Everything was set up for a week of marketing on LinkedIn. Fortunately, I had the foresight about 10 years ago to actively create a network for myself and I now have 2650 followers boosted already by this week’s activities. Little did I know, then, how important this would be.

To create links from each video on the YouTube Channel to Maximo Secrets requires you to establish 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours in a 12-month period. Before this week I had hoped for 100 subscribers which would allow me to apply for a custom URL for the channel. You could of course pay someone to create 1000 subscribers for you, it is a mere €80, and there have been several approaches with remarkably similar LinkedIn messages. I expect someone has created a bot to achieve this.

On Monday I launched the Maximo Bite Size podcast now with the first five episodes and the trailer on the Maximo Secrets page. By Wednesday evening the LinkedIn post had managed over 3000 views and 75 likes, but this had converted to only a handful of subscribers to Apple Podcasts. I am not surprised by this, to me it doesn’t seem like an interesting subject for a podcast, and I suspect that the Audio block on each podcast post on the website will get far more hits than any podcasting platform.

It may be that the podcasting platforms will only gather more listeners when there are significantly more episodes. The episodes are for Maximo consultants to learn from, they are based around a Maximo module, so in podcasting terms a series, hence they are more likely to work when the series is complete. I think also they are more likely to work when there are several series to listen to, i.e., when I’ve narrated the 40 Maximo Bite Size articles already written, the first three series.

I did get some feedback to ask whether I am going to create a podcast for Google Podcasts, I hadn’t realised that Apple Podcasts only works on Apple, never had to consider this before. I created my first ever poll on LinkedIn, another excuse for some marketing during the week, and from the 40 respondents it seems Spotify and Google Podcasts are the two I will go with. One person managed to pick the option of Other (please add a comment) and left without adding a comment, there is always one.

I do have a question to answer for myself. Do I race ahead with recording and publishing all the podcast episodes, I think it will be more useful to listeners if I did, or do I release the podcast and its associated video at the same time? Remember, each video is based on the same material as the podcast episode and has the same title, but the videos are only likely to be released one per week and may even be scheduled to occur at the same time and day each week. My gut says, release each podcast series in one go, perhaps one per month, which will also give me a target to write the next set of Maximo Bite Size articles, during the previous month, in order to stay ahead. I’ll have to discuss this with my work team next week.

On Tuesday I launched the Maximo Secrets YouTube channel, just after adding the fourth video. By Tuesday evening the channel had crept over 100 subscribers and 200 subscribers by the Wednesday evening, and although there was a marked slowdown it did dribble over the 300 mark by Friday night. This exceeded all expectations. This was helped at various times by letting people know on LinkedIn that 150 subscribers had been passed and actively asking people to like and reshare the post as it would be to the benefit of all watchers of the videos if I could get to 1000 subscribers and link the videos back to the Maximo Secrets website.

I released the fifth video on Thursday and on Friday I did get the ability to create a custom url to the YouTube channel. Both gave me the excuse to send out another LinkedIn message. It is the constant messaging which has probably boosted the YouTube subscribers and the increase in the number of LinkedIn followers.

On Saturday morning when I checked subscription numbers, I got a message to say that I had exceeded 500 views on YouTube. The all-important watch hours were a little over 23 hours and while 1000 subscribers now seem relatively achievable, the 4000 watch hours is not going to be a reality for some months to come, I doubt very much it will occur in 2022.

We discussed what the next set of objectives should be, apart from reaching the 1000 subscribers. On the Maximo Secrets website, I’ll look to include a post per video which will include the slides, transcript, and a link to the YouTube video. This will tap into visitors to the website to make them aware of the YouTube channel. Adding the transcript to the website may surface the subject area in a Google search and with the video link at the top of the post then this will hopefully translate to more watch hours.

We made the decision to only release one video a week on a regular basis. The alternative option was to try and grow the number of videos quickly until we had reached 20 to 25 which should mean that we hit the watch hours target earlier, but I’m happy with only doing one a week although I will try and build up a ready to go stock during August. Better have some ready “in the can” in case I need to work on something else.

This will give me more time to work on exploring YouTube Shorts, which will be a different type of video, a “How To” video which captures the movement of the cursor in Maximo. Trying to keep the video to 1 minute, or no more than 1.5 minutes might be a challenge. But once I have worked out a style and workflow, it might be possible to introduce one of these a week in addition to the existing style of video.

I did receive an email from a member of the TrackTribe group during the week confirming that I am free to use their music on a podcast or away from YouTube, for example if I published the video on the IBM community site called IBM Expert TV. I have made an enquiry about doing this. TrackTribe would prefer me to provide attribution where I can, which is now what I am doing, embedding a reference in the narration of a podcast or video. I wouldn’t do this on a YouTube Short, or a short trailer, I’d have to find a way of handling that in the description if I did have a short clip of their music.

On Friday afternoon I contacted the organiser of the Maximo World conference to see if he could give the Maximo Secrets YouTube Channel a plug during next week. He suggested I create a short video clip, load to YouTube and he would then use the Maximo World publishing channels to get it out to a wide audience of people interested in Maximo, I assume the attendees, but it may be a wider audience than this. Fortunately, I had already created my video trailer and three hours later I had a bespoke video for the Maximo World conference loaded on YouTube. Now I must hope that he sends it viral, well as viral as it could be in the world of Maximo.

This week was a big week and I certainly achieved some of my objectives set the weekend before, but by no means all of them, which is a fairly normal state. I did start investigating end screens, but I haven’t implemented any. One of my colleagues who knows little about Maximo did review the videos and he had some useful feedback, and he gave a link to someone who seems to produce pretty good videos and has several YouTube Shorts – this is very useful, to see some examples, and then work out how they were achieved.. Chapters where you give a guide to various points in the video seems something worthwhile to explore.

I have a day and half off on holiday next week, so I’d better consider that with objective setting for week 32:

• Publish the sixth podcast episode and video.
• Create the Maximo Bite Size podcast episodes for a further two weeks.
• Create and publish a podcast episode for The Diary of a Digital Nobody. This, I really need to get into a weekly habit with.
• Add captions to at least the first three videos. This shouldn’t take long; I’ve already published the subtitles.
• Add an End Screen and Chapters to at least the first three videos. Neither of these points should take long to do, it is just a matter of working out how.
• Add pages for the first three videos to the Maximo Secrets website. Again, I have the material ready, so this should not take long either.
• Launch the podcast on Google Podcasts and Spotify
• Do some test recordings with the new Lavalier microphone, the box hasn’t even been opened.
• Start to flesh out ideas for YouTube Shorts.
• Catch up on some of the recent missing transcripts for The Diary of a Digital Nobody, the number of missing weeks is increasing almost weekly now!