What’s The Best Time to Publish on YouTube for Maximum Views

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YouTube is the world’s second most popular search engine, ranking right after its parent company, Google. Also, it is the 7th most popular social media platform, based on visual attractions.

With more than 700 million monthly users, YouTube outranks many of its competitors. And it brings endless opportunities for marketers, brands, and people alike.

But, succeeding on the platform and becoming an influencer can be quite a challenge if you are not well-acquainted with the tactics. Most importantly, time plays an important role here.

YouTube’s algorithm has improved a lot ever since. So, it is important that you use it carefully instead of posting your videos randomly.

So, is there a good time to post your YouTube videos? Well, there is. However, it might be different for you. Study shows that if posted at the right time, YouTube videos can get up to five times more engagement.

So, if you are confused or looking for a guide, let us help you find the best time to publish on YouTube for maximum views.

How to Figure Out the Best Time to Post YouTube Videos

Time is precious in every sphere of life. While the perfect timing for something in life may not be decided beforehand, YouTube’s case is quite simple. It all depends on pure calculation.

The best thing about YouTube is that it has been on the web for more than 16 years now. So, there has been enough research and observations available on how it functions. So, you can get a basic idea of when to post and how. However, we believe that posting time differs from person to person.

However, when you start your journey on YouTube, it might not affect you that much. But as you advance on your journey, you will need to do some calculations before posting anything.

So, as you read ahead, you will find the perfect time for both beginners and advanced YouTubers to post their content.

How to Figure Out the Best Time to Publish YouTube Videos without YouTube Advanced Report- For Beginners

For YouTubers, one of the most common questions is “When should we post our videos?” Frederator Networks has tried to answer the question. They have done extensive data collection from their network of over 1,300 channels. Based on this data, Frederator Networks has been able to provide us with some insights on the question.

Frederator Networks has more male viewers than YouTube’s version in general. But their average audience group is almost the same as YouTube, aged between 13-34 years.

Frederator Networks have come to a conclusion. They have observed that different days have different peak times to post YouTube videos.

Monday to Wednesday- 2 pm to 4 pm EST
Thursday and Friday- 12 pm to 3 pm EST
Saturday and Sunday- 9 am to 11 am EST

However, if you post your content once or twice a week, you might choose Thursday and Friday. According to Frederator Networks, these two days get the maximum crowd in general.

But, following this data may not bring you your desired result all the time. And why so? It is more because the peak hours vary for different niches and types of content. Also, your audience’s location plays an important role in that too.

So, while an entertainment channel may benefit from posting content on Thursday, a news channel might find something else more beneficial. Hence, it is necessary that we find out our niche and play a role ourselves on YouTube.

And how would you do that? Well, you will need a YouTube advanced report for an in-depth study. Ahead we have mentioned how to find out the best time to publish YouTube content for advanced YouTubers.

How to Figure Out the Best Time for Publishing YouTube Video Using the Real-Time Analytics Report

YouTube Real-Time analytics is a great way to find when you should post your videos. Well, it is not as good as YouTube’s advanced report, but it can give you a personalized overview. You have to keep track of the changes and the highs and lows.

So, how do you find YouTube’s real-time analytics report? The steps are pretty easy.

First, open the YouTube studio.
Now, click on Analytics
Finally, go to the overview tab on the page.

Now you can see the overview of the analytics report. It provides you with the information on when your videos got the most views.

However, YouTube’s real-time analytics can only provide you with the information of the past 60 minutes and 48 hours. It means that you have to keep a close eye on the changes.

For example, you might get the best views on Thursdays. But the report won’t be available on Sunday. Hence, keep track of the report regularly and note down the hours and days. The 48 hours time span is beneficial in making such calculations possible.

It might seem somewhat overwhelming, but you get what you pay for. YouTube’s real-time analysis helps you find the best time to post videos on YouTube based on individual performance.

But when should you use YouTube’s real-time analytics? YouTube’s real-time analytics is undoubtedly a great feature to look at and should be a practice for everyone. However, if you get to have YouTube’s advanced report, real-time analytics won’t matter much.

How to Use YouTube’s Advanced Report for Posting YouTube Videos

YouTube’s advanced report won’t be available to you right away. It takes time, subscribers, and enough viewers for YouTube to study your channel. But, what does it do? Unlike YouTube real-time analytics, YouTube’s advanced report provides you with an overview of when your viewers are most active on the platform. Hence, you will know when to expect them online.

So, how do you find YouTube’s advanced report on YouTube? Follow these simple steps below to get the advanced report for your channel.

Open YouTube Studio

First, open a YouTube studio. This is where you will get access to YouTube advanced report. Here’s how to do it:

Open YouTube studio
Click on analytics
Now see your audience

Now look for the “when your viewers are online” data. It will be right on the left downside of the page, showing bars with purple colors. Some of you might not see it if you don’t have enough viewers for YouTube to process the data.

Hence, if you don’t have access to “when your viewers are online” data, you can follow the traditional ways to post YouTube videos, as mentioned earlier.

But if you have it, you can do a lot of things. Let’s move to how to find out the best time to post YouTube videos using the YouTube advanced report.

How to Read the Report?

So, now that you have the report, you have to know how to read it. But first of all, let’s see why this report is so important to anyone. Well, unlike YouTube’s real-time analytics, this report shows you when your viewers are online. Hence, you actually get to see how many people are online and when.

So, basically, when you have the most people online on certain days, that becomes the peak to post your videos. Now, how do you know when is the time through this report? Well, it’s pretty simple and easy. As you can see below, the report comes in a combination of different shades of purple and 7 bars.

Bars: Days of a week
Darker Purple shade: More audience online
Lighter Purple shade: Less audience online

All these bars are divided into periods. Now when the colour shade is darker, that is the time when most of your viewers are online. For example, suppose you have an entertainment channel. Now, the report shows you that most of your viewers are online during Sundays between 12-4 pm, which are pretty common for entertainment channels.

So, this is the peak time for your channel. However, the peak time can be different for other niches. Most business channels have their peak day during Wednesdays. So, when you change your niche, you change the audience base. And it affects your publishing times as well.

Anyway, this is how you read the report and find out the best time to publish your videos.

What If You Post Twice or Thrice a Week?

Okay, so that was all about how to find out the best time to post your YouTube videos using YouTube’s advanced report. The reports give you a clear idea about almost everything. However, some channels post videos twice or thrice a week. So, how do you get the best time to post your other videos as well?

As mentioned earlier, YouTube’s advanced report gives you an overview of when your viewers are online each day of a week. It is the primary day and period for posting your content. However, posting two videos at the same time does not seem correct. You pick the day with the most darker shades of purple.

So, if you have another video to post in the same week, look for the days having the second or third best viewers online. So, look for the days having the next best purple shades on them. Thus, you can pick one accordingly and post your second content on the given day.

Similarly, you can pick another day for your third content. However, focus on the time period as well. Post only during the time when you get the most darker shade of purple bars.

What If You Have Two Best Days?

Although it is most unlikely to happen, both days will be considered the peak time if it happens. However, in most cases, there has to be a slight difference. For example, you can see which day has darker shades around the darkest ones.

For instance, suppose you have two best days- Sunday and Monday. Both these days get the most viewers online between 12 pm – 4 pm. Hence, it can confuse you easily as to which is the best. Now, what you need to do is to count the lighter shades as well. See which day has the lighter shades around the darkest ones.

Now, the best part is that both these days are your best days. So, if you have a second content to post in the same week, you know when to schedule. You can easily differentiate the difference between these days that way.

Uploading Your Content Vs. Publishing Your YouTube Video

While most of you might think that YouTube content should be uploaded during the peak hour, it is not so. Every other YouTube expert recommends you upload your content at least 1-2 hours of the peak time. So, there is a difference between uploading your content and publishing it on the platform.

The goal here is more to prepare everything for the right time beforehand. YouTube takes time to process your content, convert it to other available quality options and check the credibility of your video.

Hence, it takes time to process your content before recommending it to your audience. When you upload your content beforehand, YouTube gets plenty of time to do that. Hence, by the time you reach your peak time for publishing, your content is all set to go live.

So, uploading is taking your video to the server before 1-2 hours of the actual peak time, whereas publishing means posting it finally during the peak time.

If your channel is monetized, make sure you abide by the YouTube community guidelines to avoid demonetization. Uploading your video before 1-2 hours also lets you see if anything violates the guidelines and whether or not the algorithm accepts your video.

Conclusion

You can always buy these cheap YouTube views, which also seems to be a good idea at times. But organic views bring a different image to your channel’s credibility. They say “time is everything.” Well, time is more than everything when it comes to digital platforms.

If you want to be a successful YouTuber, you have to know when to post your videos. If done at the right time, you will get more engagement than posting the content at any random time. This article was about the same discussion where we have mentioned all the ways to find the perfect time.

While at the dawn of your journey as a content creator, you may not find a vast difference in views, but as you proceed, you will. So, it’s better to practice these tips beforehand to get more engagement on YouTube.