YouTube uploading | What days and time do you upload and why ?

[humes]

I currently upload videos every Monday/Friday just due to my riding cadence (weekend rides post Monday, weekday rides post Friday). I have also been posting around noon, Eastern Time, in hopes of grabbing lunch viewership and let that continue to trickle into the evening.

However, I posted today's video at 7 pm ET to see how that would do. Problem is, I am in the early stage with 22 subscribers so don't have a good sample size to test viewership differences yet. So it got me thinking what others might have already learned or seen in their own viewership peaks (and I didn't see an active thread talking about this).

Here's what an article on Google suggested, just to add it as fodder to the convo:

• The days that show the highest level of engagement are Friday through Saturday, as well as Wednesday.
• The best time to post, in general, is at 5pm, though you can still get success until 9pm before you see serious diminishing returns.
• Sundays are the optimal days to post a video on YouTube, either earlier in the morning (between 8am and 11am) or later in the evening (after 5pm).
• In some cases, posting early in the morning during weekdays (approximately 8am Eastern) lets you reach both east coasters on their way to work and west coasters enjoying their lunch break.

What have you all been doing ? What days and times do you upload ? How is that working out ? Any analytics you have on what seems to work for you ? Would love to bring minds together to get some thoughts on the table.

 

[LandyVlad]

I can't answer your question but it may also depend on whether you are targeting an international audience, not just a US one. So no easy answer I guess. Population wise it makes sense to cater for the US viewership but if you subscribers are mostly in (say) Australia then it's important to cater for them.

 

[Moto Mengy]

So far I've just been posting a new video every Monday, with the occasional video on Thursdays from time to time too. I upload in the morning and get it all set up, then wait for Youtube to process it before making it public, which usually takes until later in the afternoon.

The only reason I picked Mondays is because it gives me the weekend to edit the video together, and the only reason I upload a second video from time to time on Thursdays is because it's about halfway between Mondays, lol. I don't have any special reasons for when I upload other than those.

I wonder if going public on other days might be a better choice? According to what Humes posted I've been avoiding the best upload days!

 

[CafeBrakes]

Thank you for this. I usually upload at 12pm on Sundays. I will look into doing this more when I release videos. I use the schedule button because the video still takes time to render even if it's public.

 

[Bike4Fun]

I most try to upload saturday or Sunday. But i think it is not so important, wich time and day

 

[motosera]

I'm just scheduling stuff to go live about an hour after it's uploaded to give the video time to process. Other than that I'm not considering targeting specific times - perhaps it makes a bigger difference on bigger channels... I dunno. Not enough data on the few videos I've uploaded to date yet.

 

[Hippo-Drones]

I put a video up on Thursday lunchtime (UK) every week, and if I am posting a second vid, it'll go up on Sunday lunchtime. Doing it at lunchtime means I can share it out on the groups and forums and social medias in my lunch break, doing it Thursday seemed to get me the best traffic, and means there is a new vid for those that only have time at the weekends as well!

 

[lupin]

I honestly don't think its going to make any difference with such a low subscriber count.

Personally I just release when I feel like it now and that works for me. No need for me to work out the best time.

You also get a indication on YouTube of when your channel get the most traffic. If you really wanted you could release just prior to the peak time.

 

[WEB]

I just post them when i'm finished with a video. All the semantics about watch time and mindgames about video reach and stuff really suck the fun out of the platform for me.

 

[Meifesto]

I noticed that allot of my active views are between 16:30 and 19:00 ish.
So i release them on 16:00 Sundays and 15:30 wednesday.
Wednesday earlier due to many people who upload on wednesday around 17:00, so try to be the first

Sunday feels like a great day, partly because it is still weekend, and partly because some bigger youtubers do Saturday, so less competition
And it also gives me 2 days to edit

Wednesday because at the moment it is my free day. I have done Teusday and Thursdays as well, when that was my free day. Thursday do work very well to be honest viewwise, because people still see it on Friday evening.

 

[SighBored]

So far I've just been posting a new video every Monday, with the occasional video on Thursdays from time to time too. I upload in the morning and get it all set up, then wait for Youtube to process it before making it public, which usually takes until later in the afternoon.

The only reason I picked Mondays is because it gives me the weekend to edit the video together, and the only reason I upload a second video from time to time on Thursdays is because it's about halfway between Mondays, lol. I don't have any special reasons for when I upload other than those.

I wonder if going public on other days might be a better choice? According to what Humes posted I've been avoiding the best upload days!

Yup, same thought. I just tend to space out the videos a few days apart.

 

[Steph]

This thread is super helpful. My upload schedule is all over the place. been trying to figure out what works for me with work.

 

[CubanRider]

On YouTube Studio under channel analytics there's a section that shows "when your viewers are on YouTube". Mine is not displaying any info due to "not enough data" but I have seen that section populate before. It tells you what times of the week your viewers are more active. Really good information to schedule when to publish your video.

 

[WaltInPA]

I'm a creature of habit and like to develop a routine and stick to it. For this reason, I started scheduling videos to post every Monday and Friday at 8am EST (no particular reason - it seemed like a good a time as any).

This week it seemed a bit strange that my Monday video had zero interaction by 11am. I usually have something happen in the first few hours - a like, a comment, something to trigger an alert.

Thats when I realized that when scheduling the video I selected the wrong date. I fixed the problem and made the video public around noon (roughly 4 hours later then usual). I don't know if it was purely coincidental but there seemed to be more activity sooner.

I don't have enough data to say for sure it would be worth pushing my videos closer to Noon but it wound up being an interesting accidental experiment.

 

[GIZZ]

A lot of big car channels I follow post early Sunday morning. If it’s close to Sunday and I have a video ready I’ll wait to post it.

 

[LandyVlad]

Then of course with timing there's the whole issue of WHERE your audience is - do you want the video to be available at the optimal time for viewers in your country (in my case Australia) or in the USA... etc

I certainly agree with

I honestly don't think its going to make any difference with such a low subscriber count.

and

I just post them when i'm finished with a video. All the semantics about watch time and mindgames about video reach and stuff really suck the fun out of the platform for me.

For most of us - who have low subscriber counts - just focus on having fun with it - that WILL translate to the vibe of your videos and make people more likely to enjoy them and thus spread the word....

Well that's my $0.02

 

[Meifesto]

On YouTube Studio under channel analytics there's a section that shows "when your viewers are on YouTube". Mine is not displaying any info due to "not enough data" but I have seen that section populate before. It tells you what times of the week your viewers are more active. Really good information to schedule when to publish your video.

And aim 2 or 3 hours before the peak. So your content has all the time be max quality, instead of 360 at your peak viewing moment

 

[Hippo-Drones]

And aim 2 or 3 hours before the peak. So your content has all the time be max quality, instead of 360 at your peak viewing moment

If you schedule the upload then it should be at full quality for when it goes live if you upload it the day before!

 

[Meifesto]

If you schedule the upload then it should be at full quality for when it goes live if you upload it the day before!

That is true as well

 

[Drakhen99]

I know this is an older thread, but what do y'all do with extra videos? I've currently got 5 uploaded to YT in Draft mode. 3 or 4 are regular vlogs, the other 1 or 2 are reviews and such.

I typically schedule releases for Tuesday and Friday (this week they're 8 or 9AM my time, usually has been 7pm my time - just trying something new), but a couple of times I've felt that something was time-sensitive so I posted it as soon as it finished processing the HD version.

On one hand, I can grab (hopefully) extra views by releasing NOW, but on the other, I may have a week or two where nothing gets uploaded because I released 'em all early.

-John