is youtube wrong about this?

[puzzLEGO]

youtube claims that uploading time of day does not affect long-term viewership
however, from personal experience, on my channel, I feel like this is wrong
for example, a lot of youtube channels rely on subscriber viewership (e.g some channels that upload daily), and don't really get many other viewers after the first few days
if the video is uploaded too long before subscribers see it, their notification box might get flooded with other channels, so the original channel might not get their view whereas if they uploaded recently, it would be at the top of their notification box
also, if I saw their video saying 33minutes ago, or 2 hours ago, I would be far more likely to click than if it said 1 day ago

 

[Gaijillionaire]

YouTube is correct. It doesn’t matter what time of day because they will still surface to the video to a broad audience for 7 days and even after that it will be made available on the home page to anyone youtube thinks is interested. If a channel relies on daily viewership is wager those people are in the habit of checking the channel repeatedly anyway

 

[Tito Tims Videos]

I think it can depend on your viewer's habits and their expectations of you, but overall I do not see how it matters that much on streaming media. That is the point of it. The vids are available at any time. Live TV (or our livefeeds) day/time would be important. If it is from a channel I follow, and I have not seen it yet, it is new to me.

Most of my vids have a shelf life of 3 or 4 days. I get the same number of views, and the same people commenting. The day/time does not seem to affect it.

Some of my best performing vids are 5 years old, and still get more views than most of my new stuff. After 5 years - it does not matter what day/time it was uploaded.

 

[Nicekid76]

Err.... I think it matters a lot, but I think it matters more when you have a smaller audience.
If you have a large audience chances are people around the world will see it no matter when you upload it. But when you have a small audience that mainly lives in your time zone uploading when people are going to bed, might not be the best idea.

When I used to care more about that, I would upload my videos an hour after people got out of work. Assuming, you finished your commute and could now be watching youtube. Some more bite size videos can be uploaded through out the day since people will watch it to procrastinate. I've heard a lot of educational channel say, uploading during the work day is best for them because of this.

I don't think you should worry about it too much (imo) because it's kind of impossible to know about your channel stats until you have a larger audience. It's hard to know if upload time was why the video didn't perform well, or seo, or thumbnail, or time of the year, etc.

That being said, I think consistency is more important in "training" your audience to look for your content. For example, I search for GMM videos every morning, Philip Defranco Video's every evening, Taskmaster episodes on Thursday Morning, etc.

but overall I do not see how it matters that much on streaming media

Because youtube doesn't share your content to your whole audience, they share it out to a few people. If that first wave clicks it, then it gets shared out to more of your audience. If they don't click it then youtube basically slows down/stops sharing your video. If you are uploading at the worst time, (when ever that would be for your particular audience), then your video would get buried and youtube might take the lack of clicks as a sign to not share your video out to more people. Yes, it's still searchable because it's online, but the first 24 hours are the most important for showing up in peoples recommendations.

There's a saying in marketing that "The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google". I think that highlights that most people aren't going to put in the work to find a smaller channel's content that wasn't on their recommendation.

daily viewership is wager those people are in the habit of checking the channel repeatedly anyway

sounds like you are talking about a established channel.

 

[JayZippo]

I believe they are correct. "Long term" viewership doesn't seem to alter, but of course the short term does. I have experimented with everything. Posting in early morning, mid morning, noon, etc. I have tried the whole "premier" thing (which is garbage) and came to my own conclusions.

The later in the day you post a video, short term (24-48 hours) the least likely it will do well. The few I have posted at 7 & 730AM, always seem to have an extra 20-25% viewers. AS the day goes on, that dissipates and I find it gets worse and worse. My last video, I didnt post until 11AM and it was the one where at days end, I had 9 views and 10 likes LOL.

Now mind you, it is jsut want I have found, there is nothing other than me telling you I have tried it with 7-8 videos and this is what I found.

 

[puzzLEGO]

niceKid76 I think that's the answer, thanks.
even so, a lot of youtube channels will either have a large american audience (america is the largest group of english viewers) or some other country depending, so time might influence views slightly at the very least