Table of contents
2M Marketers
In just 30 days, Red Bull generated over 5,200 YouTube mentions. Why does it even matter? Because those mentions reached nearly 350 million users! And that is one of the reasons why Red Bull has remained the top energy drink for several decades.
Key takeaways
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What are YouTube mentions?
YouTube mentions are references to your brand, product, person, or topic across YouTube content. They can appear in video titles, descriptions, comments, Shorts, live streams, or directly in the spoken content of a video. They can be tagged (@channelname, clickable and notifying the user) or untagged (just plain text, no notification) or found through YouTube transcript monitoring when a keyword is mentioned inside the video.
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How do you track YouTube mentions?
You can track them manually on YouTube, but this only covers tagged mentions. To track all Youtube mentions, you need a social media monitoring tool.
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Why should you track YouTube mentions?
They help you boost visibility and engagement, spot collaboration opportunities, understand your audience better, protect and build your channel’s reputation, and improve your YouTube SEO.
Let’s remember:
- YouTube is the 2nd most visited website in the world. In July 2026, it generated nearly 30 billion visits worldwide, according to Similarweb.
- The average visit lasts more than 19 minutes. That makes YouTube one of the most engaging websites online.
- But content alone isn’t enough. To make the most of YouTube, you need analytics. Data is power.
What are YouTube mentions?
YouTube mention refers to a situation in which one platform user references or links to another user in any type of content available on the platform.
Mentions are important as they can:
- notify the mentioned user to interact, improve engagement, or drive attention to the mentioned channel,
- inform you about your channel reputation,
- influence the YouTube SEO on the platform,
- boost your visibility in LLMs (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity).
Tagged mentions
Imagine you upload a YouTube video. How would you credit the co-author? Or grab other channel’s attention?
Most probably, you’ll use “@” symbol + channel name. This way, you create a so-called tagged YouTube mention, that is clickable.
Such mention informs the tagged user that you mentioned him or his channel (unless he turned off his notifications… but that’s something out of your control).
Yeah, it works like in the case of Instagram mentions & Twitter mentions.
In practice, there are three situations when we talk about a tagged YouTube mention:
- In a video title
- In a video description
- In a comment
Using tagged YouTube mentions has several advantages.
Firstly, it is very useful to promote one or more of your other channels.
Imagine a situation where you have another channel (i.e., in a different language). You could tag that channel in the title or description of your video.
Secondly, to grab other creators’ attention.
You could use tagged YouTube mentions to collaborate with creators or praise them for their input on your content.
It is much easier to click the mention sign and then go to that channel to subscribe, for example.
Besides, a tagged mention looks sexy. A plain URL – not.
Untagged mentions
However, not every mention on YouTube is tagged.
I would even say that tagged mentions are in the minority. A vast minority.
Untagged mention means a situation when someone uses a YouTube channel name or username without typing “@” at the beginning.
It’s just plain text. No notification.
Untagged mentions are tricky for each YouTube creator.
Someone is talking about you, and you can’t control it.
You don’t even know who, why, and where mentioned you!
Yikes!
Fortunately, there is a way to track untagged mentions and never miss a conversation about you and your YouTube channel.
You need the help of a social media monitoring tool!
<media monitoring enters the stage>
Benefits of tracking mentions on YouTube:
- You can discover opportunities to collaborate with other creators.
- You can enhance engagement around your channel by responding to mentions.
- You can get content strategy insights by observing what resonates with your audience.
- You can take care of your reputation by reacting to negative mentions.
How to track YouTube mentions?
All right, we already know what YouTube mentions are.
It’s time to see how to track them properly.
01 Manual tracking
Let’s check what YouTube has to offer regarding tracking mentions.
- Start by opening a YouTube studio.
- Tap “Comments” from the left menu and switch the view to “Mentions”.
- In the Mentions tab, you can see all your channel new mentions.
Unfortunately, YouTube Studio doesn’t offer any mentions analytics and it only captures tagged mentions.
The only thing you can do around your YouTube mentions here is to set up notifications (it should be done by default).
And that’s pretty much everything you can do about your mentions in YouTube Studio.
If you want to make detailed analytics with that tool, you must do it manually.
Do I really need to describe how time-consuming and tiresome such an analysis is?
There is an easier way. Much, much easier!
02 Using a social media monitoring tool
Social media monitoring tools are software used to track, filter, and analyze mentions & conversations across social media platforms.
The top social listening tools, like Brand24, offer a freaking impressive set of insights regarding your YouTube (tagged & untagged) mentions:
- Mentions volume, reach, and AI Anomaly Detector;
- Sentiment analysis;
- Topic Analysis;
- Advanced search bar;
- Top influencers & most influential channels;
- Presence Score & Reputation Score
- … and many more!
Okay, but how do social media monitoring tools get all these data?
They have access to public mentions published on multiple sources.
They usually track and analyze mentions from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, Telegram, and Twitch.
YouTube transcript (keyword) monitoring
Many YouTube mentions happen inside the video itself. A creator might talk about your brand, product, or competitor without mentioning it in the title, description, or comments. These YouTube mentions can easily go unnoticed.
That’s why it’s worth choosing a media monitoring tool that can monitor YouTube transcripts. Only a limited number of social listening tools currently offer YouTube transcript monitoring at scale.
YouTube keyword monitoring looks for your keywords in video transcripts and auto-generated captions, so you can find mentions even when your brand name is spoken rather than written.
This means you can catch:
- Competitor comparisons where your brand or product name is spoken, not written
- Creators who discuss your brand without tagging you in the title, description, or comments
- Unboxing or review videos that mention your brand by name mid-video
- Interviews, podcasts, and other long-form videos where your brand is discussed
The AI Anomaly Detector.
- When something strange happens in your project (i.e., a sudden spike in mentions volume), the AI scans the web to find the possible cause.
- Later, the Anomaly Detector presents its conclusions in two or three sentences.
- It does the job of digging through hundreds of mentions in 3 seconds.
Look at the example of PewDiePie.
According to the Anomaly Detector, the significant spike in mentions was caused mostly by PewDiePie – MrBeast collaboration.
I checked it manually, and the Anomaly Detector was absolutely correct!
Progress Tracking
How do you know if you’re doing better now than in the past?
Just go to the Compare Periods feature and filter the results to YouTube only.
That’s how you’ll get the table summarizing your progress.
Example of PewDiePie.
This time, I’d rather say – a regress. As you can see below, this YouTuber’s performance generally worsens. Especially in the case of reach (a drop of 63%!).
Hopefully, his collaboration with MrBeast will reverse this negative trend.
Benefits of tracking mentions using an advanced YouTube monitoring tool:
- Comprehensive data – you have access to both tagged & untagged YouTube mentions with one tool;
- Detailed data – you can check multiple mentions metrics, including sentiment, top influencers, period comparison, etc.;
- Fast & effective analytics – you save your time on analyses thanks to dashboards and the AI Anomaly Detector;
- Multi-channel approach – you don’t have to pay for multiple tools if you choose the one accessing many data sources;
- Guarding brand reputation – you can immediately to negative comments and prevent a brand reputation crisis.
How to analyze YouTube mentions to gain insights?
Thanks to the stars, AI is increasingly taking over monotonous tasks for us. And Brand24’s AI Insights is a great example of that trend.
- The machine learning algorithm goes through your project (i.e., monitored YouTube channel).
- Later, it summarizes all the data through texts and charts.
- AI Insights not only present trends but also generate actionable recommendations.
If that’s not enough for you, visit the AI Metrics tab.
This feature presents additional data extracted from your project.
Here, you can check which mentions’ source generates the most positive buzz around your YouTube channel.
Or, on the contrary, discover your haters’ favorite platform.
Personally, I like to think about these features as an analyst I’ve hired.
Conclusion
YouTube is a super influential platform. But to make the most of it, you must really get into analytics.
If you want to do it like a pro, you shouldn’t rely only on YouTube Studio. Unfortunately, it’s too basic. Use a professional social media monitoring tool.
It gives you detailed insights regarding both tagged & untagged mentions, streamlines analytics with AI solutions, and supports your holistic brand awareness strategy.
Final thoughts:
- YouTube mentions increase interactions, improve engagement, drive attention, benchmark channel reputation, and impact YouTube SEO.
- Tagged mentions notify users, while untagged mentions remain unnoticed (unless you use a social media monitoring tool).
- YouTube Studio doesn’t include any mention analytics.
- Social media tools like Brand24 offer advanced analytics for both tagged & untagged YouTube mentions, as well as relevant keywords found in YouTube transcripts.
- AI features significantly speed up the YouTube mentions analytics process.
Level up your YouTube analytics! Start a 14-day free trial!
FAQ
How to see mentions of your brand on YouTube?
Instead of tracking mentions manually, use a media monitoring tool that can collect relevant brand mentions for you and provide additional data such as mention volume, reach, sentiment, and the channels talking about your brand.
How to monitor YouTube for mentions?
For direct mentions, YouTube can notify you when another channel mentions your handle in a title or description. However, this doesn’t cover every time your brand is discussed on YouTube.
For broader monitoring, set up a social listening project with your brand name, product names, competitors, and other relevant keywords. Depending on the tool, you can track mentions in video titles, descriptions, comments, and spoken content through YouTube transcript monitoring.
Can I track competitor mentions on YouTube?
Advanced tools, like Brand24 or Awario can also monitor YouTube transcripts and auto-generated captions, helping you find competitor mentions that are spoken in videos but don’t appear in the title, description, or comments.
