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YouTube best practices

Plan YouTube videos and Shorts that get found, with posting times, a steady schedule, titles, descriptions, hashtags and thumbnails.

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YouTube is a search engine as much as a feed: a video is found through its title, description and thumbnail, and its first two days set how far it travels. This page covers when and how often to post long-form videos and Shorts, how to write titles and descriptions, hashtags and thumbnails, and what Convia Pro does for you on YouTube.

When to post on YouTube

Convia schedules YouTube posts at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm in your workspace time zone when you have not set your own times. To change them, go to Channels, click Edit beside When posts go out, open Advanced and click Choose my own times. See Calendar & scheduling.

How often to post on YouTube

A consistent schedule builds an audience. For a weekly show, a reasonable starting point is the full episode each week, plus Shorts from its clips spread across the following weeks. Convia starts every channel at 3 posts a week, which you can change under Posts per week.

Getting a YouTube video off to a strong start

  • The first 48 hours matter most. Share a new video widely as soon as it is public.
  • Hook viewers in the first 30 seconds.
  • Ask a question in the video or description to encourage comments.
  • Use end screens and cards to send viewers to your next video.

YouTube titles and descriptions

  • Titles: 50 to 70 characters is ideal, up to YouTube's limit of 100. Front-load the hook, include one keyword people search for, and promise clear value or a reason to click. Leave out quotes, emojis and hashtags.
  • Descriptions: up to 5,000 characters. Put the most important information first: only the first lines show above "...more". Use the words people search for naturally, and add timestamps to longer videos.
  • Tags: up to 500 characters in total.

Hashtags on YouTube

Use 3 to 5 hashtags at the end of the description. Pick topic terms people search for, not your show name or branding. On a Short, the same hashtags also go at the end of the title.

YouTube Shorts

Shorts are vertical video. Links in a Short's description cannot be clicked, so a Short asks viewers in one spoken sentence instead of with a link.

YouTube thumbnails

Make thumbnails high contrast and readable at small sizes, with no more than a few words of text. Thumbnails are 1,280 × 720 pixels (16:9), up to 2 MB. Convia does not upload thumbnails for you: set a custom thumbnail, end screens and cards in YouTube Studio once the video is on YouTube. Finish on YouTube uploads the video early as private so you can do this before anyone sees it. See YouTube publishing.

How Convia writes your YouTube posts

Convia writes YouTube titles and descriptions from your Platform instructions for YouTube (Brand Brain → Platform instructions) and your Brand Brain: your brand characteristics, ideal customer and content rules. When a video sends people somewhere, the ask and the link go in the first two lines of the description, above "...more"; on a Short, the ask is spoken, with no link.

Where your brand and this guidance disagree, Convia follows your Brand Brain. A rule for every platform, such as never using emojis, goes in Content Rules under Brand Brain → Voice & Tone. A change for YouTube alone goes in YouTube's Platform instructions, which come with Grow and up. See How AI uses your brand.