Monitor social media trends across Reddit, Instagram & TikTok with Apify

📺 Full walkthrough video: https://youtu.be/Me4d4BILvHk

What it does

This workflow automatically monitors trending content across Reddit, Instagram, and TikTok using keywords you define. It scrapes the most engaging posts, calculates platform-specific engagement scores, ranks content in a unified leaderboard, and delivers a professional HTML email dashboard — while storing historical data in a structured table for long-term trend tracking.

No manual research. No tab switching. Just the top-performing content in your inbox, automatically.

Who's it for

Social media managers, content creators, brand managers, marketing teams, and agencies who need to track keyword performance and trending content across multiple platforms for competitive analysis, content inspiration, and influencer discovery.

How it works

The workflow runs a full scraping cycle for each keyword in your list:

• Reddit Monitoring: Searches top posts by keyword with upvotes and comment data
• Instagram Monitoring: Scrapes hashtag-based posts with likes and comments
• TikTok Analysis: Tracks hashtag content including views, likes, shares, and comments
• Engagement Scoring: Applies platform-specific algorithms to rank content objectively
• Unified Ranking: Combines all platforms into a single top 15 leaderboard
• Email Report: Delivers a formatted HTML dashboard with clickable links to original posts
• Data Storage: Pushes all results into a DataTable for historical tracking and trend analysis

Requirements

• Apify account (free tier works — no recurring cost)
• Gmail account for report delivery
• n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted)
• Platform scrapers: Reddit Scraper Lite, Instagram Scraper, TikTok Scraper

How to set up

Step 1: Configure Apify credentials

• Set up Apify API authentication in n8n
• Ensure access to the required scrapers:
  • Reddit: trudax~reddit-scraper-lite
  • Instagram: apify~instagram-scraper
  • TikTok: clockworks~tiktok-scraper
• Install the Apify community node: https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/n8n

Step 2: Add your keywords

Open the "Query social media" DataTable and add one keyword per row. The Loop Over Query node automatically runs a full Reddit + Instagram + TikTok scraping cycle for every keyword — no limit on the number of keywords.

Step 3: Configure search parameters

Reddit:

• Search terms via searches array
• Sort: top (alternatives: hot, new, relevance)
• Time period: month (alternatives: hour, day, week, year, all)
• Limits: maxItems 50, maxPostCount 25

Instagram:

• Target hashtags via directUrls
• Results type: posts
• Time filter: onlyPostsNewerThan: 7 days
• Result limit: 15

TikTok:

• Target hashtags via hashtags array
• Results per page: 20
• Time filter: oldestPostDateUnified: 7 days

Step 4: Set up email reporting

• Configure Gmail OAuth2 credentials in n8n
• Update the recipient email address in the Send a message node
• Customize subject and styling as needed

Step 5: Schedule the workflow

Add a Schedule Trigger to run the workflow automatically — daily, weekly, or at any interval that suits your monitoring needs.

Engagement scoring methodology

Platform-specific algorithms

Reddit
Score = (upvotes × 1) + (comments × 2)
Comments weighted higher as they indicate deeper community engagement.

Instagram
Score = (likes × 1) + (comments × 2)
Focused on recent content to capture trending moments. Carousel sub-items excluded to avoid duplicates.

TikTok
Score = (likes × 1) + (comments × 2) + (shares × 3) + (views ÷ 1000)
Shares heavily weighted (×3) as the strongest viral indicator. Views normalized to balance with other metrics.

Performance levels

Content is automatically classified into three tiers:

• High: Score ≥ 10,000 — viral or highly engaging content
• Medium: Score ≥ 1,000 — solid engagement, worth monitoring
• Low: Score < 1,000 — baseline engagement

Results & dashboard

The automated email report includes:

• Cross-platform leaderboard: Top 15 posts ranked by unified engagement score
• Platform breakdown: Total score per network (TikTok / Reddit / Instagram)
• Per-post detail: Author, content preview, score, level, and direct link to original post
• Historical DataTable: One row per post with keyword, source, score, date — queryable over time

How to customize

Keyword targeting

• Add as many keywords as needed — one row per keyword in the DataTable
• Use brand names, product names, competitor terms, or campaign hashtags
• Adjust for seasonal trends or campaign periods

Scoring adjustments

Modify the Code nodes to:

• Change metric multipliers based on your priorities
• Add recency bonuses for fresher content
• Filter out low-quality or spam content
• Integrate sentiment scoring for brand monitoring

Reporting enhancements

• Add multiple email recipients
• Export results to Google Sheets or Airtable
• Set alert thresholds for high-performing content
• Connect to Slack or Teams for real-time notifications

Use cases

Brand & competitive monitoring
Track brand mentions, competitor content performance, and market positioning across all three platforms simultaneously.

Content strategy
Identify top-performing content formats, discover effective hashtags, and spot emerging trends before they peak.

Influencer discovery
Find creators driving the most engagement in your niche and evaluate potential collaborators based on real performance data.

Campaign tracking
Monitor hashtag campaigns, track sponsored content performance, and measure share of voice over time.

Limitations

• Subject to Apify scraper quotas (free tier: ~$5 credit/month included)
• Some private or restricted content may not be accessible
• 30-second processing waits between platforms to prevent rate limiting
• Dependent on third-party scraper availability and maintenance