JS Bach was an Organfluencer before he was recognized as as skilled musician and ultimately the epitome of Baroque music. 
(more precisely, he started out as an organ tech, he wrote & performed music to show off the repairs and improvements he made and the rest is history)
Am I mistaken or is this whole premise not what tags are for?
Thats where I add some gear info if I’m going to bother. I thought thats how it gets suggested by the algorithm or search inquires.
Maybe I am mistaken?
Posting the gear in your video titles will get you an audience of a bunch of other synthesists/musicians. Which is fine of course. But why not just come to a place like this and hang out with other musicians in a more involved way?
While the pool is small there are a few:
I like Matt Johnson from Jamiroquai. He has a synth/keys/funk kind of channel & does lots of instructional vids, some live performances, and reviews… got to respect his musicianship/body of work.
That is a killer tune. Easily the best piece of standalone music I’ve heard from any synthfluencer. Not knowing the title or even pressing play, I knew which one it had to be.
Just discovered him recently. I think someone posted his videos on here actually
As a synth gear fetishist I can understand this obsession with the electronic boxes, but it’s going a bit weird, isn’t it?
Imo, this Youtube gear culture now exists for it’s own sake. It’s barely related to the actual music and production. Some exceptions prove the rule (e.g. Warm Binary project showcases a lot of gear but also composes an excellent ambient).
Actual performing dance musicans on Youtube mixes mostly use laptop with some controllers or some limited set of yesteryear gear, like Roland TR-8s.
(and none of my favourite sound artists even use Youtube streams and all they probably use are just recorders/microphones, maybe guitar and eh… what’s the name… MacBooks?)
Perhaps romanticizing a bit, I think that including gear in video titles is a bit like following the tradition of including instruments in titles (like “piano sonata” or “string quartet”).
Obviously a piano piece can be played on a Steinway or a Yamaha… Is “Techno in d minor for three drum machines and monosynth” the proper naming scheme then? 
I’m guessing that even if you tag a piece of gear, if people don’t see the gear in the thumbnail or in the title, many people won’t click on it, assuming it’s a song by a random person.
I think there is a weighted system involved also, so if someone passes your video by it counts as a tick against you… so if you use tags that initially pull people to have a chance to click your video and they don’t it is a good way for your video to loose all traction.
If they’re an established artist then they have a much more significant outlet with a label and an audience - so I don’t think it necessarily makes sense to bottle it up that way - it also depends what you mean by having a YouTube channel - Bicep don’t post jams but they do post music videos.
That said there are a number of smaller artists that do though, people like State Azure, Colin Bender etc come to mind.
But they’re kind of different pursuits I think, on the most part, maybe?
I agree with most folks and don’t have much more to add I don’t think, lots of good stuff covered here - ultimately include gear if you want to attract gear people, focus on genre for the normies.
There’s an audience for everyone, finding the right way to market your music can be hard - even finding the right genre can be a challenge so sticking ‘Digitone jam’ on the title can be a good way to get the ball rolling and will help YouTube know who to show your video to. Being obscure doesn’t help you or your audience.
And it doesn’t have to be about headlining at creamfields - it’s nice to be a part of a creative community and to have other people witness your madness.
IIRC they ditched tags for the most part. I assume it was because it gave individuals too much direct input on YT traffic.
There are two types of tags used on YT, one doesn’t influence search and is more about correcting language (I’ve never fully understood those), the others work like standard hashtags - they will influence search but in combination with other context, it’s Google so I don’t think think keyword spam is likely to trick them 
I list my gear used in videos so watchers can see what I use. Also, I do not get free demo or free gear and buy all my gear so I can give honest reviews. Like the new Virus is great but software support has its challenges.
I feel it’s not much different from the metal scene, where many fans also play guitar and post guitar playthroughs. And then sometimes come up with own songs and maybe things happen.
Of course in both scenes are people who manufacture music only to fill up youtube videos week after week and thus further devalue music.
However, watching youtube has become a great and enriching part in my life. The first youtube channel I really started to watch was Techmoan.
Just realised there are two talented producers who release music I like and post gear videos and post on here. Jonwayne and stazma
I also enjoy the YouTube channel rhythm roulette which has established producers making beats.
I’ve just started uploading to YouTube now cos my phone memory is full… they ain’t songs so don’t have titles, same way I always video my guitar looping, no titles as they aren’t songs but I like to capture it as I’m usually improvising, fingers take over from the mind…
I’m actually quite content being mostly invisible. I play live on twitch every week and the video stays for a week then disappears. Music was transient before recording appeared - we have the best of all possible worlds now so make your choice and be happy. Opinions are overrated anyway. 
I’d say YouTube is the thing i watch the most, and also started creating stuff to upload to YouTube recently.
Typically i find I can’t watch many music based videos as for me they either don’t sound interesting, are more often reviews, or don’t feel very genuine but try to be. That feeling of being sold something all the time gets really annoying.
I used to watch Ricky Tinez, he seems like a nice person, and although I wasn’t really into what he made, i watched as it was interesting to watch someone work through being a YouTuber. I always got the sense he desperately wanted to be genuine but obviously put a ton of work into his videos, started doing adverts mid video, you know the type, holding up a can of coke saying i drink coke, and yeah, i felt the journey for me had ended, it had reached destination “music industry”, so i felt i needed to walk back alone on the road, hitchhiking.
Another example of someone doing something differently, and more why i like Youtube as when great it’s just people doing stuff.
His videos are a total mess of choas, bad lighting, cameras falling over, toblerone chocolate bars, and some mad 90’s style breakbeat Amiga hardcore/jungle music. He’s almost certainly not making money from Youtube but is pretty successful in other ways. He does list gear but it helps with that whole scene around the Amiga and Akais and basically the sound of the 90’s. It makes sense:
Another example of how to do it your way, this guy is pretty entertaining and crazy creative, doesn’t list his gear but i guess it’s clear why 
.
So I’m not into Harp, or pedals really, but was finding it hard to find videos using pedals that don’t use guitar. What I didn’t expect from Emily, was to be so entertained and get a good sense of a pedal, subscribed! I think she is a good example of someone who understands what YouTube is, how it works, and is just having fun with it. It feels easy, genuine, and well done.
Bad lighting, bad audio, I’m not really into reviews, but put all this together and for some reason it’s enjoyable to watch. It’s not gear but it it does show what can be a pretty tired format, seems to work here for me, mainly as it’s just a “dorky guy” sharing what he’s into.
I think ultimately, if it comes across genuine in some way, then it’s easier to look past the bs that is YouTube culture in general.
Adding gear in titles, thumbnails, descriptions of gear etc , tagging (although I understand that’s more for typos when people search), all this stuff, I think having fun with it, knowing what it is you want to do, be honest with yourself, and try to find a way that works for you, is probably the right route, and if not sure, do a bit of both, do some videos listing gear and some without, see how you feel, how things perform. Obviously it doesn’t need to be the same video that is clicked on, to not list gear, maybe you have some that are all gear listings to pull in the gear searchers, and some videos that are genre to pull in those searchers, and a pretty/interesting picture for those mind numbingly clicking, we’ve all clicked on an exciting picture in our day.
Still, our channel only has 279 subscribers, 28 videos and already getting hate comments so what do i know. 
Good luck tho. It’s not an easy one.
that was a dafuq did I just watch moment, lol, that’s one crazy dude