Do you post all your videos to YouTube on a regular schedule?
Creative people — especially musicians — don’t always work well with deadlines. You might go for months without posting anything to YouTube, then inspiration strikes and you film three new videos in a single week. Of course you’re itching to post them all in rapid succession, but it’s probably smarter to hold back and put together a more deliberate plan.
Many of the biggest YouTube stars talk about the importance of posting new videos on a set schedule, even if it’s only once a month. While many artists don’t aim to use the platform in the same way that “YouTubers” do, there’s still a lot to learn from the strategies of popular YouTube personalities.
Why is it important to post YouTube videos according to a schedule?
1. You don’t overwhelm your subscribers
A new video needs time to announce itself to the world (through YouTube subscriber notifications, your email newsletter, social media updates, etc.). It takes time for your video to be noticed, watched, and shared.
If you post two or more videos around the same time, you’re basically cannibalizing the reach and impact of your own content, diluting the power that any individual video might’ve otherwise possessed.
So, for instance, rather than publishing all your Art Track videos off your latest album at once, schedule them out over the course of a few weeks or months. Give each video (and song) its moment to shine.
2. You create anticipation
Popular YouTubers often talk about the anticipation their subscribers feel leading up to the posting of a new video. It’s much easier to build that anticipation when your fans know WHEN they should be expecting something.
Again, it doesn’t need to be every week. It could be every 3rd Thursday of the month — or something along those lines — but setting the expectation goes a long way towards drawing your fans towards your new videos once they’re online.
3. You set a challenge for yourself
Need to light a creative fire and boost your video output? Set a YouTube schedule and promise your subscribers you’ll deliver!
Remember: not every video has to be a big-budget production. Your schedule can consist of — and account for — different types of content, including high-production videos, lyric videos, Art Tracks, vlogs, and more (each format requiring a different amount of time to shoot and edit).
4. You’ll boost your ranking in YouTube search
According to an article by 3PlayMedia:
“Newly published videos get an SEO boost during the first week they’re published on YouTube, so publishing regularly ensures you’ll always have a video higher up in SERPs.
Regular views and repeated visits to your channel signal to YouTube that your content is valuable, and therefore deserved higher search rank.”
How to create your YouTube schedule
Well first, be realistic
Do you have a day job? Are you on tour 11 months out of the year? You’re probably not going to be able to pump out a video three times a week.
Time management
Factor in the time it takes you to adequately shoot, edit, share, and promote each video. Now figure how that time investment works with all your other responsibilities in life. Strike a balance so your YouTube goals are achievable. Otherwise you’ll get burned out.
Frequency
As for the frequency of posting, I’d recommend setting a baseline goal of once a month — which should be easy enough to do if you include Art Tracks, snippets of live shows, etc. If you have the time, talent, or resources to publish videos more often, well, I’m jealous, and good for you. You totally should. Maybe try twice a month and see how that goes.
What time to post
Figure out when your fans are most likely to interact with your videos; is it Thursday at 2pm? Probably. Check out this chart with the best days and times to post new videos to YouTube.
Free-time
Also think about days when you consistently have free hours — because we all know that once you publish a video on YouTube it’s followed up with more time on social media and email, sharing and promoting. Don’t publish a video on a day when you’re running from obligation to obligation.
Scheduled publishing
Want to upload your video (or videos) today, add the titles and tags, and then schedule it to post hours, days, or weeks from now?
You can, IF you’re a member of YouTube’s Partner Program or a member of a YouTube network such as Illustrated Sound.
Here’s how to schedule a YouTube video to publish at a later time.
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Do you have a posting strategy for YouTube? Are you on a schedule? How’s it working? Let me know in the comments below — and share a link to your channel!
Chris Robley is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and award-winning poet from Maine.
His Beatlesque indie-pop and milltown Americana songs have been praised by The Associated Press, No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR, American Songwriter, and others.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, and more.
Robley has received a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Boulevard’s Emerging Writers Prize for Poetry, and in 2016 was selected by former US-poet laureate Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the Dorset Prize.