Lauren Bateman recommends posting at least one long-form video per week, ideally two if you can manage it. She schedules uploads Wednesday and Saturday to give each video time to gain traction. Aim for 10-15 minutes, but make videos only as long as the content needs.
One long-form video per week (minimum).
Two long-form videos per week.
Wednesday and Saturday.
19 videos.
About 10–15 minutes.
What is the best posting schedule on YouTube for growth? Now, I'm going to give you two answers because I believe there's a realistic answer. And then in my personal opinion, there is an honest answer. And this is based on my experience the last eight years uploading videos to YouTube. Now people also ask me, lauren, is there a specific time point I should be aiming for? How long should these videos be? Yes, I'm going to give you my opinions on that as well. And I'll put that towards the end. The end of the video. So first, what is the realistic answer for how often you should post to YouTube? Realistically, as often as you can. Okay. When I first started on YouTube, I did this very part time. Okay? I was managing music schools at the time. I was managing real estate, had lots of stuff going on, and I didn't have the full time hours to commit to YouTube. And in my first year, I thought I did a lot of work, but I honestly only uploaded 19 videos. That's all I could do. And I started uploading videos. I think it was the end of March. So from the end of March to December, I only was able to do 19 videos because I had to film them, I had to edit them, and that's what my schedule and timing allowed. So I did as much as I could. But eventually I got to a point where I was much more consistent. And this is eventually where you want to get with your YouTube channel, because you have to be consistent. And I think that is a minimum, a minimum of one long form video a week. If you can do two, that's even better. About two and a half years into my YouTube journey, I dug in and I started posting two long form videos a week. I'm not talking about shorts, I'm talking about long form. All right, if you want to know my opinions on shorts versus long form and why I prefer horizontal videos, you can watch that video up here. All right, but the reason I did that, and this was my posting schedule, it was Wednesday and it was Saturday. This way, it allowed you to give each video enough time to be promoted. So I didn't want to put both of them out on Saturday because YouTube would be splitting its promotion between those two videos. So I would upload one on Wednesday, which gave YouTube a few days to promote that video. And then I put one out on Saturday, which then gave YouTube more time to even promote that video. Okay? So that was my schedule, Wednesdays and Saturdays. All right, Now I'm back down to one video a week because I'm trying to Maintain my channel. And I will admit, even being a full time YouTuber, two videos a week is a lot of work, especially if you're doing all the editing, which I was in the beginning. Eventually I did hire an editor which allows me to put out more content and run a couple YouTube channels now. So what you need to do right now is figure out what, what do I have time to do? And post as much as you can and as frequently as you can. Now how long should these videos be? All right, and I'm going to give you two answers again. Okay, the honest answer is that the video should be as long as it needs to be. So what do I mean by that? So when you are putting content out on YouTube, you should be answering specific questions that your clients or your audience is typing into the search bar of YouTube and Google. I have a lesson right now that has over a million views because when people type into Google, simple man, guitar lesson. My video is showing up over on Google and it's exposing that video to more people. Okay, so you want to be answering specific questions. Alright, so this video here, what's the best posting schedule? People ask me all the time, how often should I be posting videos to YouTube? And I'm going to answer that question, how long should the videos be? And I'm going to answer that question. So I, I don't know how long this video is going to be, but I'm not going to try and extend it to hit some magical milestone or magical minute point. Now with that said, YouTube's preferred ranking structure is watch time. Okay? YouTube makes money off of selling advertising, so the more time people spend on the platform, the happier YouTube is and the more it will show people your content. So effectively, if you can get your video to be over the 10 minute mark in that 10 to 15 minute range, that is an ideal range because typically the watch time is longer. Now it does not guarantee that the video is going to go viral, but it does help your chances. Now I'm going to tell you that I have a video right now that I think is about seven and a half minutes and it is my most popular video. I think it has over three and a half million views now and it's about seven and a half minutes. And it's one of those videos where I answer a specific question and for me to get through that lesson, it just happened to be seven and a half minutes and I didn't try to extend it. But if you're doing something like a top five list, so say you have a video that's like top five mistakes to avoid when learning to play the guitar. You edit down that video and, and you realize it's eight minutes in. Well, maybe you should make that your top six. This way you can record a six thing, get it over the 10 minute mark and it makes sense. We never want to talk longer than we have to because if the audience gets bored, they're going to stop watching and YouTube's going to say, hey, people are getting bored, they're stopped watching. We're not going to promote this video anymore. So be succinct, get to the point, answer the questions and deliver the content as efficiently and effectively as as possible. Now, if you are someone that is like me when I started YouTube and you're doing this part time and you're having trouble about being consistent on YouTube and you're looking for a better process, I highly recommend you go check out this video right over there where I'm going to show you what I would do today if I was starting YouTube all over again and I was starting it part time. Go watch that video right now.
