How to find viral content ideas on Reddit before they blow up (No code)

Reddit is a goldmine of content: real opinions, pain points, and early signals before something goes viral. If you're here, you want to turn that raw material into content ideas.

Sure, you could scroll manually to find them. But that doesn't scale: you'll spend hours doing this manually, miss comments, and get a biased overview (at best).

Automation fixes this. Set it up once, and it checks Reddit for you. You just show up and pick the ideas.
Think you're not tech-savvy enough to set this up? We thought the same. Turns out, Apify gets you a working Reddit idea scraper in 5 minutes, no dev required.

What you'll need:

• A free Apify account

• A Claude account (or another AI model; we're using Claude here)

• 5 minutes

That's it. Let's jump in.

What is Apify?

Let's be honest: a regular content person has very little idea what a scraper is, let alone how to work it. Apify, our tool of choice for this, also looks a bit intimidating the first time you open it. 

Ignore all that. Underneath, it's simple. Apify is a library of pre-built tools (Actors) that grab data from websites for you. No coding or setup beyond a few clicks.

Think of it like a vending machine for web data: you pick what you want, press a button, and it hands you the result. You don't need to know how the machine works inside.

We'll use it here to pull Reddit posts and comments. That's it, that's the whole scary part.

How to scrape Reddit for content ideas

First, head to Apify and create a free account. Then, follow the instructions below. 

Step 1: Find the right Reddit scraper (Actor)

Apify calls its tools “Actors.” Think of them as pre-built mini-apps for one hyper-specific job. 

Head to the Apify Store and search “Reddit.” You'll see a long list.

Go for the most-used, best-ranked option. That's usually a safe bet when you're not sure what you're looking at. In this case, that's Reddit Scraper Lite.

Step 2: Set up your scrape in <1min

Inside the Actor, paste the URL of the subreddit you want to scrape. You can add more than one.

Then, pick how many posts you want per run. Twenty-five is the free default. Go higher if you want more signal per scrape.

Then decide: do you want comments and reactions too, or just the posts? Comments often have the best raw quotes for your content, so worth including if you can.

Then, click the green Start button at the top right corner. It will begin scrapping the info and will take some time. When it's done, it will look like a list. Leave this for now, we’ll come back to this. 

Step 3: Connect Apify to an AI model

For this stage, you will need at least a basic subscription to an AI model of your choice: Claude, ChatGPT, etc. We'll be using Claude for this tutorial, but ChatGPT setup is even easier.

This is the part that makes it actually useful, not just a pile of raw data. We know it sounds scary if you’ve never done this — it will be okay! 

In the top right corner, find “MCP configurator.” 

Scroll down and pick the AI provider you’re usually using; we're using Claude. Follow the steps provided. 

Copy the code it gives you in the MCP Server URL section.  

Then, open a new tab and go to Claude. Open Customize on the left-side menu, and then, click Connectors. From here, you'll see a button "Add custom connector." Go head and press it. Name accordingly. That's also where you'll get to paste that long link from the previous step.

If you're prompted to authorize via OAuth, follow these steps.

All done now! Save it. That's the connection made. You won't need to touch this part again. Breathe out.

Step 4: Ask your AI for content ideas

Open a new chat in Claude. Click the plus icon, then Connectors. Your Apify Actor will show up there.

Now just ask. Ask it to scrape your subreddit and tell you the main themes. Ask what people are complaining about, or what's getting the most engagement.

It'll pull the live data and hand you the answer.

This is your idea machine. 

Step 5: Automate it and get weekly signals

Don't want to run this by hand every time? You don't have to.

Go to the left side menu and click “Scheduled.” Then, click on "New task" -> "Set up manually."

Here, describe what the Apify Agent should do and set your cadence. Every one or two weeks works well for most creators: enough time for real conversations to build up, not so long that you miss a trend.

Set it once and forget about it. Check your AI chat when you're ready for ideas.

Recap

Reddit has the content ideas. Apify does the scraping. Your AI model turns raw threads into themes you can actually use.

Creators that go viral use data to their advantage, and it’s time to upgrade for you too, even if you don’t know how to code. Follow this guide for a system that runs quietly in the background, and hands you fresh ideas every couple weeks.