YouTube Shorts Music & Sound Trend Tracker — Map Viral Audio 🎵🚀

🎉 The ONLY actor that maps Shorts sounds → viral Shorts — for music labels, sync scouts & indie artists

Feed one Short. Get every viral Short using the same sound. Plus sound metadata, artist info & adoption volume.

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📋 Overview

Stop guessing which songs are blowing up on YouTube Shorts. This is the first and only Apify actor that exposes YouTube's native sound-attribution feed — feed any Short, harvest every viral Short using the same audio, and read the exact "total Shorts using this sound" virality signal that A&R teams pay thousands for elsewhere.

Why music labels, agencies & indie artists choose us:

• ✅ Zero-competition data feed: confirmed via marketplace scan — no other Apify actor exposes the YouTube Shorts sound-attribution endpoint. Pure greenfield, first-mover authority.
• ⚡ Bulk-friendly pagination: ~15–16 viral Shorts per page, up to 50 pages per run = up to 800 Shorts mapped per single run.
• 🎯 Rich sound metadata: artist channel, sound source video, "1.5M Shorts" total-adoption text, artist avatar — everything you need to build dashboards or label-side intelligence stacks.
• 💰 Mid-market pricing wedge: from $0.006 per sound-attribution row — 3–10× cheaper than adjacent TikTok sound trackers ($0.02–$0.06 per row). Tiered ladder to $0.003 at high volume.
• 💎 Clean dataset shape: curated camelCase fields (soundTitle, soundArtistChannelTitle, soundTotalShortsUsingItText, shortPageUrl) — ready for BigQuery, Snowflake, Sheets, or any downstream BI tool.
• ✨ NEW: built-in handling for "no sound attribution" Shorts (silent or non-attributed audio) — no wasted charges, surfaced as status rows in the dataset.

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✨ Features

• 🎵 Sound Attribution Feed: paginated list of viral Shorts attributed to any sound, seeded by a single Short ID.
• 🎬 Short Detail Mode: full Short metadata in one row — title, channel, views, likes, comments, publish date, family-safe flag, captions, keywords, sound attribution.
• 🔥 Total-Shorts Virality Signal: human-readable soundTotalShortsUsingItText (e.g. "1.5M Shorts") — the same metric YouTube displays to creators.
• 🎤 Artist Intelligence: sound's source channel ID, channel title, avatar URL, and source Short URL — handy for sync-licensing prospecting.
• 🌍 Geo + Language Localization: pass geo (e.g. US, GB, IN, BR, JP) and lang to surface region-specific trending.
• 📄 Pagination Control: hard-cap at 50 pages with sensible defaults; pause early via maxPages.
• 🧹 Smart Status Rows: silent Shorts and non-attributed audio get a no_sound_attribution row — never an opaque error.
• 📦 Schema-Stable Output: every row matches a published dataset schema — predictable for downstream ETL.
• 🛡️ No Account, No API Key, No Proxies: just an Apify token and you're scraping.

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🎬 Quick Start

Pick a seed Short, pick an operation, and run. Get a clean dataset back in seconds — ready to export to JSON, CSV, or Excel.

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/sian.agency~youtube-shorts-sound-trend-tracker/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"operation":"soundAttribution","shortId":"fHI8X4OXluQ","maxPages":5}'

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🚀 Getting Started (3 Simple Steps)

Step 1: Find a seed Short

Open any YouTube Shorts URL — the 11-character ID after /shorts/ is your seed. Pick a Short that uses the sound or song you want to investigate.

Step 2: Choose your operation

• soundAttribution — paginated list of viral Shorts using the same audio (best for volume).
• shortDetail — full metadata for the seed Short itself (best for sound discovery / enrichment).

Step 3: Run it

Pass shortId (required), maxPages (optional, 1–50), geo (optional country code) and lang (optional language code). Hit run.

That's it! In under a minute, you'll have:

• A clean dataset of every viral Short attributed to your seed sound
• Sound metadata: title, artist, total adoption volume, source video
• Per-row Short data: channel, view counts, thumbnails, publish dates, page URLs

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📥 Input Configuration

Field	Type	Required	Description
operation	string	Yes	soundAttribution (bulk viral Shorts) or shortDetail (single Short metadata)
shortId	string	Yes	11-character YouTube Shorts video ID (the part after /shorts/ in the URL)
maxPages	integer	No	Pages to fetch for soundAttribution (default 5, max 50). Ignored for shortDetail.
geo	string	No	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code (e.g. US, GB, IN). Defaults to US.
lang	string	No	ISO 639-1 language code (e.g. en, es, pt). Defaults to en.

Example — find viral Shorts using a seed sound:

{
  "operation": "soundAttribution",
  "shortId": "fHI8X4OXluQ",
  "maxPages": 10,
  "geo": "US"
}

Example — pull full metadata for one Short:

{
  "operation": "shortDetail",
  "shortId": "fHI8X4OXluQ"
}

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📤 Output

Results are saved to the Apify dataset with 30+ fields including:

Field	Type	Description
shortId	string	YouTube Shorts video ID of the attributed Short
shortPageUrl	string	Canonical youtube.com/shorts/{id} URL
channelTitle	string	Channel that posted the Short
channelId	string	Channel ID
channelPageUrl	string	Canonical channel URL
viewCount	integer	Parsed view count (numeric)
viewCountText	string	Raw view-count text (e.g. "6.8M views")
thumbnailUrl	string	Highest-resolution thumbnail
isOriginalAspectRatio	boolean	Whether the Short is in native vertical aspect ratio
soundTitle	string	Title of the original sound (e.g. "Blinding Lights")
soundArtistChannelTitle	string	Channel/artist owning the sound (e.g. "The Weeknd")
soundArtistChannelId	string	Sound owner's channel ID
soundSourceShortId	string	Video ID of the original sound source
soundSourceUrl	string	URL of the sound's source video
soundTotalShortsUsingItText	string	Human-readable adoption volume (e.g. "1.5M Shorts")
status	string	success, error, or no_sound_attribution

Example row (soundAttribution):

{
  "_operation": "soundAttribution",
  "_page": 1,
  "_sourceShortId": "fHI8X4OXluQ",
  "status": "success",
  "shortId": "B7hFpaU7uXk",
  "shortPageUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B7hFpaU7uXk",
  "viewCount": 6800000,
  "viewCountText": "6.8M views",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/B7hFpaU7uXk/frame0.jpg",
  "soundTitle": "Blinding Lights",
  "soundArtistChannelTitle": "The Weeknd",
  "soundArtistChannelId": "UC0WP5P-ufpRfjbNrmOWwLBQ",
  "soundSourceShortId": "4NRXx6U8ABQ",
  "soundSourceUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4NRXx6U8ABQ",
  "soundTotalShortsUsingItText": "395K Shorts"
}

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💼 Use Cases & Examples

1. Music Label A&R — Track Roster Adoption

Music label A&R teams use this to measure organic Shorts adoption of every track on the roster.

Input: A Short featuring your artist's release. Output: Every viral Short using the same audio, with view counts and adoption-volume text. Use: Build a daily/weekly dashboard of which roster tracks are gaining traction on Shorts — surface organic momentum before it hits playlists.

2. Sync-Licensing Scout — Find Rising Audio

Sync-licensing scouts use this to discover sounds going viral before they hit mainstream radar.

Input: A trending Short you've spotted on the For You feed. Output: Sound's artist channel, source video, and current adoption volume. Use: Identify rising unlicensed audio early and pitch licensing deals before competitors notice.

3. Indie Artist Marketing — Own the Discovery Loop

Indie artists use this to see exactly who's using their release on Shorts.

Input: A Short featuring your own track (your reference upload). Output: Every cover, reaction, and creator video using your audio. Use: Identify top-performing creators using your music, then comment / collab / amplify.

4. Music Marketing Agency — Creator-Seeding Campaigns

Marketing agencies use this to spot which sounds are blowing up across creators.

Input: A seed Short for the genre/mood you're seeding. Output: Ranked list of viral Shorts and creators already adopting the sound. Use: Build creator-seeding campaigns on the next wave of trending audio instead of chasing yesterday's trends.

5. Trend Forecasting & Insights Teams — Surface Emerging Audio

Trend forecasting teams use this to feed dashboards that surface rising sounds early.

Input: Weekly batch of trending Shorts across niches. Output: Per-sound adoption-volume signals, artist intelligence, viral creator examples. Use: Power "what's blowing up on Shorts this week" reports for label clients, music supervisors, and ad agencies.

6. Brand Sound-Strategy Teams — License Before Competitors

Brand sound-strategy teams use this to scout rising audio for ad work.

Input: Trending Shorts from your target demographic. Output: Sounds reaching critical mass, plus the artist channels behind them. Use: Build a licensing pipeline for trending audio you can use in upcoming ad campaigns before rivals do.

7. Music Discovery Platforms — Cold-Start Recommendation Data

Music discovery platforms use this for cold-start recommendation data.

Input: Anchor Shorts seeded from your existing recommendation graph. Output: Co-occurrence map of sounds and creators on YouTube Shorts. Use: Bootstrap or augment recommendation models with real cross-creator audio adoption signals.

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🔗 Integration Examples

JavaScript / Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('sian.agency/youtube-shorts-sound-trend-tracker').call({
  operation: 'soundAttribution',
  shortId: 'fHI8X4OXluQ',
  maxPages: 10
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Found ${items.length} viral Shorts attributed to sound "${items[0]?.soundTitle}"`);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('YOUR_TOKEN')

run = client.actor('sian.agency/youtube-shorts-sound-trend-tracker').call(
    run_input={
        'operation': 'soundAttribution',
        'shortId': 'fHI8X4OXluQ',
        'maxPages': 10,
    }
)

for item in client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).iterate_items():
    print(item['shortId'], item.get('viewCountText'), '—', item.get('soundTitle'))

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/sian.agency~youtube-shorts-sound-trend-tracker/runs?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"operation":"soundAttribution","shortId":"fHI8X4OXluQ","maxPages":5}'

Automation Workflows (N8N / Zapier / Make)

1. Trigger: Schedule (e.g. daily 9am) or manual webhook
2. HTTP Request: Call this actor's run API with a seed shortId
3. Process: Iterate the dataset rows in your workflow
4. Action: Push to Google Sheets, Slack, Notion, BigQuery, or your CRM

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📊 Performance & Pricing

FREE Tier (Try It Now)

• ~3 sound-attribution rows or 1 short-detail row covered by Apify's monthly free credit — full feature access, same data quality.
• No credit card required.
• Perfect for one-off lookups and pilot evaluations.

PAID Tier (Production-Ready)

• Unlimited sound-attribution rows per run, ladder pricing scales down at volume.
• Pay-per-event: only charged for successful rows (silent / no-sound Shorts cost nothing).

Pricing Highlights — sound-attribution-row (headline):

• BRONZE: $0.006 per viral-Short row
• SILVER: $0.0045 per row
• GOLD / PLATINUM / DIAMOND: $0.003 per row

Detail mode — short-detail-result:

• BRONZE: $0.020 per full-Short row
• GOLD / PLATINUM / DIAMOND: $0.015 per row

💰 3–10× cheaper than adjacent TikTok sound trackers (which charge $0.02–$0.06 per row). The only YouTube Shorts sound mapper on Apify, priced as a wedge to lock the category.

🔗 View live pricing

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many viral Shorts can I get per run? A: Up to ~800 (50 pages × ~16 rows/page). Most popular sounds easily fill all 50 pages — viral audio routinely shows 100K–1.5M+ total Shorts available.

Q: What if my seed Short has no sound attribution (silent video / non-attributed audio)? A: You'll get a single no_sound_attribution status row, with a clear message. No charge for that row.

Q: How do I find a good seed Short? A: Any Short that uses the sound you want to investigate. Easiest: open YouTube Shorts, find a video using the audio, copy the 11-char ID from its URL.

Q: Does this work for songs from major artists like Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Bad Bunny? A: Yes — any sound with YouTube attribution works. Major-artist tracks often have millions of attributed Shorts.

Q: Can I monitor sound trends over time? A: Yes — schedule the actor on Apify (or your own scheduler) to re-run with the same seed daily/weekly and track soundTotalShortsUsingItText deltas.

Q: What output formats are available? A: JSON, CSV, Excel, RSS, HTML — export directly from the Apify dataset.

Q: How long does a 10-page run take? A: Typically 20–40 seconds end-to-end.

Q: Is this legal? A: Yes — we only extract publicly available data that YouTube already exposes to every Shorts viewer. See our legal section below.

YouTube and YouTube Shorts are trademarks of Google LLC. This actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Google LLC.

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🐛 Troubleshooting

"Invalid Short ID" error

• YouTube Shorts video IDs are 11 characters of alphanumerics, dashes, and underscores. Copy the segment after /shorts/ in the URL — don't include the URL itself.

status: no_sound_attribution rows only

• Your seed Short doesn't have a recognized original sound (silent video, non-attributed audio, or attribution was removed). Try a different Short that you know uses a song or trending sound.

Empty dataset / 0 rows

• Verify the Short ID is correct by opening https://www.youtube.com/shorts/{ID} in a browser. If the video plays, your ID is valid.

Pagination stops earlier than maxPages

• That's expected — the run stops when YouTube signals no more results for that sound, or when the sound has fewer attributed Shorts than maxPages × 16.

Geo / language not returning local results

• Some sounds trend globally; geo and lang only adjust localization. The underlying sound-attribution feed is the same across regions for most popular sounds.

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⚖️ Is it legal to scrape data?

Our actors are ethical and do not extract any private user data, such as email addresses, gender, or location. They only extract what the user has chosen to share publicly. We therefore believe that our actors, when used for ethical purposes by Apify users, are safe.

However, you should be aware that your results could contain personal data. Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers.

You can also read Apify's blog post on the legality of web scraping.

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🤝 Support

Join our active support community

• For issues or questions, open an issue in the actor's repository
• Check SIÁN Agency Store for more automation tools
• ✉️ apify@sian-agency.online

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