What's the best day of the week to publish your podcast episodes? Here are some things
for you to consider.
Thank you for joining me for The Audacity to Podcast. I'm Daniel J. Lewis. I see this
question often in the podcasting groups online. Should you publish your podcast episodes on
a particular day of the week or avoid the weekends or publish on popular days or avoid
the popular days or something else. In short, my advice is this. Publish the same day as
your previous episode. That's it. Thanks for listening. No, of course I have much more
to say than that. So if you want to follow along with the notes for this episode, then
go to theaudacitytopodcast.com/bestday or tap or swipe inside of your app. That's also
where you can go to share this episode if you find this helpful and think it might help
someone else. Now I'm talking in this episode about the best day to publish. In my next episode,
I'll talk about the best time of day to publish. Right now, let's focus on the day and you can
probably guess the number one point is consistency. Consistency is more important than the day itself,
even consistency down to the same minute of the same hour. This is because some legacy systems,
including Apple Podcasts, try to learn your publishing schedule so they know when to publish
new episodes in their podcast apps and directories by catching them more quickly when you publish
because they know when to look for those episodes and when they might expect a new episode to appear
and so they increase their checks around that time so they can catch it and then they don't have to
check your feed so often. These kinds of legacy processes and especially the not so
smart ones require a lot of server computing power because they're checking your feed just over,
over, over, over, over. It's like the kids, you know, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we
there yet? Are we there yet? Is there a new episode yet? Is there a new episode yet? Is there a new
episode yet? Is there a new episode yet?" That's how the old style of podcast syndication works
with these apps is they just have to go check all the time, sometimes on a schedule that might be
hourly, sometimes it's much more frequent than that, but the smart systems try to learn your
publishing schedule. So that's why it's really important to be consistent so that
they can catch when you publish your episode. But by the way, those legacy processes can
be replaced with something that's much faster and uses far fewer resources by switching
to the Podping protocol in Podcasting 2.0. This is where apps and services get pings
about your updates from your RSS feed within seconds of your publishing the update.
So you press publish for either a change to your RSS feed or publishing a new episode
or you're going live, and within just seconds, I'm not talking like hundreds or thousands
of seconds, but maybe less than a minute, the other apps are then picking up your new
episode or seeing the live item or getting the new information from your RSS feed.
That's one of the really cool things inside of Podpeen with Podcasting 2.0.
It's a bit technical and it requires all kinds of back-end stuff.
You as a podcaster don't need to worry about it except for asking your publishing tools
and your favorite podcast apps to support the podpeeing protocol of Podcasting 2.0.
But that little tangent aside, you really need to consider first what day you can publish
on with 100% consistency, except of course for hiatuses that you plan.
And don't worry about managing this yourself, of trying to stay up and make sure that you
publish at exactly the right minute. All the good podcast publishing systems let
you schedule when your episodes will publish so they can go out on the dot
and without your presence. And then also those even better podcast publishing
systems will use Podpeen automatically so that when you publish your episode it
automatically sends the Podpeen out so that the Podcasting 2.0 apps and
services can get your new episode just nearly instantly. It's amazing how fast
it is. So this is the number one thing, consistency. And then number two, consider
your audience. Think about what might work best for your audience. While
content for business people is generally best in the middle of the workweek and
probably not on the weekends, people are interested in hobbies and entertainment
at all times. So don't think it's like business stuff belongs on the weekdays
days, and entertaining stuff belongs on the weekends. No, entertaining stuff can be any
time, because people like to listen to entertaining stuff at all times, while they're working,
while they're not working. Now do keep in mind that they may be a bit too engaged in
their hobby or entertaining thing, even if it's what your podcast is about, they may
be a bit too engaged in it on the weekends and might not be able to hear your episode,
But then again, they might listen to your episode while they're engaged in that thing.
It really depends on what kinds of stuff they might be doing.
And a little bit more on your content, which I'll talk about next.
But the point here isn't necessarily to publish on the exact day that they will play your
episode and trying to make it so that it's right there for them.
They'll play it on exactly that day.
You know that's the day they listen to your podcast, so you publish on that day.
No, you don't need to try and overthink it like that.
You really just want to ensure it's ready for them to watch or hear as soon as possible
after you publish.
So if most of your audience listens on Wednesdays, it's okay if you publish on Tuesdays.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Yeah, you're publishing a day before they actually listen, but that's fine.
There are some chances that if you publish on Wednesday, they might miss it.
So consider first the consistency, then what might your audience's routine look like.
But keep in mind, consistency is still more important because your audience will adapt
and might even start to expect your episodes on whatever day you choose.
Even if it's a wacky day to them, they might come to expect it.
Maybe not on that specific day, but on one of the days that follows.
Like maybe you always publish on Friday evenings.
They might come to always expect a new episode is available for them come Monday mornings
when they have their commute to work.
That's something you need to consider with your audience.
And then number three, consider your content.
What you talk about might have an inherent schedule or routine to that subject.
In addition to considering business-focused versus hobby-focused content, consider the
rhythm of your topic.
For example, a weekly TV show podcast or a weekly news wrap-up and things like that where
their weekly and following content that comes out on a particular schedule and your podcast
is talking about that content so your podcast comes out on a particular schedule and needs to
consider the schedule of that thing you're talking about. For subjects that already have a consistent
schedule like a TV show and such, I recommend recording or publishing your content about
halfway between each occurrence of that thing, like a TV show episode, halfway between when each
episode airs. This gives your audience enough time to catch that thing that you talk about,
like watching the TV show, enough time to send feedback for your episode, and then enough time
to play your episode before the next thing happens. I remember listening to podcasts about TV shows
much more frequently than I do now, and there was this one that kind of always bugged me and
it ended up that they sounded less intelligent than they actually were. And the only reason for
that was because they published their episode very late in the 7 day cycle of the TV show
and so I often wouldn't get to hear their episode about the TV episode until after the
next episode aired. So, so much of what they said in the episode then sounded ridiculous
having then watched the next episode. And I had to catch myself and keep that in mind
when I was listening that, well, they haven't seen the thing I just now watched.
So of course they don't know that what they're saying is wrong or anything like that because
they recorded this days ago and just published it yesterday and I just watched the brand
new episode today.
This doesn't quite align and that was a problem with the publishing schedule.
So that's why you need to give your audience enough time to consume your episode before
that next thing comes out or else you might kind of sound less intelligent than you actually
are. And because these recurring themes you might be talking about could occur on any
day of the week, your podcast about it could also be on any day of the week that's around
the halfway point. But do still consider the other factors that I've previously mentioned
about your audience and just being consistent. So maybe halfway through puts your episode
on a Thursday or Friday. That might be fine. That might be perfect for your content and
your audience, especially if you can keep it consistent. That's why you really need
to consider what kind of schedule might be already built into what you're talking about.
Another problem with publishing too long after the thing you're talking about is that your
audience might even forget the details of what you're talking about. Like if you do
a TV after show podcast. I use that as a common example because I've hosted a few of those
in the past and listened to many of them before as well. But if you podcast about a TV episode
and you wait too far from when that TV episode aired, then your audience might forget some
of the details from the episode. They might have to be reminded and then you're just wasting
time in your podcast with a recap when you could shift when you publish so that they
catch it and they don't have to try and remember some of those details or you don't have to
try to remind them of them. So consider your content. Number four, consider your competition.
We can put that in quotation marks whenever we say competition because it doesn't have
to mean a rivalry, but it is other podcasts in your space. So find those other podcasts
covering your same subject and consider when they publish. You'll see studies that show
the most popular days for publishing episodes, and I'll link to one of them in the notes
for this episode, a tap or swipe away in your app or at theaudacitytopodcast.com/bestday.
You'll see these studies that show that, "Oh, more episodes are published on this
day," or "More episodes are consumed on this day." I wonder how much of that is
simply because that's when people publish episodes and how much of that is really because
that's when people would want to listen to the episodes. But really, that might not
mean so much for you. That doesn't mean you should publish on those popular days or
that you should avoid those popular days. If you're going to look at when other podcasts
publish, first of all, look at only podcasts in your same niche and ignore the rest of
them. If you have a TV aftershow podcast, don't worry about when a sports podcast
publishes. It's irrelevant to you. Think about when the other podcasts about that same
TV show publish their episodes, if there are even other podcasts about the show.
Now when you look at when the other shows about your same topic are publishing their
episodes, you could try publishing before them to try getting your content played first.
You could try publishing after them to ensure your content is unique, it might cross-reference
the other shows that have published stuff, it might improve on other concepts that have
already been shared, especially if you're all talking about the exact same thing that
happened at the exact same time, like a TV after-show podcast. Or having this episode
of yours published after everyone else's could mean that you're kind of like the
last word on the topic, but do consider the problems of publishing too late in that seven-day
routine, whatever that cycle is like, not necessarily the week, but the 7 day cycle.
And you might even try to avoid publishing on the same day as others in your niche so
your audience doesn't get overwhelmed on that day and choose to skip your episode.
Like imagine if you're following all of the podcasts about your favorite topic and
many of your audience probably do listen to your "competition" because podcasting
is so much built around passion that people tend to want to listen to multiple podcasts
about their passion once they discover there are multiple podcasts.
Like I'm guessing there's a very high chance that you also listen to School of Podcasting
and Podcasters Roundtable and other podcasts about podcasting because you just love podcasting
so much.
I do.
I listen to all the podcasts about podcasting that I find interesting and unique and I know
that many other people do too. I don't listen to only one. And the same thing happened with
our TV after show podcast that we posted is we knew most of our audience also listened
to the other podcasts about the same thing. If there are a lot of podcasts about your
same niche and they're all publishing on the same day, then your audience might be
faced with a decision of here's this dump of a dozen or more episodes all on the same
day and all of the episodes are about the same topic, that's when your audience might
start making decisions that you might not like. They might start going through and deleting
some of the episodes that don't look interesting or deciding which podcasts they might unfollow
just because they want to reduce how many episodes they get all on the same day. So
that's why it might be good for you to try to publish on a different day. Now I know
in the Podcasts About Podcasting space, there are several podcasts that publish on Mondays
and Tuesdays. I now publish The Audacity to Podcast on Wednesdays, and I know there are
still some other podcasts about podcasting that publish on Wednesdays as well. I just
felt like for me, Wednesday is a pretty good day of the week. It's not too heavy in my
space, and yet it's also a good routine for me. It seems to fit in pretty well with my
audience and doesn't overwhelm my audience with a dump of podcasts about podcasting on
the same day.
But I think most of us who podcast about podcasting are friends with each other and do kind of
try to not step on each other's toes on the same days as well.
But of course, with only seven days of the week and dozens of podcasts about podcasting,
there's going to be some overlap.
So it's impossible to publish on a day that no one else is publishing.
But do consider when others in your same space are publishing.
That's number four.
And number five, your audience will do whatever they want.
Remember that podcasting is time shifted.
So your audience might hear or watch your episode days, weeks, months, or even years
later.
And this has little to nothing to do with the whole downloads versus streams debate.
This is why I give these themes only as considerations to consider your audience, consider your content,
consider your competition.
But the number one thing here is really consistency.
Whatever day it is that you choose, and notice I have not said, "This is the day you should
publish your episode."
It's really up to you to consider these themes and above all, to think about what can you
do consistently because that's the important thing is to be consistent with it. Not only
does that help you with growing an audience, it can help with some automations that you might build
into automatic emails that go out, tweets, other things like that. It can help with your own
scheduling routine to know that, okay, you need to have an episode always available by this
particular deadline of the week so that you can publish at that target day and time. And
I'll talk about time in the next episode. But keep in mind that consistency is more
important than the day itself. And I would guess that most likely, if you published your
episode a day or a couple days earlier than you've been publishing, your audience might
not even notice. But they probably would notice if you published later than you've been publishing
unless you tell them about it. Because if you publish later, then they might think something
is wrong and that you haven't published an episode if they don't see the episode later
when it comes out. So consistency is more important than any of these other considerations.
And these other considerations give you some more guidance to help you pick which particular day
works best for you, for your audience, for your content, and for your whole niche that
you're discussing. I hope this has been helpful to you. If it has, then feel free to comment on
the show notes or share this episode with someone else you think would benefit from it. Go to
theaudacitytopodcast.com/bestday or give it a tap or swipe inside of your app in order to share this
episode out with those who might like it or get the notes inside of your podcast app there. Keep
Keep an eye and ear out for my next episode where I will talk about the best time of the
day, whatever day that is, for you to publish your episode.
But you can probably guess what I'm going to say in that one too, at least what's the
most important thing to consider.
I've got some big changes coming to mypodcastreviews.com.
That's the service that gives you your podcast ratings and reviews from all of these places,
and you're at like 200 places now, and gives you really cool pages for you to make it easier
to engage and grow your audience. Check it all out at mypodcastreviews.com, version 2 coming soon.
Now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of the tools, it's time for you
to go start and grow your own podcast, whatever day of the week that falls on, for passion and
profit. I'm Daniel J. Lewis from TheAudacityToPodcast.com. Thanks for listening.
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