Schmooze Optimization: How it Increases Views, Improves Engagement, and Boosts Earnings

Greg JarboeSEO-PR Co-founder

VidSummit 2016

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 optimization means “the design and operation of a system or process to make it as good as possible in some defined sense."

• So, schmooze optimization is 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.

While the term schmooze optimization hasn’t taken off, interest in influencer marketing has

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.

• Influencers are filling the vacuum.• They are topic experts, thought leaders,

or brand advocates who 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.

You need to overcome 3 main challenges when rolling out an influencer engagement strategy

• According to a survey, marketing and communications professionals 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.

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.

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, creators can 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.

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.

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.

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.

Provide value: Tell journalists and bloggers about your new video under a news embargo

• A news embargo is 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.

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.

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 tongue scraper.”

• 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. “

How to measure the performance of your programs using metrics that really matter

• Creators are 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, creator and owner of the Katie Legatechannel 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.”

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.”

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.

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-level and orchestrating every facet of influence, from paid to earned.”