If you’re posting YouTube videos, you want to optimize everything you can to maximize your views and exposure.
And that includes deciding when to post.
So keep reading to know the best times to post on YouTube.
Let’s get started!
Takeaways
- If you want to see when your viewers are on YouTube, go to your YouTube Studio and click Analytics.
- Publish at the beginning of your viewers’ YouTube session, not the end of it.
- Test different posting times when you’re starting out and continuously watch your YouTube Analytics.
How To Determine The Best Times To Post On YouTube
The first thing we want you to do in order to determine the best times to post on YouTube is to go to your YouTube Studio, and click Analytics.
Then click over to the Audience tab, and scroll down to the section that says “When your viewers are on YouTube.”
The lighter purple areas in this chart indicate when fewer and fewer of your viewers are online.
The darker purple areas show when most of your viewers are on YouTube.
So, looking at our chart here, it wouldn’t make sense for us to post at 8 PM on any day of the week.
However, it does make sense for us to post at 10 AM EST. Monday – Friday, which is why we do just that.
Now some of you may be looking at the chart thinking, “Well you could also post at 12 noon Monday- Friday, right?”
While we do see that a lot of our viewers are on YouTube at that time throughout the week as well…
…we also see that they start falling off after that hour on Thursdays and Fridays.
But starting at 10 AM, they’re on YouTube pretty consistently for at least another 2 if not 3 hours after that.
So not only does publishing at 10 AM allow us to post when our audience is online…
…but it also means we’re publishing at the start of our viewers’ YouTube sessions each day.
You want to maximize the time that your video can be in front of your audience’s eyeballs.
So you want to publish at the beginning of their YouTube session, not the end of it.
Now you may notice YouTube’s note here that says, “Publish time is not known to directly affect the long-term performance of a video.”
What they mean by that is that publishing a video when the majority of your viewers are online is great for the short term.
But if you want your video to garner a serious amount of attention over time, maybe go viral even…
…you need to optimize your video for the long term as well.
In this post, we talk about YouTube keyword research.
While in this tutorial, we talk about how to get more views on YouTube using that research.
So check out these posts next because those will help you continue getting views long after you initially publish.
Or, you can also get our YouTube SEO services to help you optimize your videos.
You need to keep in mind that using the best times to post on YouTube alone is not going to propel you into thousands or millions of views…
…but it is going to give you a good start, especially if you’re a younger channel.
Now, some of you reading may have JUST started your YouTube channel…
…and don’t have enough data yet to confidently say when the majority of your audience is online. So let’s move on to…
When To Post Your Videos If You’re A Brand New Channel
So how about if you’re just starting out or don’t have viewers yet to base your decision on? What would be the best times to post on YouTube then?
One study found that the best times to post:
- On Monday thru Wednesday, it’s 2 PM – 4 PM.
- On Thursdays and Fridays, it’s noon – 3 PM.
- On the weekends, it’s 9 AM – 11 AM.
So you can start there if you want, but we would recommend above all to just continuously watch your YouTube Analytics.
You can definitely test different posting times when you’re starting out.
But if you’re posting regularly and you’re following the tips we give in the other posts we mentioned, then you should start accruing regular viewers.
And the more you build your audience, the more data YouTube will be able to pull from…
…to fill in that chart and tell you when your viewers are on the platform.
Now if you want to know how to upload a YouTube video, or how to create a YouTube playlist, here are our tutorials for that.
So that wraps up everything in today’s post! Contact us today if you need help with your YouTube marketing!
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