100-percent honesty.”

20. Top brands and indie brands are already
offering beauty products through Octoly
• “Brands need relevant video content.
With the increase of videos appearing in
organic search results, the importance of
peer-to-peer reviews and YouTube being
the second largest search engine in the
world, brands can’t afford to sit idly by
with fingers crossed, hoping that their
products are reviewed by vloggers,”
explained Jill Pauley, Director of Online
Marketing for Los Angeles-based
professional hair care brand Sexy Hair.
• “Octoly helps brands access influencers
who are relevant to their brand and build
relationships with them.”

21. Octoly quickly captured the micro-influencer
market leadership for YouTube and Instagram
• Octoly entered the market in both France
and the United States in 2015 and
recently announced that it had achieved
the following milestones:
• 2,400 registered beauty influencers, of which
more than 60% are active.
• 85% market penetration among beauty
YouTubers in France.
• 120 beauty brands supplying products to
creators such as L’Oreal, Estee Lauder,
Sephora, Urban Decay, Birchbox, and Clarins.
• 22,000 objective and independent product
reviews over the last year.
• 80% quarter-to-quarter growth in product
reviews.

22. A VP of Emerging Media Partnerships asked
last month, “Is influencer marketing dead?”
• Justin Marshall of creative agency
POSSIBLE wrote in PSFK, “Influencer
marketing isn’t dead. In fact, it’s likely the
only way brands will hack the pay-to-play
algorithms built by social networks. But as
marketing leaders, we need to remember
successful influence is pervasive, not
invasive. There is a simple humanity to
creating influence that begs us to look
beyond buying what media execs sell to
replace banner ads. Getting more for your
media spend requires looking at influence
at a macro-leveland orchestrating every
facet of influence, from paid to earned.”