The Best Times to Post on YouTube to Increase Views

YouTube is one of the best social media platforms for businesses and content creators. As the second-largest search engine, it reaches billions of people worldwide, making it a great place to build your brand. What’s more, it offers monetization opportunities through ad programs, so it can be a source of income.

However, reaching YouTube’s vast audience isn’t always easy. To succeed on the platform, you need to consider many factors, including video quality, search engine optimization (SEO), and, the often overlooked, posting timing. If you post great content with well-optimized titles and descriptions but can’t seem to grow, the problem might be your timing.

This guide explains why timing is crucial and recommends the best times to post on YouTube to maximize views and engagement.

Why Timing Matters on YouTube

It’s normal to be skeptical about the value of proper timing on YouTube. After all, the platform’s algorithm prioritizes factors like video completion and engagement signals (likes and comments) over timing when recommending videos.

But here’s what some creators don’t realize: the timing of your posts can determine whether your target audience watches videos to the end and engages with them. Say you publish a video when many of your target viewers are actively online. You’ll likely secure a chunk of views and engagements within the first few minutes or hours. This immediate engagement tells the YouTube algorithm that your video offers value, which results in it appearing in more Home feeds.

While timing may not directly affect your reach and views, it strongly influences the factors that do. So, it’s not something you should overlook.

The Best Times to Post on YouTube

According to social media management tools Sprout Social and Buffer, late afternoons and early evenings register the highest engagement numbers. So, they’re the best times to post on YouTube.

Unlike platforms like Facebook (which receive engagement throughout the day), YouTube sees a lot of activity toward the end of the day because its content is primarily long-form. Many users have commitments like work and school during the day, so they can only watch videos in the late afternoon or evening.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the highest-engagement timeframes by day:

• Monday: 12 p.m. & 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
• Tuesday: 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
• Wednesday: 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• Thursday: 1 p.m. & 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
• Friday: 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
• Saturday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Sunday: 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Overall, the 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. time slot on Tuesdays through Fridays sees the most user activity. It’s a great starting point if you don’t yet know what time works best for your target audience.

Saturdays and Sundays have the lowest user activity. This could be because people prefer to take a break from social media and engage in real-life activities, such as attending events.

Do the “Best Times to Post on YouTube” Vary by Industry?

Yes. Different audiences have varying browsing and engagement habits. So, your ideal posting time may be a little different, depending on your industry.

According to Sprout Social, for example, the best posting time for government agencies is Wednesday at 9 a.m. Conversely, the best times for retailers and brands are Mondays at 1 p.m. and Thursdays at 9 p.m. And, the highest engagement timeframes for travel and hospitality businesses are Mondays and Tuesdays at 11 a.m., Wednesdays between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., and Sundays at 12 p.m.

As you can see, there’s no universal “best time to post on YouTube.” While late afternoons and early evenings may see the highest overall engagement, your audience may prefer to engage in the morning or early afternoon. So, don’t focus entirely on these timeframes.

Instead, identify when your target audience is most active. Luckily, this is something YouTube can help with. To better understand your audience’s browsing and engagement behavior:

1. Go to YouTube Studio. This built-in tool provides data that can help you make well-informed posting decisions.
2. Tap Analytics.
3. Click on Audience. Here, you’ll find a wide range of audience-related insights, including their demographics (age, gender, and location), the types of YouTube content they like (long-form videos, YouTube Shorts, or live streams), the videos that drive audience growth, and your viewers’ active times.
4. Scroll down to the “When your viewers are on YouTube” section. Here, you’ll find a heatmap showing your audience’s engagement across different days and timeframes. Darker shades indicate high activity, while lighter shades indicate low activity.

To narrow down your best posting times, focus on the darkest time slots in your analytics and test them one by one. For example, if 9 a.m., 12 p.m., and 8 p.m. show the strongest activity on Mondays, post during those times and track which one brings the highest engagement.

For more reliable results, space out your tests. You might post one video this Monday at 9 a.m., another the next Monday at 12 p.m., and a third the following Monday at 8 p.m. Keep other factors, such as video length and content type, as consistent as possible so you can clearly see which time works best.

Alternatively, you can create multiple YouTube accounts with GeeLark to reduce the testing period. GeeLark allows you to set up cloud phones, providing isolated environments for each of your YouTube accounts. This means you can test different timeframes on the same day without worrying about overwhelming your audience with too many posts.

What’s more, you can automate video and Shorts publishing across all your accounts. This saves you the hassle of constantly checking the time to make sure you don’t miss your posting window.

How to Use GeeLark for YouTube

To leverage GeeLark for faster A/B tests and video publishing automation:

1. Sign up for a GeeLark account.
2. Download the GeeLark app and log in.
3. Go to New Profile to set up your cloud phones (create a cloud phone profile for each of your YouTube accounts).
4. Add unique proxy details to each profile.
5. Go to Applications > Basic applications, then search for YouTube.
6. Tap Team’s applications to install YouTube across all your profiles.
7. Log in to each YouTube account as you would on your regular mobile device.

To automate content publishing, head to Automation and search for the “Publish YouTube videos” or the “Publish YouTube Shorts” template (depending on the type of content you want to post. Then follow your chosen template’s requirements and confirm automation. GeeLark will handle the posting.

Is Nailing Timing Enough to Increase YouTube Views and Engagement?

Unfortunately, no. While timing is a determining factor, it’s not the only one. Here’s what else you need to do for your content to perform well on YouTube:

• Stick to a specific niche: Find what you’re good at or what your target audience is interested in and create content around it. Sticking to a niche makes it easier for YouTube’s algorithm to categorize your content, which could result in more recommendations on targeted users’ Home feeds.
• Create high-quality content: Make sure every video delivers value to your audience. Also, maintain high video and audio quality to encourage completion. The higher your retention, the more YouTube’s algorithm recommends you to new viewers.
• Make your titles and thumbnails compelling: Unlike on platforms like TikTok, videos on YouTube don’t automatically start playing when users scroll; people have to click to play them. To encourage clicks, use titles and thumbnails that immediately capture viewers’ attention.
• Promote your YouTube channel across platforms: Drive traffic from your website and other social media pages by embedding links in strategic locations. For example, you can add a YouTube icon and link to your website’s homepage and include your YouTube URL in your Linktree on other platforms.
• Leverage YouTube SEO: Conduct keyword research to identify the words and phrases your audience uses when searching for content related to your niche. Then, include the keywords in your channel description, video descriptions, and titles to improve your ranking in search results.
• Create YouTube Shorts content: Modern audiences love short-form content. So, it’s no surprise that YouTube Shorts are incredibly popular. Use them to drive traffic to your channel by repurposing long-form content. For example, you could cut an interesting segment of your long-form video, post it on Shorts, and include a link to the full version.
• Engage with your audience: Like and respond to viewers’ comments to encourage more engagement on your videos. High engagement is a positive signal to the algorithm and, as such, could lead to your videos appearing on more feeds.

Find Your Ideal Posting Time

Late afternoons and early evenings on weekdays register the highest engagement numbers on YouTube. However, they may not be the ideal posting timeframes for your account.

To identify when best to post on YouTube, check your analytics for your audience’s most active times. Then, experiment with different time slots to see which window gets you the most views and engagement.

GeeLark can support at-scale testing by helping you create multiple isolated YouTube accounts. All you need to do is sign up, set up cloud phone profiles, log in to YouTube on the profiles, and publish videos at different times.

Further, GeeLark offers AI templates that automate both video and Shorts publishing. So, you don’t have to worry about missing your target posting windows.

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