90 thoughts on “How To Schedule YouTube Video Uploads and Add A YouTube Custom Thumbnail”

  1. Vivek

    That’s really great. Whenever I used to upload any video, youtube didn’t give me to chose suitable thumbnail ( actually the final product of the tutorial ). But its past now : Thanks to you….

  2. Ryan Biddulph

    Hi Ileane,

    Helpful tutorial here.

    Youtube videos build your brand, increase trust and make people realize that yes, you are human. Not some profile, or persona hiding behind a computer screen.

    As for automating use this strategy along with engaging to see optimal results. Add passive elements to your marketing campaign but keep the engagement train going.

    I am traveling for a bit. Lots of automation here, setting up posts ahead of schedule. So I can appreciate the convenience aspect of it all 😉

    Thanks!

    RB

    1. Ileane

      Hi Ryan,

      Where are you off to these days. It’s great to see you commenting here in the midst of your travels. Thanks so much!

  3. Khaja moin

    Thanks was really informative for me, as I never tried Youtube. Which am going to do at the earliest.
    For now subscribed 🙂

  4. Pingback: BizSugar.com

  5. Shamelle

    Indeed scheduling feature fills a much needed gap in YouTube. It seems as if this option is only available for partner accounts though…

    P.S: Great to see that the blog is back up and running, Ileane. Perhaps, you can write a post on your experience and how you got it back, in one of your future posts.

    1. Ileane

      Hi Shamelle, the way things work with YouTube these days, anyone who has AdSense on their account is considered a partner. I don’t know if we are going to get some of the other features the other partners had, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

      I’m glad the blog is back up now too. Perhaps I’ll share the story on my podcast – too painful to write about. At least in the podcast I can laugh about it and have fun 🙂

  6. Heather Stone

    Ileane,
    I loved this tutorial. Thanks for sharing it with the BizSugar community. Technical issues with scheduling don’t bother me much, so the benefit of being able to do it is a major positive in my book. Managing multiple social media channels is always a challenge. Scheduling posts ahead gives a flexibility that’s worth the occasional technical difficulty.

    1. Ileane

      Hi Heather! Great to see you. I almost didn’t recognize that new gravatar of yours 🙂
      I agree that those little “cons” I mentioned shouldn’t prevent anyone from scheduling some YouTube uploads.
      Thanks for your comment.

  7. Ayaz

    Hi Illeane!

    This post has come up at the great time because I was looking to do something with the youtube video uploading with in my blog and that’s helped me a lot.

    Thanks for sharing great valuable information 🙂

  8. Tom

    I’m going to check that if i can use custom thumbnail Image. That would be nice… Sometimes the choices of the 3 thumbnails choosen by youtube aren’t so representative of what you would expect to show first.

    Ps : thanks to let me know about the discount of commentluv premium. I have just installed it in 2 blog 😉

    1. Ileane

      Hi Tom, how did you make out with the custom thumbnails – did you get them yet? Thanks for getting CommentLuv. I’ll stop by your blog soon to check it out.

      1. Tom

        Thanks for your reply Ileane. Yes i got it and it’s quite nice to choose a specific thumbnail now. I think this will increase the number of views per videos.

  9. Zarabrad

    Glad to see that Youtube is now considering making changes to their platform and how users interact with the back-end system. The thumbnail problem was I guess the major issue, which I believe will now be resolved.

    Keep sharing the good work.

    Regards,

    1. Ileane

      Hi Zarabrad, YouTube is one of my favorite places to promote my blog so I’m happy to see these changes also. Thanks.

  11. Abhijit

    Thanks for providing detailed information. I was delighted to see the “upload custom thumbnail” option available for all of my YouTube video uploads as well.

  13. Ronnie Bincer

    Thanks so much for the kind mentions and links to some of my posts/website, etc. in your article here.

    The cons you ran into seem ‘interesting’ to say the least… scheduling that doesn’t happen at the scheduled time… hmmmm.

    Great ideas here, I’m sure we will dig into the Custom Thumbnail part even more in the days to come 😉

    1. Ileane

      Hi Ronnie, I’m sure the little glitches I encountered are due to the flood of users taking advantage of these new options and things will get better in time. I’m more concerned with the slowness of the feed being updated. I like to promote my videos right after they are published and most of my promotions are based on the feed being available and current. I’ll keep an eye on this to see if others are reporting the same issue. Let me know if you hear anything.

      Thanks for stopping by and it’s my pleasure to add some link luv for your blog and Google + posts here at Basic Blog Tips.

      Take care.

  14. Mark McGriff

    Ileane,

    Great YouTube tip. I was unaware that we could schedule videos. This is a great option for posting videos during the most productive hours. Keep the tips coming.

  15. Radha Krishna

    YouTube has been introducing a lot of new useful features these days and with Vlogging gaining its popularity, these tips will help the newbies vlog better. Thanks for the video tutorial Ileane.

  17. Ileane

    Hi Edward, if you’re using Bufferapp already maybe you can use the sames times that they suggest for Tweets as the publishing times for your vids. Good luck.

  18. Electra

    Hi Ileane thanks for the information on why it’s important to use customized thumbnails for your YouTube videos. I will start working on mine as well.

    Also, I thank you for the information about the Webmaster Tools. I usually review my Alexa account for qualified backlinks but I do find it useful to know and interact with all these other sites that have linked to one or more pages yet haven’t made it to Alexa’s ranking. On my link building day now I return the love to those sites.

    1. Ileane

      Hi Electra, thanks for stopping by. I need to talk more about Alexa and they have been very kind to me lately. Currently my rank is under 13,000 and I do get a lot of questions about Alexa. Let me know if you have some info to share on the topic when you get a chance.

      Chat soon!

  19. John

    I’m using Vimeo pro and it’s great
    Although it’s much less popular than youtube it’s a good tool to customize embedded video
    I think youtube is great for visibility
    But for embedding vimeo is much better and without any ads

    1. Ileane

      John, I haven’t been successful with building an audience on Vimeo – maybe I need to look into upgrading to a pro account. What are the advantages (besides the lack of ads). Thanks for your input John.

      1. John

        I use it for my membership site, you can put a password access to your videos, and intro and outro links
        but yeah google prefer much more youtube than vimeo

  20. Tim Anderson

    This is Amazing! I did now know about this. After trying to automate more and more of my business this will certainly be helpful. I use this feature on wordpress blog ex. I will dive in to it straight away. Thank you Ileane

  21. Ken Tyler

    From what I have read, if you aren’t doing video you are really missing the boat. I have yet to get my feet wet with videos for YouTube. the Video thumbnail also looks like something I need to incorporate.

  22. Rich

    Awesome tutorial, I found it very helpful! Especially the point about scheduling a video to be published later, which would be beneficial to those of us who work on these things at night and want to get the maximum amount of viewers we can. Thanks Ilean!

  24. Nawaz

    You have published great experience of publishing video. Especially publishing of video of before time is great experience.

  25. Sai

    Your video is really awesome, I haven’t uploaded any videos in you tube tills now, I heard youtube also a good platform for video blogging. Will try it soon.

  26. Steve

    Thanks Ileane
    It’s really interesting to know about youtube schedule. Greate Lesson to learn how to use youtube scheduling option. This video really help full to understand cleary about youtube schedule.

  27. Aditi

    Hi,
    This is really great and informative at the same time!! I like the tutorial that you have provided in scheduling You Tube Videos and at the same time adding a custome thumb nail. I would surely follow this process while uploading a video.

  28. Anton Koekemoer

    Hi Ilene,

    Thanks for sharing the post – As a lot of people tend not to use an custom thumbnail, and by using custom thumbnails is one of the key aspects of interesting the user enough to click on the video. And it makes great for sharing and or embedding the video – Especially in terms of exposure to your brand, business and or personal persona.

  29. Tim Bonner

    Hey Ileane

    I haven’t got into video marketing yet, although I’m aware that it is something I should be doing!

    Thanks for sharing this great feature on YouTube. It will certainly come in handy if you’re going to be on vacation for any length of time.

    Strange that YouTube can’t tell the time though!

    Have a great weekend.

    Tim

  30. Mike Dawson

    Choosing the right thumbnail for your Youtube video can be the difference between a video that gets millions of views, and one that remains in obscurity for the length of its life! Trust me, I’ve seen excellent videos get less than a 1000 videos, and others that went viral because they chose to put an attractive woman as the video thumb.

    1. Ileane

      Hi Mike, I’m pretty sure YouTube is trying to stop people from using thumbnails that don’t represent what’s in the video. It’s amazing how beautiful girls can attract attention and make people click. I remember those days…..lol

  31. firdosh joy

    Hello ILEANE , this is great tutorial and tips for scheduling youtube video uploads.The tips in the above article are really very helpful. I will follow the above tutorial and i think this will help me thanks ILEANE for such a great post

  33. Suresh Gupta

    Hello ILEANE

    Your video is really awesome, I haven’t uploaded any videos in you tube tills now, I heard youtube also a good platform for video blogging. Will try it soon.

  34. Lee

    Hi ileane. I have already set up a you tube channel for a sport I love doing. That is stand up paddleboarding. I have enjoyed doing that.sounds like it is about time I did one for my blog. The only thing I am worried about is the video version of writers block. I must admit I had never thought of scheduling a release of a video great idea. Also when you look now how many you tube videos come up now when you google something ? Loads
    So the time is definatly now not tomorrow.

    Thanks great insight and information lee

  35. Adeline Yuboco

    Another wonderful post, Ileane. Not to mention very timely. I’m actually planning on uploading a few videos of my upcoming travels (starting next month) in my YouTube account once I get back. At least this way, I can time it so that it coincides with the posts I plan to write about my upcoming travels.

    1. Ileane

      Hi Adeline,
      I can’t wait to see some of your videos posted up on YouTube. I’ll be sure to share them so keep me posted.

  36. Jake

    I think that scheduling is awesome. Now I know that we all work differently, but I think that most of us get a lot more done once we get on a roll. That’s why it’s better to churn out a few blog posts or YouTube videos at once and then schedule them to post later.

  37. Sanjeev

    I have never tried scheduling the videos on youtube, till not it is upload and publish but I guess it is similar to social networks…timing does matter…

  38. Angs

    You really are a Youtube.com expert Ileane.! Your video tutorial is very clear and easy to understand. I am really looking for information how to use Youtube as a marketing strategy in my business until I found your post. Keep up the your good works in making tutorials and tips for a newbie marketeer like me.

  39. Kharim Tomlinson

    Thanks for that lovely post Ileane.

    I never knew that scheduling posts on YouTube was possible. Now that I am going to start doing YouTube vids, this is a very useful post for me.

    Thanks again.

  40. Asad

    wow great information about thumbnails
    your website is awesome and gives knowledge about need of hour

  41. Cameron White

    Hello friend,

    Great tips forYouTube . I was unaware that we could schedule videos. This is a great option for posting videos during the most productive hours. Keep the tips coming.

  42. sam

    youtube marketing is one of the most effective thing to reach the people via video marketing

  43. Hadley

    I need to produce a lot of videos and get them out to YT so scheduling will prove very important to me. Thanks!

  44. Sunil

    Hey Ileane,
    I was just about to start my own Youtube channel for my Blog for some useful tutorials and this post of yours will give me a finer edge to achieve them.

  45. Hemma

    Scheduled YouTube videos? I never thought it would be possible! Now to take that vacation… Thanks!

    1. Ileane

      Ha! Yes Hemma, take that vacation because I’m sure you deserve it. This way you can keep your YouTube audience happy while you relax.

  46. Lee

    Hi ileane since leaving a comment a while ago I have set up a you tube channel for my blog. Certainly different to doing a sport video though. I was quite nervous doing my first one actually talking to the camera and coming across well is harder than I thought it would be.

    Thanks again lee

  47. Roz Bennetts

    It was the custom thumbnail image that drew me to this post as it wasn’t available when I loaded my Toastmasters video recently and I hated the three options YouTube presented to me, but took the best of the three to use. It’s great to know it should be there soon and I hope I can edit the videos I’ve posted already!

    1. Ileane

      Hi Roz, yes YouTube picks the worst thumbnails and it’s almost seems like they are doing it on purpose! Maybe they think people will think our videos are meant to be comedy so they find the most laughable facial expression possible. lol!
      You can change the thumbnail on past videos. I’ve updated several of mine.

  48. Mitch Mitchell

    I’m with Roz, I can’t wait until the custom thumbnail thing comes. The 3 it always picks for me are embarrassing; my mouth is always open and sometimes it looks like it picks 2 that are fairly similar to each other. lol

      1. Mitch Mitchell

        You know me well! lol By the way, there’s an annotation in the video saying the thumbnail trick was discovered by YouTube and they fixed it as of April 12th.

  51. Nathan Frazier

    Ileane you ROCK! Thanks for the post! By the way, being that I use Camtasia for most of my videos, it’s good to know that I can now use a custom thumbnail. That’s really cool.

  52. Ileane

    Dilip, I hope more people take advantage of using the custom thumbnail. It has done wonders for me so far.

  53. Ana Hoffman

    I remember trying to figure out how to add a custom thumbnail back when it was nearly impossible. Now that it’s so simple and not much of a challenge, I haven’t tried it yet. 😉

    Human nature? 😉

    1. Ileane

      Hi Ana, I love the thumbnails but the scheduling I am not too convinced about yet. I guess I don’t really have a huge need for it right now because I don’t have a lot that is just sitting around waiting to be uploaded. Maybe one day 🙂

      Thanks for stopping by.

  55. Karan

    YouTube videos are a great source for getting traffic to your blog. I find this post really useful for me thanx

  56. Andrew Kerby

    Hi Ileane

    Some really good points discussed here. The one thing that intrigued me was the issue regarding YouTubes time. I think if they are going to offer a schedule feature then they must ensure their time is correct to accurately publish videos when users want. Good spot by you I must say!

    The YouTube thumbnails is also a great little feature and I completely agree that YouTube marketing is the way forward for bloggers and businesses alike.

    Great article and I am now off to give scheduling a go for myself.

    Keep up the good work!

    Andrew

    1. Ileane

      Hi Andrew,

      Thanks for stopping by and checking out the post.

      Have you monetized your YouTube channel yet?

      YouTube partners get more features and options then those who don’t monetize. After experimenting with scheduling for awhile I’m not so keen on the idea unless you have lots of videos and you don’t want to bombard your subscribers with them. That’s never happened to me – I’ve rarely have more than two videos that need to be uploaded and I don’t think my subscribers will mind if I upload them both on the same day.

      Let me how what your experience with scheduling turns out.

      Chat soon Andrew!

  57. Andrew Kerby

    Hi Ileane

    As of yet I haven’t monetized my channel, but this is something in my long term planning to accompany my blog.

    Like you, I am off the principle of not ‘bombarding users with new videos, but adopting the philosophy of building an audience over time. I am hoping is the best method to building up a solid, relevant following.

    I will let you know how I get on with scheduling and will report back.

    Thanks Ileane and chat soon.

    Andrew

  58. Mahendra

    Hello Ileane..
    YouTube is a good source of making money. Your video above is really very awesome.I too haven’t my channel yet.But I will wanna try it.Thanks for these nice valuable tips.

  59. Lissa

    Nice tutorial here. That is one trick that I am sure very few have been using. Also the custom thumbnail feature is something, if used correctly can help build audience.

  60. Kulwinder Singh

    Many people are doing the same. They made the videos at night and then schedule the upload to get more benefits. This way they can focus on other stuff rather than watching for the time to upload videos.

  61. Rama Krishna

    Hi Ileane,
    Great post for scheduling Youtube. It will really help everyone after seeing this post. Good thumbnails help too.

    1. Ileane

      Hi Rama!
      Creating custom YouTube thumbnails are very important for making your video stand out in the search results. I’m seeing great results now that I have the team from Lidyr Creative designing the thumbnail art for me. They do an awesome job don’t you think?

  62. Lamox

    Nice tutorial here. That is one trick that I am sure very few have been using.it help to increase the views in thye video thx so much

    1. Ileane

      A lot of people are really surprised to hear about the scheduling feature in YouTube. Glad you found it too. Do you have a YouTube channel yet?

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