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

1. Go to https://www.apify.com/?fpr=dx06p and create a free account
2. Once logged in, navigate to Settings → Integrations
   • Direct link: https://console.apify.com/account/integrations
3. Copy your Personal API Token — format: apify_api_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
4. 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

TikTok

Reddit

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:

1. Identify the target platform(s) and keywords/hashtags
2. Run the appropriate Apify actor(s) in parallel when multi-platform
3. Collect all posts with engagement metrics (likes, views, comments, shares)
4. Sort & rank content by engagement rate or volume
5. Identify patterns — recurring hashtags, peak posting times, top creators
6. 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