What is the Best Time to Upload on YouTube? An Ultimate Guide
The journey to make it big on YouTube is a long difficult trail that requires you to be extremely consistent with uploading your content. It’s not uncommon for emerging YouTubers to believe that only high-quality visuals, aesthetic setups, and amazing content are factors that add to your YouTube success.
Although your audience will choose to follow you because of your content, being strategic about your posting schedule can give you that initial push required to gain more visibility and in turn more subscribers in the future.
So unless you stumble on a goldmine and one of your videos happens to go viral, posting twice or thrice a week consistently is the only way to form a true viewer base that sticks around for the long term.
The fact is, the day and time you decide to upload your video directly affects the number of people your video is recommended to and hence will have an impact on your viewership numbers.
The initial few hours after posting are crucial so knowing the best time to upload on YouTube can contribute gratefully, especially if you are a new channel with very little traffic.
The key is to think of publishing on YouTube similar to a day-time prime television show. Only the best shows get the prime 9 pm spot and on YouTube, you should also aim for the same.
Now, diving into the actual solution, you can approach this problem in two different ways. One is looking through studies and past experiences to understand the best time to post on YouTube. The other option is to consult analysis specific to your channel to get to know when your viewers are on YouTube and how your viewership numbers fluctuate according to your posting time.
In this article, we will be diving into both the approaches mentioned above and study them in detail to know the best time to upload on YouTube for your channel.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Best Time to Upload on YouTube - According to Surveys
- Best Time to Post on Youtube - Using Analytics Tools
- FAQ
- Conclusion
Best Time to Upload on YouTube - According to Surveys
Best Time to Post on YouTube - 2021
The Frederator Networks has performed a detailed analysis of over 1300 channels and 120 Million monthly views to possibly provide an accurate answer to the "Best Time to Post on YouTube" question.
Although the numbers are not perfect and have their own biases, it is still a good starting point to get an idea of how the viewership changes according to the time of posting.
According to the Frederator Networks report, these are the best times to upload on YouTube.
| DAY | TIME (EST) |
|---|---|
|
Monday |
2 pm to 4 pm |
|
Tuesday |
2 pm to 4 pm |
|
Wednesday |
2 pm to 4 pm |
|
Thursday |
12 pm to 3 pm |
|
Friday |
12 pm to 3 pm |
|
Saturday |
9 am to 11 am |
|
Sunday |
9 am to 11 am |
Readers must note that Frederator Networks specifically adds that their demographic is 65% male and 80% of their viewers are between the ages of 13 to 34 years old. Their audience is also predominantly based in the US so the numbers might have been skewed based on these base parameters.
It is also usually advisable that channels publish their videos a couple of hours before the peak viewing time as YouTube takes some time to index the video and recommend it to viewers.
Best Time to get Highest Engagement on your Videos on YouTube
Naturally, demographics play a very important role in determining the performance of your video. So that should one hundred percent factor into your decision to post at a particular time.
As for the YouTube users base, it currently has 2 billion users. Of the total users, around 225 million are from India, followed closely by 197 million from the US. China, Brazil, Japan, UK, Russia are few other countries with a sizable viewership base.
So based on the demographic split, you can choose to upload your video. You’d have to choose the best time to post on YouTube based on the demographics alone in a few cases. But on a general note, Boosted found that maximum engagement happens on YouTube from Friday to Saturday and also on Wednesdays.
Generally speaking, it’s best to publish your video after 5 pm, as your video will most likely catch your viewer on their commute home after work. Boosted also found that on Sundays, publishing between 8 am to 11 am or after 5 pm also works well.
The age of your target audience will also inform your decision on when to upload a video on YouTube. YouTube has a largely young viewership base, so successful Youtubers in the past have focused on planning and posting their videos according to the month or day of the week.
You can immediately tell that the schools are about to reopen based on the number of Back to School videos on your feed.
Although we are mostly focusing on the best time to post on YouTube, we must also touch upon the worst days to upload. According to HowSociable, the starting weekdays, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are probably the worst days to post your videos.
It’s also known that businesses benefit from posting their videos between Tuesday and Thursday while an entertainment channel will do better by publishing on Weekends.
Past analysis and articles alone are not completely capable of answering our “Best Time to Upload on YouTube” question. There is a lot of contradictory information out there so turning to channel-specific analysis is a good bet to decide your posting time.
Best Time to Post on Youtube - Using Analytics Tools
Youtube Studio’s “When your viewers are on YouTube” stats are quite helpful in determining the best time to post on YouTube. The Analytics tab essentially provides real-time analytics reports about your activity, views, watch time, and subscribers. To access the report, follow these steps.
- Open the YouTube Studio official page on your browser
- Sign-in into your account
- Click on Analytics in the sidebar
- Go to the overview tab
Here you will find specific analyses for each of your videos. The report will include details on Traffic Source, Geography, Viewer Age, Viewer Gender, Device type, and much more.
The results are shown for the last 28 days from your search, as that is the default setting. You can change the duration as you like.
You’ll also find information about watch time, views, average view duration, impressions etc.
This is a great platform to get a comprehensive view of how many views your video might gain based on the time of day.
So if your views periodically peak at a certain time, that particular time can be considered as peak hour for your channel's viewer base and you can post a couple of hours before that time. This may be the best time to post on YouTube for you.
How to find out when your audience is on YouTube
Similarly in YouTube Studio, in the “Audience” tab you’ll find a visual report on when your viewers are on YouTube. This should ideally match your peak hours.
The Audience tab will essentially give you an overview of your audience. Here, the darkest bar is when the maximum percentage of your audience is active on YouTube.
You can take into account both your views and “when your viewers are on YouTube” stats to decide on the best time to post on Youtube for your channel.
Although this tool is quite helpful, only channels with sizable traffic can view their reports on YouTube Sudio’s Real-time analytics.
FAQ
1. What is the best time to post on Youtube if you are targeting an American audience?
The optimal time to target both the Eastern and the Western coast time zone is 8 am EST on weekdays. Otherwise, posting at 5 pm during the weekend can also get you a lot of traction
2. Which is the best day to post your YouTube videos?
Over the weekend, from Friday to Saturday is when channels usually get the most engagement. Although it’s recommended that you consult your channel-specific analysis and publish on days when you gain the most views.
3. How many times each week should I post a video?
Posting a video twice or thrice a week brings in the best audience retention numbers. But you must avoid posting on consecutive days.
Conclusion
Creating a successful YouTube channel happens through a lot of trial and error. You’ll need to learn about different strategies and techniques to improve your channel’s performance as you progress. This article will help you decide on the best time to post videos on your channel. This article will help you decide on the best time to post on YouTube and boost your channel’s viewership. We have also written about the best time to stream on Twitch target="_blank", do check that out.