Classic market research asks people questions. Social data lets you read the answers they already gave without being asked: the Reddit thread where someone compares three products, the TikTok search that keeps suggesting the same complaint, the Marketplace listings that show what a used item really sells for. None of it replaces a proper study, but it is fast, cheap and often more honest than a survey.
Four questions social data answers well
1. What words do people use?
The words your customers use are rarely the words in your brochure. searches public Reddit posts by keyword, or within one subreddit, and returns the full post text. Reddit market research works well because people write long, specific posts there: what they tried, what failed, what they would pay for.
has a Search suggestions mode that returns the suggestions TikTok shows for a keyword. Suggestions reflect what many people search for, which makes them a quick map of how a topic splits into sub-questions.
2. What is new right now?
searches public X (Twitter) posts by keyword. It is a good place to see a new product, rule or price change hit the conversation, and how the first reactions sound. The TikTok search tool's Search posts mode does the same for video.
3. How do people react to a specific product?
Comments under a brand's own posts are direct feedback, often from customers. Facebook Comments Scraper and collect the public comments on any post or reel you give them. Pick a product launch post from each brand in your category and compare the comment threads: which questions repeat, which complaints, which praise.
4. What do things actually cost?
Facebook Marketplace Scraper searches public Marketplace listings by keyword around a location you choose. Its Locations mode turns a place name into coordinates for the search. The listings show asking prices in a real local market, which is useful for pricing used goods, checking resale value, or seeing how crowded a category is in one city.
A small study, start to finish
Imagine you are thinking about selling a standing desk accessory.
- Words. Search Reddit for "standing desk" and two or three related phrases. Collect a few hundred posts. Tag each one by problem: wobble, cable mess, back pain, price, space.
- Sub-questions. Run TikTok search suggestions for "standing desk". Note which problems show up there too.
- Reactions. Pick launch posts from two well-known desk brands on Facebook and Instagram. Collect their comments and count the questions people ask.
- Prices. Search Marketplace for "standing desk" around two cities. Look at the spread of asking prices for used desks.
- Write it up. One page: the top three problems with a quote for each, the price range, and the question you still cannot answer.
The last line matters most. It tells you what to ask in the interviews or survey that come next.
Reading the data well
- Count only after reading. Read fifty posts before you build any chart. You will find themes you did not expect, and you will spot the off-topic noise that a keyword pulls in.
- Watch for loud minorities. A complaint that fills one thread can still be rare. Count how many separate people mention it.
- Keep the source. Every row has a link back to the post. Keep it, so anyone can check a quote.
- Compare platforms. Instagram market research and TikTok market research can give different answers to the same question, because different people use them. That difference is itself a finding.
How it runs
Every tool here runs on Apify. You paste keywords or links, set how many results you want, and download the results as CSV, JSON or Excel. All payments go through your Apify account, and each Store page lists the current price per 1,000 results and the free-plan limits. A small test run per question is usually enough to tell whether a source is worth a larger one.