Generate content ideas from social trends with Apify, Gemini, and Google Sheets

Trend2Content

This n8n workflow (named Trend2Content) takes a short topic input from a small web form, scrapes recent/top social content for that topic (via an Apify act), aggregates the raw text, passes that aggregated content into a LangChain AI agent (Google Gemini in this flow) which returns a structured content output (topic summary, blog post title ideas, tweet hooks), formats that output, and appends the results into a Google Sheet.

It’s a lightweight:

Topic → Trending Content → AI Ideas → Sheet

pipeline for fast content ideation.

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How It Works (Step-by-Step)

1. On Form Submission The user fills a single field Topic (webhook/form trigger).

2. X Scraper (HTTP Request) Calls an Apify act run-sync-get-dataset-items with:

• searchTerms: [{{ $json.Topic }}]
• maxItems: 20 to fetch social posts for that topic.

1. Edit Fields (Set) Extracts fullText from each scraped item and stores it in a Content field.

2. Aggregate Aggregates the Content field so the AI agent receives one combined input rather than many separate items.

3. Google Gemini Chat Model (LM) + AI Agent (LangChain Agent Node) The agent uses a templated system prompt + the aggregated content to generate a structured response with:

• Topic summary
• Blog title ideas
• Tweet hooks

The agent is connected to a Structured Output Parser node to force a predictable JSON schema.

1. Code in JavaScript Transforms the structured JSON into sheet-friendly strings (joins arrays with bullets).

2. Append Row in Sheet (Google Sheets) Appends the generated blog_post_titles and tweet_hooks to the target Google Sheet.

3. (Optional) Sticky notes and internal meta nodes exist for documentation and board organization.

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Quick Setup Guide

👉 Demo & Setup Video 👉 Sheet Template 👉 Course

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Nodes of Interest You Can Edit

1. On Form Submission (formTrigger)

• Edit form fields (add author, language, region, or filters).
• Change webhook behaviour or require authentication.

2. X Scraper (HTTP Request)

• URL: Change to another Apify act or another scraping API.
• jsonBody: Change maxItems, sort (Top/Recent), or modify searchTerms (e.g., topic + hashtag).
• Headers: Set the Authorization: Bearer token (Apify).
• Add pagination or query parameters if switching scraper APIs.

3. Edit Fields (Set)

• Map additional fields (author, date, source URL).
• Add filtering logic (remove short posts, retweets, duplicates).

4. Aggregate

• Customize aggregation strategy:
• Concatenate
• Sample top N
• Deduplicate before combining

5. Google Gemini Chat Model / AI Agent / Structured Output Parser

• Edit systemMessage and prompt template (tone, format, extra outputs).
• Tune LM parameters (temperature, max tokens).
• Update schema to request:
• Sentiment
• Key quotes
• Additional formats

6. Code in JavaScript

• Modify formatting (CSV-ready, add timestamp).
• Add metadata columns.
• Add deduplication or length checks before write.

7. Append Row in Sheet (Google Sheets)

• Change spreadsheet ID or sheet name.
• Add more columns.
• Switch from Append to Upsert.
• Configure batch appends.

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What You’ll Need (Credentials)

1. Apify API Token

• Used in the HTTP Request node.
• Set in header: Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN

2. Google Sheets OAuth2 Credentials

• Must include spreadsheets scope.
• Required for appending rows.

3. Google / PaLM / Google Gemini API Credentials

• Used by the LangChain / Google Gemini node.

Optional

• n8n webhook URL (for mounting the form).
• Monitoring credentials (Slack webhook, Sentry, etc.) for alerts.

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Recommended Settings & Best Practices

• Enable workflow only after testing (active: true).
• Limit maxItems (20–50 recommended).
• Sanitize & dedupe content before sending to the AI.
• Always use a Structured Output Parser for reliable JSON.
• Set low temperature (0.0–0.6) for consistent results.
• Add retries and exponential backoff for external APIs.
• Add logging or Slack alerts for failures.
• Keep execution log columns in the sheet (status, error_message, run_time).
• Store workflow JSON in version control.
• Monitor API rate limits (Apify + Google).
• Avoid writing scraped PII into public sheets.

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Customization Ideas

• Add output types:

• Instagram captions

• LinkedIn posts

• Video scripts

• Email subject lines

• Add sentiment / trend scoring.

• Add language detection & translation.

• Store aggregated content in a vector database (Pinecone / Chroma).

• Schedule runs using Cron trigger.

• Add multiple data sources (Reddit, RSS, HackerNews).

• Add approval workflow (Slack / Notion).

• Add metadata columns:

• source_urls

• top_authors

• most_shared

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Tags

#content-ideation' #social #ai #google-gemini #apify #google-sheets #n8n