- You guys know what they say, more is more, right?
Or is it quality over quantity?
Let's find out.
Hey everybody, this is Roberto Blake of robertoblake.com
helping you create something awesome today.
Welcome to another YouTube tips video.
Today I'm gonna be tackling one
of the most asked questions in YouTube.
How often should you upload videos to YouTube?
This video doesn't have nearly as straightforward
as an answer as you would think.
It's because it's a complicated question.
There are a lot of different YouTube channels out there
and some of you cannot upload every single day.
While it's been proven time and time again
that the algorithm favors daily uploads,
and I will explain why,
there is a lot of channels out there
that just couldn't do daily uploads if they wanted to.
Animation channels are definitely one of them.
Filmmaking channels, for another,
and some comedy and skit-based channels
require heavy production and scripting
and it's just not practical for them
to put out a video every single day.
So what are they supposed to do
if they want to compete in the algorithm?
It's probably not a shock to you
that I have an answer for that.
First we have to acknowledge how the YouTube algorithm
has shifted to favor frequent uploads and why.
Since 2013, YouTube shifted their algorithm in big ways.
Likes and views are not nearly as important
as overall watch time, retentions,
and session start times and session end times now.
I've talked about this in length
in my How to Grow a YouTube Channel series.
I've broken down a lot of things with the algorithm
and I've done long format Q & A sessions
where I've let you guys ask me
your own individual questions.
I've even shown you how some of this works
in my own analytics.
So you might want to check those videos out
if you're new here to the channel
and this is a video that you just happened to come across.
I've covered this a lot.
When YouTube switched to this prioritization of watch time,
there were a few other things that happened.
For one thing, the gaming genre blew up when this happened.
Vlogging also became more viable.
And you'll notice that most YouTube vloggers
keep their videos over 10 minutes if they can help it.
Short form content, like skits,
that were just really short two to three minute videos,
you know, the kind of things that used to go
viral very easily back in the day,
those became harder and harder to come by.
And animation channels that do high-quality work,
they got hit really hard.
And part of the reason is because
if YouTube sees activity on your channel
then it's going to favor it.
If YouTube sees watch time constantly
increasing on your channel, it's going to favor it.
And if it see that there is overall longer sessions,
meaning that your channel is getting people
to watch YouTube for longer periods of time,
whether it's an individual video,
a playlist, or a group of videos,
or even that you're getting them
to watch other people's videos on YouTube
with your video being the gateway drug,
then YouTube is going to favor you.
And it's going to promote you more in the algorithm.
The other thing is, I've been talking to my friend,
YouTube expert, Derral Eves,
and he talked about a 24 hour decay rate
that many of you may be familiar with,
with regard to the first 24 hours
and 48 hours of your video being uploaded,
being the most important to get watch time,
views, shares, et cetera.
You need to do everything you can
to fight for your video in that first 24 hours.
The reason that daily uploads are popular is because
it's resetting that 24 hour cycle on your channel.
YouTube cares about daily activity on your channel.
YouTube cares about whether you had something happen
that it can count in terms of activity
on your channel for that day,
and also what the participation was
for that day on your channel.
Which means it's not just down to
the video that you put out,
it's down to how is the channel as a whole performing,
which means that back in the day
you could get away with putting out one video a week
and if it did very well overall
and it was popular or it went viral,
or went even semi-viral or even just most
of your audience and fan base watched it, you will be fine.
But today that's not true because
it's not just about that one video,
it's about what is happening
with your traffic every single day.
So every day that you're not getting traffic,
it's a problem.
What I recommend is maybe you can't do daily videos,
but there are a few things that me and Derral
figured out that you can do.
For one thing, if you're not gonna upload a video that day,
you could create a playlist that day
and that will help you in terms of YouTube
seeing activity on your channel.
What yo need to understand is that YouTube
does create a content ID for a playlist
the same way it does for a YouTube video
and that a playlist is also
a searchable result in YouTube.
So, if you have to skip an upload today,
consider making a playlist of curating your content
and other people's content as well.
The other thing is when you don't have videos out,
you should be doing distribution
of your old content as much as possible.
This is why I make evergreen content here on YouTube.
A lot of people beat me up about the fact
that my videos don't get a ton of views
in the first week and I upload constantly.
What a lot of people don't see
is that over the course of three or six months,
especially if I keep promoting those old videos
because they're still relevant to people,
because it's education content,
I'm able to keep siphoning views over time
and it means that even if this day or this week
a particular video didn't perform,
the overall channel is still getting
more watch time and more views and more engagement
than it did over the last 30 days.
And that's something that YouTube takes very seriously.
Not only does it monitor your daily activity
and your daily uploads, but it looks at your week
and it looks at your month,
and it looks at your last 100 days.
So, if you want to be truly successful on YouTube,
I trust that you're going to take these things to heart,
and I'm going to give you some advice
on how often you should upload.
You should upload as much as you possibly can.
I know some of you have worried about things
like subscriber burnout, don't.
I know some of you have worried about,
well, I think that I'd be posting
too frequently for my audience, don't.
If there's something you're doing
that your audience loves and there's a demand for it,
guess what, they're going to watch it
on their own time, on their own terms
because YouTube is about choice.
Give them the option and let them decide.
It's better to show up and present the option
than to reject yourself and not show up at all
because you're going to miss shots you don't take,
and in this case, the algorithm is going to make sure
you are penalized for it.
So, if you can upload a video and it's a good quality video,
go ahead and upload it.
In terms of a minimum for how many videos
you need to be uploading per week,
you can't get away with one video a week anymore,
even if it's a very good video.
I recommend that you do two to three videos a week.
If you're an animation channel
and you can't crank out animation videos that quickly,
what I recommend is you start doing some
behind the scenes videos or you start doing tutorials.
There's a lot of reasons.
For one thing, if you're an animation channel,
and I should do a whole video just giving advice,
like my five tips for YouTube animation channels.
If you're interested in that,
let me know in the comments and I'll make that video,
but my advice for animation channels
or channels that can't get out frequent content
is if you're doing big hero content,
there's three types of content on YouTube.
Hub content, hero content, and help content.
Help content is most of what I do on this channel.
It's things you're searching for
to get advice that's gonna help you.
Hero content is these big grandiose productions.
It's your big viral videos.
It's your well-edited, well-polished stuff.
Casey Neistat's entire channel is hero content,
so it's things like that.
Hub content is more like what vloggers do
that build community and engagement
around personality and shared interests,
so that's what you have.
I think you should figure out a balanced formula
for doing three videos a week and figuring out
how to do hub, hero, and help.
If you can't do hero content every week,
then make sure you're doing hub content every week
and strengthening your relationship with your community.
And I would try and get a help video out every week,
something's that's gonna do very well in search
and in recommended videos.
I think that if you use that strategy
and you upload two to three times a week,
if your two videos are a hub
community, emotional value video,
and then an analytical, help, search-friendly video,
then those two videos are going to help you,
and then if you can throw in
a hero video every now and again,
then you're going to do fine.
That is the formula that I wish
I did more of here on the channel
and it's something that I'm pivoting toward
because hub content means that most
of your subscribers will watch that.
There are plenty of YouTubers,
that they have this great fan base,
and they get a great view to sub ratio
because most of their content
is for their core audience.
But sometimes aside from that core audience
sharing their videos, they don't have
a really great growth strategy,
and so that slows them down.
Now if you also have search-friendly content
that's good no matter what,
and no matter when it's watched,
then that can also help.
So I think it's about balance.
So, how often should you upload to YouTube?
Two times a week is the minimum, three is optimal.
If you can do three to five, great,
and the best thing for the algorithm
is daily or twice a day if you can do it.
I know that sounds insane,
but that's what YouTube teams are for.
If you're a solo creator, like I am, for now,
then I would say what's sustainable for most of you
is two to three times a week.
A lot of my friends have been successful
on YouTube like that,
and I think you will be as well.
If you get really efficient, you can do what I did.
You can go from three videos a week to five,
and then eventually to seven, all on your own.
You can still make it on YouTube as a solo creator.
Maybe I should make a video about that.
Anyway, I hope this video helped you out.
I hope you now feel like you have an answer
for how often you should upload to YouTube.
Also gonna recommend one of my favorite tools for YouTube
that can help you figure out
when is the best time to upload,
which I'll cover in a whole 'nother video for you.
But I recommend a tool called Tube Buddy.
Go to tubebuddy.com/awesome.
Links are in the description below.
Also, I've got a 20% discount code
for you in the description.
So if you're skipping my descriptions,
you're missing out on a lot of cool things,
like discounts and recommendations
and finding out what gear I'm using.
So, maybe you should check that out a little more often.
The reason I like Tube Buddy,
and they're not sponsoring this,
is because it's been my secret weapon
for helping grow my YouTube channel.
It's helped me understand analytics better,
understand what my audience's behavior has been,
help me understand what some of my friends
are doing compared to my channel,
and it's given me ideas of where I can grow.
It's also helped me understand with Social Bluebook
how much they charge for sponsorships.
So that is linked in description.
It's an affiliate link that helps out the channel,
but it's also probably the best tool
to help you grow your YouTube channel.
I'm also going to recommend the book
Tube Ritual by Brian G. Johnson.
He's another YouTuber here
who's helping other YouTube creators.
He's written a great book
and I think it would really help you out.
So maybe you should give that a try.
Let me know what you think in the comments section.
Like this video if you like it.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Check out the other awesome content on the channel.
As always you guys, thanks so very much for watching
and don't forget, create something awesome today.
Take care.
(techno music)