Smart follows
Watch a YouTube channel or TikTok profile and get an answer to your question about each new video that matches.
A smart follow watches one creator: a YouTube channel or a TikTok profile. Instagram can't be followed yet. Every new upload is checked against a rule you write, and checking is free. Each video that matches is asked the question you set, such as "Who sponsored the video?", and the answer is sent wherever you asked. It is charged like any other analysis, plus a small charge for writing the answer.
The answer lives in a Studio thread on the video, so you can open it and ask more. These threads join your Studio chats once you reply in one.
You create and manage smart follows in the console, under Smart follows, or from an assistant through the MCP server. There is no REST endpoint for them.
Free includes two smart follows, answered by email. Slack and webhook channels need Starter or above. How many smart follows you can have, and how many videos each may analyze in any 7 days, are on Limits. The weekly limit counts analyses, not checks, and a failed or cancelled job doesn't use one.
Rules
A rule can be a description in plain words, exact filters, or both. Leave it empty to analyze every new upload, up to your plan's weekly limit.
- Description: what you care about, in your own words, for example "running shoes and marathon training". Each new video's title and description are judged against it.
- Exact filters: hashtags, mentions, keywords and whether the video discloses an ad or a sponsor: a disclosure hashtag such as #ad, a phrase such as "sponsored by" or "thanks to … for sponsoring", or YouTube's paid promotion label. Keywords match whole words in the title and description.
Within one kind of filter, any match is enough: two hashtags widen the rule. Across kinds, every kind must match: adding a keyword narrows it.
Editing a rule checks the recently seen videos again. Anything that now matches is offered to you, never run by itself.
One creator, several rules
Each rule is a smart follow of its own, with its own weekly limit. A video two rules match is charged once for each. Following a creator again with a rule it already has is refused, and the error names that smart follow.
What happens to a match
A match is analyzed straight away, unless one of these holds. Then it is listed in the console as Matched, not run:
| Prop | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| From before you followed | run it any time | The first check also looks at the creator's few most recent videos. Matches among them are offered, never run by themselves. |
| Matched your edited rule | run it any time | Editing a rule checks the recently seen videos again. Matches among them are offered, never run by themselves. A video already analyzed is not offered again. |
| Paused | run it any time | A paused smart follow keeps checking uploads but runs nothing by itself. |
| Payment failed | run it once paid | The subscription payment failed. Update the payment method, then run the match from the console. |
| Weekly limit reached | not run | The smart follow already ran its plan's analyses for the last 7 days. |
| Too long for the plan | not run | The video is longer than your plan allows for this question. |
| Not enough credits | not run | The workspace could not cover the analysis when the match came in. |
New uploads are picked up on a schedule, not the moment they are posted. The console shows each smart follow's recent checks, with a one-line reason for every verdict, the videos that did not match included.
When a check fails
Sometimes a platform won't list a creator's videos for a while. The console then shows Last check failed on the smart follow, with the reason, and the next check tries again.
- The platform is unavailable. The smart follow keeps checking, and after a day shows Checks failing. Nothing to fix on your side: new videos are picked up once the platform answers again.
- Something else is wrong. After three failed checks in a row, the smart follow shows Needs a look. It is still checked, and goes back to normal by itself as soon as a check works. Click Check again to try right away. Its history and its weekly count are kept. If the creator's link changed, remove the smart follow and add the new link.
- The creator was deleted. When YouTube confirms the channel is gone, the smart follow shows Deleted and is no longer checked. Remove it. If the creator comes back, follow them again.
Where results go
A smart follow can send each finished match to up to five channels:
- Email: to people in the workspace only. Invite someone before adding them.
- Slack: an incoming-webhook URL on
hooks.slack.com. It posts the video, why it matched and the answer. - Webhook: an
https://URL on a public address. It receives the signedfollow.match.completedevent.
A channel hears about a match once its answer is written. A job that fails sends nothing.
A smart follow's webhook is its own channel. It is not the webhook_url of a job, and it sends a different body: a
receiver that also takes job webhooks tells the two apart by event.
The daily digest
Once a day, from 08:00 UTC, each member of the workspace gets one email about its smart follows: the videos answered, each with the first line of its answer, the matches waiting to be run, and a count for the week. Nothing is sent on a day with nothing to report.
Each member turns it off for themselves in Settings → Daily digest, or with the unsubscribe link in the email.