Market research: Reddit, app reviews, YouTube comments

Qualitative market research, here, is public text: subreddits, Play/App Store reviews, video comment threads. Not a survey panel company, not recruited respondents, not a focus group facility. Each source has a dedicated note; this one names the combined job so a query without a platform still retrieves.

Keep Maps reviews out — that is local SEO. Keep OSINT’s investigative frame out unless the work is actually investigation. ASO ranks are not this H1. Reddit-as-research stays the Reddit-only deep dive so this page does not swallow it.

Ask the same product question in a subreddit search, in store reviews, and under a related YouTube video. The disagreement between corpora is the finding. Reddit will argue. Store reviews will complain about billing. YouTube comments will pile on a reviewer. One corpus is a mood. Three is a map.

Three corpora, one question

• reddit.fetcher.sh search/post — see Reddit as research
• Play or App Store /api/apps/{id}/reviews — see reviews as research
• youtube.fetcher.sh video comments — see comment threads

Three Bearer GETs, or three 402s. Public text only.

Sort Reddit by comments when you want discussion. Pull the tree, not the title. On stores, grep; do not average stars and stop. On YouTube, pick a video that is actually about the product, not a vlog that said the name once.

Yelp and Maps reviews are local SEO, not this mix. A survey panel company is a different vendor: you pay for your questions. Here you read questions people already asked in public.

How to keep the research honest

Write the question down before you fetch: “why do people abandon habit trackers in week two?” If you skip that, you will collect spicy quotes and call it a strategy.

Do not treat upvote count or star average as truth. Treat caveats in the tree as the research. Do not mix a restaurant review into the same sheet. Do not mix an OSINT-style handle hunt into a product study.

When the three corpora disagree, that is usually the slide. Reddit hates gamification. Store reviews hate a specific notification. YouTube comments hate a competitor the reviewer mentioned. Your roadmap is not “average sentiment.” It is which surface you believe for which decision.

A case: habit tracker, three surfaces

A PM is scoping a reminder product. Reddit search habit tracker sorted by comments, trees on the top posts. Play and App Store reviews for two incumbents, grepped for “notification” and “streak.” YouTube comments on a popular review video.

Reddit: streak anxiety, Clock app, calendar sync. Stores: mute, refund, family sharing. YouTube: “I uninstalled after the update.” They do not merge those into one word cloud. They bring three lists to the spec meeting.

They are not running a survey yet. They will, later, when they need their wording tested. Public text is the cheap, rude pass that tells them what to ask.

A case: a category they thought was empty

They believed nobody talked about their niche. Reddit had a thread with 400 comments. Store reviews were sparse because the incumbents were web apps. YouTube had nothing. The finding is “the conversation is on Reddit, not in stars.” They stop waiting for a Play listing that does not exist and they go where the tree is.

That is why the job is three corpora, not “app reviews, and maybe the others.” Missing data is data.

They keep a phrase list that migrates between corpora. Reddit said “streak anxiety.” They grep that in store reviews and in YouTube comments. Sometimes it is everywhere. Sometimes it is only Reddit. That tells them whether the pain is community lore or a listing-level complaint. ASO people will try to turn the latter into screenshot copy. PMs will try to turn the former into a spec. Both can be right. They are not the same action.

TikTok comments can be a fourth corpus if the product is actually on TikTok. This article stops at three so a “market research” query does not become every thread host. Add TikTok on purpose, labeled.

A quarterly research pass: one product question, Reddit first for phrases, stores second for billing and crashes, YouTube third for the review-video watercooler. Store ids. Do not average the three. The slide is the disagreement. Maps still stays out unless you accidentally built a restaurant.

Panels come after, when you need your wording. Public text is the rude pass that tells you what to ask.

Not a panel, not OSINT, not local SEO

Public text, product questions, three hosts. Reddit-only research stays on its own note. Maps stays on local SEO. Investigation stays on OSINT. Pay per GET; docs on each host. If you needed recruited respondents, hire a panel.