How to Use Reddit + AI to Generate 90 Days of Content Ideas in Just 30 Minutes

A step-by-step guide to mining Reddit's 100,000+ communities for problems your audience wants solved

Every writer faces the same challenge: coming up with fresh content ideas their audience actually wants to read.

Most end up doing one of two things:

• guessing what their readers might like

• recycling topics everyone else is writing about.

But what if you could tap into real conversations where your ideal readers are openly discussing their challenges, questions, and frustrations?

Welcome to Reddit — the online gathering where millions of people gather to have honest conversations about what matters to them.

In today’s article, I’m going to show you a simple system using Reddit, Perplexity AI, and ChatGPT to find content ideas your audience craves.

First, let me show you around Reddit so you know exactly what we’re looking at.

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What Exactly Is Reddit (and Why Should You Care?)

Reddit is commonly referred to as “the front page of the internet”, because it’s where the most interesting content surfaces first — if something’s worth talking about, it’s probably being discussed on Reddit.

As the 8th most visited website globally, think of Reddit as a giant conference centre with countless conference rooms, each discussing about a specific topic.

Despite being a social media network, Reddit is nothing like Twitter or LinkedIn. People aren’t there to build personal brands.

They’re there to have real conversations.

Because of anonymity, people share thoughts they wouldn’t express on professional networks. They admit their struggles and ask “stupid” questions.

Imagine walking into a room where:

• A marketing manager is sharing their biggest challenge with email campaigns

• A busy parent is asking for tips on maintaining a writing habit

• A beginner writer is describing their fear of publishing online

Here’s an actual example of such a conversation:

Such conversations happen every day on Reddit, making it a goldmine for content ideas.

For writerpreneurs, this is invaluable. Instead of guessing what content to create, we can discover the exact problem they face.

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Quick Reddit Basics

Before we jump into finding content ideas, let’s cover just enough basics to get started.

Subreddits

Each room within the giant Reddit conference centre is called a ‘subreddit’. These are topic-specific communities. Each begins with ‘r/’.

For example, here’s the subreddit for writing discussions (called r/writing):

Notice that the community has 3.1 million members!!!

While not all communities are this large, most niche topics have active communities with thousands of engaged members.

I’ll show you how to find subreddits relevant to your niche using AI later in the article.

Posts

Within each subreddit, users create posts to start conversations.

Just like people raise topics for discussion in a conference room, these posts can be questions, stories, or ideas.

Here’s an example of a post from r/writing:

The best part is that you can search through posts to find exactly what you’re looking for.

Comments

These are where the gold lies. When people respond to posts, they often share detailed experiences, struggles, and solutions.

These give us unique angles for our content.

Upvotes/Downvotes

Users vote on posts and comments. More upvotes usually mean more people found it valuable. It’s like a built-in quality filter.

That’s all you need to know about Reddit for now. As we build our system, I’ll explain other relevant features when we need them.

Ready to build your content research system?

Let’s get started.

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How to Find Subreddits Where Your Target Audience Hangs Out

While you could manually search for the right subreddits relevant to your niche on Reddit, I’ll show you a faster way using Perplexity AI.

What is Perplexity AI?

Perplexity is Google on steroids.

Instead of making you click through multiple websites like Google does, Perplexity:

• Goes inside those websites

• Extracts the relevant information

• Organizes it into a clear answer

• Provides direct links to sources

The best part? You can use its free plan for our purpose. You don’t even need to create an account.

Let’s say you write about productivity for creative professionals. Here’s how to find relevant subreddits:

Go to perplexity.ai

You’ll see a simple search box, similar to Google.

No account creation needed — you can start searching right away.

Type in the following query in the search window, and hit Enter

Find subreddits where people discuss about productivity for creative professionals. Include member count and brief description for each.

Modify the search query according to your niche.

Here’s a snippet of what Perplexity found:

Notice how it provides not just the subreddit names but also their size and focus? This helps you quickly identify which communities align with your target audience.

Pick 2-3 top subreddits that is closest to your niche.

Let’s now go inside a subreddit and find content ideas to write about.

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15 Search Phrases That Reveal Your Audience’s Biggest Pain Points

Now that you’ve identified your target subreddits, let’s discover what your audience is actually struggling with.

Step 1: Finding Pain Points

Go to Reddit and search for your chosen subreddit name (for example, ‘r/productivity’).

Click on it to enter the community.

Once inside, you’ll see a search box at the top.

This is where we’ll look for specific problems your audience faces.

Try different phrases from the list below in the search box.

Each will reveal different types of problems your audience faces (always include the quotation marks):

"How do you"
"How can I"
"I can't stand"
"I'm struggling with"
"Can someone help"
"Figure out"
"Help me"
"Tips"
"Suggestions"
"Suggest"
"Biggest challenge"
"Biggest challenges"
"Hardest part"
"Biggest struggle"
"Struggle with"

The quotation marks force Reddit to show you posts containing that exact phrase.

This helps you find people expressing real problems and frustrations, not just casual mentions.

Let me show you an example.

I searched for “How can I” in r/productivity:

Here are the results:

See those numbers below each post? Those are upvotes and comments. They show how many people resonate with that problem.

To find the most pressing problems people have been facing recently

• select “Top” from the list where it says “Relevance”

  

• select “Past Month” from the list where it says “All time”.

This will list the problems that resonated most with the community in the past month.

Search for a problem that aligns with your expertise.

Once you find a problem, click on it to see the full description.

Here’s an interesting post I found:

The post has been upvoted 102 times, and has 58 comments. This indicates there’s a strong potential for an article on this topic.

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Step 2: Turn One Reddit Post into 15 Ready-to-Write Articles

It’s finally pay off time!

Now that we’ve found a real problem our audience is facing, let’s transform it into multiple content ideas using AI.

Copy the problem description and use this prompt in ChatGPT/Claude:

You are a veteran content writer specializing in turning reader problems into actionable, engaging content that provides real solutions.

Your task is to analyze this reader's challenge and generate potential article ideas that would help them and others facing similar issues.

Problem Description:
[Insert the problem description]

Please provide:
1. Five "How to" articles addressing specific aspects of the problem
2. Five "List-based" articles offering solutions or strategies
3. Three "Deep dive" articles exploring root causes
4. Two "Framework" articles providing systematic approaches

For each article idea:
- Include a compelling headline
- Add a 1-line description of what the article will cover
- Note which specific part of the reader's problem it addresses
- Suggest a unique angle or hook that would make it stand out

Goals while generating ideas:
1. Focus on actionable solutions
2. Break down complex issues into manageable parts
3. Address both immediate relief and long-term improvement
4. Consider different reader experience levels
5. Ensure each article has a unique focus

Format each article idea as:
Title: [Compelling Headline]
Addresses: [Specific part of the problem]
Unique Angle: [What makes this fresh/different]
Description: [One-line overview]

Here are some ideas ChatGPT generated from the phone addiction example:

Just like that, one Reddit post transformed into 15 potential article ideas, each addressing a specific aspect of the problem!

Repeat this with other search phrases and you potentially have over 200 article ideas!!!

Bonus Tip: Don’t forget to read the comments on posts you find interesting. They often reveal additional perspectives and problems you can address.

For example, here’s what someone suggested for the phone addiction problem:

This can be converted into an article idea:

Use Your Phone Only While Standing: The Surprisingly Effective Hack to Beat Screen Addiction

Pretty cool, right?

Ready to try this yourself? Pick one of your target subreddits and start with the phrase “How can I”.

You’ll be amazed at what you discover.

See you in the depths!

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Want an even faster way to do this? Check this out:

Find Content Ideas Your Audience Craves in Minutes

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Want personalized help implementing AI in your writing process?

I offer 90-minute sessions where we build your custom AI content system together.

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