I work as a freelance musician and YouTube content creator. I’ve been doing so full-time since 2015 and it has been an incredible journey. Managing my own YouTube and social media channels on my own isn’t a simple task so, today, I’d like to share with you the monitoring tools and sources of news that have been the most beneficial to my work.
I make arrangements of video game music in various styles/genres, so keep that in mind as you read this post.

Trend Listening/Monitoring Tools
- YouTube Channel Analytics
- Twitter Search/trending tab
As a YouTube content creator, the “Channel Analytics” section of the Creator’s Dashboard is an incredibly powerful tool to use when trying to monitor anything from video performances, engagement, all the way to trends. With it, I’m able keep track of the types of videos that pleases my core audience the most while also being aware of which content reached the widest audience that isn’t already subscribed to the channel. One of my favourite feature is called “Content your audience watches” which allows me to know what my audience likes to watch/listen outside of my channel. That way, I can know which video games and/or music is popular among them and work on something YouTube tells me they’ll like. I then get comments telling me that my timing with this cover was incredible, and to that I can only reply… “I know”.
When it comes to social media itself, Twitter is my favourite tool to use for monitoring the video gaming community. Since I follow a lot of video game related accounts, my “For you” trending tab is always video game related. This allows me to keep track of what’s trending both for myself as a gamer, but also as a video game music content creator who likes to follow the trends. The Twitter search bar itself provides me with a way of knowing which hashtags seem to be more popular for me to tag my content accordingly. For example, a game such as Final Fantasy VII Remake can have multiple hashtags such as FinalFantasyVIIRemake, FF7R, FFVIIRemake, etc. But which one is the most popular one to use if I don’t want to fill my tweet with too many hashtags? That’s why Twitter Search is useful to me.
Sources of News & Updates
- Twitter’s trending tab
- Trusted industry experts (on social media)
- YouTube on social media
In terms of staying updated, the Twitter trending tab also does a fantastic job at keeping me up to date on the recent video gaming news. This allows me to know what people will be excited about and prepare new content I that know will get searched. I also follow many industry experts who pass on news as they are made public. I prefer using Twitter over other platforms as it provides, in my opinion, the best ratio of text/images/videos. I don’t seem to gather information as quickly on Facebook or Instagram.
Finally, following YouTube on social media is a great way for me to be aware of new features or changes surrounding the platform so that I can start using these new features myself or adapt my content for these changes.
To conclude…
Whether you’re an individual like me or a large organization, I think it’s very important to familiarize yourself with some social media tools that will help you put yourself out there. The competition is fierce these days and keeping track of trends and news around your business’ field of interest becomes crucial to its success.