Multi-Platform Viral Content Tracker

Extract public content from YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram into one normalized, velocity-ranked feed. Free plan: $0.0027 per event, and the $5 credit covers 1,851 results after the Actor Start charge.

Access: YouTube, TikTok and Instagram need Apify Proxy (RESIDENTIAL group, prefilled); Reddit needs no proxy. No external API keys or accounts are required.

• Track YouTube topics for viral content research.
• Monitor recent and rising Reddit posts in selected subreddits.
• Discover TikTok hashtag trends and follow known TikTok or Instagram handles.
• Compare platform-specific engagement and velocity fields in one exportable dataset.

What you get

Field family	Fields	Type	What it contains
Identity	rank, platform, content_id, url, title, author, author_url	rank: integer; other fields: string	The ranked item, source platform, content identifier, link, title, and author details.
Timing	posted_at, age_hours, scraped_at	posted_at, scraped_at: ISO 8601 string; age_hours: number	Published time, age in hours, and scrape time. velocity_score is engagement divided by age in hours, with age floored at 2 hours, so very fresh posts are not inflated. YouTube posted_at and age_hours are approximate.
Engagement	views, likes, comments, engagement, velocity_score	number	Available interaction signals and engagement gained per hour. Reddit likes contains the upvote score; YouTube likes is null.
Content and source	description, thumbnail, query	string	Description, preview image, and the topic, handle, or hashtag that found the item. description is null in the sample.
Platform details	platform_extra	object	Platform-specific values. The YouTube sample includes duration_seconds, tags, and channel_id; tags is null in the sample.

Values are null when their source does not provide them; the sample shows description, likes, comments, and platform_extra.tags as null.

The feed is ranked within each platform before the platform results are concatenated. This keeps YouTube view counts from dominating Reddit scores; re-sort the combined dataset yourself if you need one global order.

Sample output

This sample shows one dataset record from YouTube.

[
  {
    "platform": "youtube", "content_id": "VxGIopUQVKo", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxGIopUQVKo",
    "title": "Anthropic's Engineers Stopped Building AI Agents. Here's What They Build Instead.", "author": "Sharbel A.",
    "author_url": "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxLzvFAUbpdNUIh0hGsEH0w", "description": null,
    "posted_at": "2026-10-11T14:29:05.535741+00:00", "age_hours": 10,
    "views": 17662, "likes": null, "comments": null, "engagement": 17662,
    "velocity_score": 1766.2, "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VxGIopUQVKo/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEnCNAFEJQDSFryq4qpAxkIARUAAIhCGAHYAQHiAQoIGBACGAY4AUAB&rs=AOn4CLD0nWKQzEhkqunWLco422JprYlyyw",
    "query": "ai agents", "platform_extra": {"duration_seconds": 970, "tags": null, "channel_id": "UCxLzvFAUbpdNUIh0hGsEH0w"},
    "scraped_at": "2026-10-12T00:29:05.535741+00:00", "rank": 1
  }
]

Pricing

Pricing uses pay-per-event.

The priced events are:

• apify-actor-start: Actor Start, charged at $0.00005 per event on Free. The event is charged once per GB of run memory, with a minimum of one event.
• apify-default-dataset-item: one result (one dataset record), charged at $0.0027 per event on Free.

Each dataset record is the one billed result (apify-default-dataset-item). The content-result event has no price, so no separate content-result charge applies.

On Free:

Events of each type	apify-actor-start	apify-default-dataset-item
1,000 events	$0.05 on Free per 1,000 events	$2.70 on Free per 1,000 events
10,000 events	$0.50 on Free per 10,000 events	$27.00 on Free per 10,000 events

The Apify Free plan includes $5 of monthly platform usage credit. You pay only for the events listed above. This Actor does not use the Pay per event + usage option, so the platform usage of your runs (compute, proxy traffic and storage) is not billed to you separately.

How to use

1. Open the Actor in Apify and provide at least one source: keywords, subreddits, hashtags, tiktokHandles, or instagramHandles.
2. Select the platforms to run. YouTube uses keywords, Reddit uses subreddits, TikTok uses hashtags and/or tiktokHandles, and Instagram uses instagramHandles.
3. Set the ranking option and result limits, or keep the defaults.
4. Keep the prefilled Apify Proxy configuration with the RESIDENTIAL group for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram access; Reddit's API needs no proxy.
5. Start the run and read the normalized records from the default dataset.
6. Repeat the run through Apify Schedules; daily is a starting point for monitoring viral content.

{
  "keywords": ["ai agents"], "subreddits": ["artificial"], "hashtags": ["aiagents"],
  "tiktokHandles": [], "instagramHandles": [], "platforms": ["youtube", "reddit", "tiktok"],
  "maxPerPlatform": 25, "maxItems": 100, "sortBy": "velocity_score",
  "disableUsageStats": false
}

Export the dataset as JSON or CSV, or read it through the Apify dataset API.

Input parameters

Parameter	What it does	Default
keywords	Topics to search.	No default; the input UI is prefilled with ai agents.
subreddits	Subreddit names to track for recent Reddit posts, without r/. Limit: every leading "r" or "/" character is stripped from each name, so a name starting with the letter r loses it (robotics is queried as obotics).	Empty
hashtags	TikTok hashtags for topic discovery, without #.	Empty
tiktokHandles	TikTok accounts to track, without @.	Empty
instagramHandles	Instagram accounts to track, without @.	Empty
platforms	Selects youtube, reddit, tiktok, and/or instagram.	All four platforms
maxPerPlatform	Maximum number of items kept for each platform, from 1 to 200.	25
maxItems	Caps the total ranked output across platforms. 0 means no cap.	0
sortBy	Ranks by velocity_score, engagement, views, likes, comments, or posted_at.	velocity_score
proxyConfiguration	Apify Proxy configuration used for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. The prefilled group is RESIDENTIAL; Reddit needs no proxy.	Apify Proxy with RESIDENTIAL
disableUsageStats	Set to true to turn off the run summary described in Usage statistics.	false

Limits and edge cases

Condition	What the buyer sees	What to do
No usable source is provided, or no content is harvested from any selected platform	The run finishes as Succeeded with an empty dataset. The reason is stored in the OUTPUT record of the run's default key-value store.	Add or adjust a source value and check the proxy configuration where applicable.
A selected platform has no matching source input	That platform is skipped while other selected platforms can run.	Supply the input used by that platform, or remove it from platforms.
A platform or individual source fails	The affected platform or source can return no items while independently successful platforms or sources continue.	Check the source value and proxy configuration, then run again.
Reddit tracking is selected	Reddit is tracked by named subreddit, not free-text search. Only posts from the last 7 days are kept, taken from a pool of up to 100 posts per subreddit, so a quiet subreddit can return fewer than maxPerPlatform.	Provide subreddit names without r/. Because every leading "r" or "/" is stripped, a subreddit whose name starts with the letter r (for example robotics) cannot be tracked reliably: it is queried as obotics. Interpret the feed as recent-and-rising content, not an all-time-top list.
YouTube results are returned	YouTube search does not expose an exact publish time or likes. posted_at and age_hours are approximate, and likes is null.	Use the timing and engagement fields with that limitation in mind.
Instagram tracking is selected	Instagram is handle-only. Its profile response supplies about the 12 most recent posts per handle. A feed extension is attempted for more, but it often fails (the feed needs login), so in practice expect about 12 posts per handle and the maxPerPlatform maximum of 200 will not apply to Instagram.	Provide known Instagram handles; hashtag discovery is not available through this Actor.
The per-platform result cap is reached	The platform contributes up to maxPerPlatform ranked items.	Set maxPerPlatform to the number of items you want kept for each platform.
maxItems is 0	There is no total output cap.	Set a positive cap when you need a fixed maximum.
Harvesting or ranking is interrupted before the final dataset push	Rows reach the dataset only after harvesting and ranking complete. An abort, timeout, or failure before that push leaves no rows from that run.	Run the Actor again after correcting the source or access issue.

FAQ

How much does it cost to scrape YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram?

On Free, apify-default-dataset-item costs $0.0027 per event and apify-actor-start costs $0.00005 per event.

What happens if the run returns an empty result?

If no usable source is provided or no platform harvests content, the run finishes as Succeeded with an empty dataset. The reason is stored in the OUTPUT record of the run's default key-value store. Add or adjust the source values and check the residential proxy configuration used by YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

Why is one platform missing from my output?

Platforms run independently. A platform is skipped when its source input is empty, and a failed platform or unreachable handle can produce no rows while other platforms continue. Use keywords for YouTube, subreddits for Reddit, hashtags or handles for TikTok, and known handles for Instagram.

Does using public data mean my use is legal or allowed?

The Actor accesses public data through its platform paths, including YouTube search, named Reddit subreddit data, TikTok hashtag or handle pages, and Instagram known-account data. Whether a particular use is legal or allowed depends on the source terms and applicable law for your use case; this Actor does not provide a legal guarantee.

Related actors

• Comments Extractor — YouTube + Reddit, One Schema (+AI) — related when you need comments from YouTube and Reddit content.
• AI Chatbot App Update Tracker — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini — related for tracking updates to named AI chatbot applications.
• AI Search Visibility Tracker — AEO / GEO — related for AI search visibility tracking.

Usage statistics

This Actor creates a small, content-free summary at the end of each run, used only to monitor reliability and improve this Actor. No input values, credentials or scraped data are sent.

A copy of the exact record for your run is saved as USAGE_STATS in your own Apify key-value store.

To opt out, set disableUsageStats to true in the input. Nothing is sent then.

Full list of collected fields