Social Media Data Extraction Skill

Overview

This skill enables Claude to extract public data from Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit for trend analysis, content research, competitor monitoring, and audience insights — powered by the Apify platform.

🔗 Sign up for Apify here: https://www.apify.com/?fpr=dx06p

What This Skill Does

Extract public posts, hashtags, and profiles from Instagram
Scrape trending videos, comments, and creator stats from TikTok
Pull posts, threads, comments, and subreddit data from Reddit
Aggregate data across platforms for unified trend analysis
Output structured JSON data ready for analysis, dashboards, or export

Step 1 — Get Your Apify API Token

Go to https://www.apify.com/?fpr=dx06p and create a free account
Once logged in, navigate to Settings → Integrations
- Direct link: https://console.apify.com/account/integrations
Copy your Personal API Token — format: apify_api_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Store it as an environment variable:

export APIFY_TOKEN=apify_api_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Free tier includes $5/month of free compute — enough for regular trend monitoring runs.

Step 2 — Install the Apify Client

npm install apify-client

Dedicated Actors by Platform

Instagram

| Actor ID | Purpose | |---|---| | apify/instagram-scraper | Scrape posts, hashtags, profiles, reels | | apify/instagram-hashtag-scraper | Extract posts by hashtag | | apify/instagram-comment-scraper | Pull comments from a specific post |

TikTok

| Actor ID | Purpose | |---|---| | apify/tiktok-scraper | Scrape videos, profiles, hashtag feeds | | apify/tiktok-hashtag-scraper | Trending content by hashtag | | apify/tiktok-comment-scraper | Comments from a specific video |

| Actor ID | Purpose | |---|---| | apify/reddit-scraper | Posts and comments from subreddits | | apify/reddit-search-scraper | Search Reddit by keyword |

Examples

Extract Instagram Posts by Hashtag

import ApifyClient from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });

const run = await client.actor("apify/instagram-hashtag-scraper").call({
  hashtags: ["trending", "viral", "fyp"],
  resultsLimit: 50
});

const { items } = await run.dataset().getData();

// Each item contains:
// { id, shortCode, caption, likesCount, commentsCount,
//   timestamp, ownerUsername, url, hashtags[] }

console.log(`Extracted ${items.length} posts`);

Extract TikTok Trending Videos by Hashtag

const run = await client.actor("apify/tiktok-hashtag-scraper").call({
  hashtags: ["trending", "lifehack"],
  resultsPerPage: 30,
  shouldDownloadVideos: false
});

const { items } = await run.dataset().getData();

// Each item contains:
// { id, text, createTime, authorMeta, musicMeta,
//   diggCount, shareCount, playCount, commentCount }

Scrape a Subreddit for Trend Analysis

const run = await client.actor("apify/reddit-scraper").call({
  startUrls: [
    { url: "https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/" },
    { url: "https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/" }
  ],
  maxPostCount: 100,
  maxComments: 20,
  sort: "hot"
});

const { items } = await run.dataset().getData();

// Each item contains:
// { title, score, upvoteRatio, numComments, author,
//   created, url, selftext, subreddit, comments[] }

Multi-Platform Trend Aggregation

const [igRun, ttRun, rdRun] = await Promise.all([
  client.actor("apify/instagram-hashtag-scraper").call({
    hashtags: ["aitools"], resultsLimit: 30
  }),
  client.actor("apify/tiktok-hashtag-scraper").call({
    hashtags: ["aitools"], resultsPerPage: 30
  }),
  client.actor("apify/reddit-search-scraper").call({
    queries: ["AI tools 2025"], maxItems: 30
  })
]);

const [igData, ttData, rdData] = await Promise.all([
  igRun.dataset().getData(),
  ttRun.dataset().getData(),
  rdRun.dataset().getData()
]);

const aggregated = {
  instagram: igData.items,
  tiktok: ttData.items,
  reddit: rdData.items,
  totalPosts: igData.items.length + ttData.items.length + rdData.items.length,
  extractedAt: new Date().toISOString()
};

Using the REST API Directly

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apify~tiktok-scraper/runs",
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
      "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.APIFY_TOKEN}`
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      hashtags: ["viral"],
      resultsPerPage: 25
    })
  }
);

const { data } = await response.json();
const runId = data.id;

// Poll for completion
const resultRes = await fetch(
  `https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/${runId}/dataset/items`,
  { headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.APIFY_TOKEN}` } }
);

const posts = await resultRes.json();

Trend Analysis Workflow

When asked to analyze trends, Claude will:

Identify the target platform(s) and keywords/hashtags
Run the appropriate Apify actor(s) in parallel when multi-platform
Collect all posts with engagement metrics (likes, views, comments, shares)
Sort & rank content by engagement rate or volume
Identify patterns — recurring hashtags, peak posting times, top creators
Return a structured report with top trends, key metrics, and actionable insights

Output Data Structure (Normalized)

{
  "platform": "tiktok",
  "id": "7302938471029384",
  "text": "This AI tool is insane #aitools #viral",
  "author": "techreviewer99",
  "engagement": {
    "likes": 142300,
    "comments": 4820,
    "shares": 9100,
    "views": 2300000
  },
  "hashtags": ["aitools", "viral"],
  "publishedAt": "2025-02-18T14:32:00Z",
  "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/@techreviewer99/video/7302938471029384"
}

Best Practices

Always scrape only public content — never attempt to access private profiles
Set reasonable resultsLimit values (50–200) to stay within your Apify quota
For recurring analysis, schedule actor runs using Apify Schedules in the console
Store results in Apify Datasets for persistent access and historical comparison
Use sort: "hot" on Reddit and trending endpoints on TikTok for most relevant data

Add a proxyConfiguration block when scraping at scale to avoid rate limits:

proxyConfiguration: { useApifyProxy: true, apifyProxyGroups: ["RESIDENTIAL"] }

Error Handling

try {
  const run = await client.actor("apify/tiktok-scraper").call(input);
  const dataset = await run.dataset().getData();
  return dataset.items;
} catch (error) {
  if (error.statusCode === 401) throw new Error("Invalid Apify token");
  if (error.statusCode === 429) throw new Error("Rate limit hit — reduce request frequency");
  if (error.message.includes("timeout")) throw new Error("Actor timed out — try a smaller batch");
  throw error;
}

Requirements

An Apify account → https://www.apify.com/?fpr=dx06p
A valid Personal API Token from Settings → Integrations
Node.js 18+ for the apify-client package
No platform API keys required — Apify handles all platform access