sales-skills/sales-painonsocial

PainOnSocial Platform Help

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. What do you need help with?

   • A) Choosing which subreddits to scan for my niche
   • B) Pain point scores don't seem right / results are noisy
   • C) Generating better solution ideas from discovered pain points
   • D) Understanding pricing / deciding between Starter and Professional
   • E) Comparing PainOnSocial to other Reddit research tools
   • F) Something else — describe it

2. What's your goal?

   • A) Validate a SaaS idea before building
   • B) Find gaps in an existing market
   • C) Discover feature requests for my existing product
   • D) Research a niche I'm considering entering
   • E) Build a content strategy around real audience pain

3. Current setup?

   • A) Haven't used PainOnSocial yet — evaluating
   • B) On the free trial
   • C) Starter plan ($19/mo)
   • D) Professional plan ($49/mo)

If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

• Social listening strategy or tool comparison → /sales-social-listening [question]
• Audience intelligence / where your audience hangs out → /sales-sparktoro [question]
• AI-synthesized audience research across multiple platforms → /sales-reddinbox [question]
• Reddit keyword monitoring with alerts → /sales-syften [question] or /sales-keymentions [question]
• Reddit engagement / auto-reply → /sales-keymentions [question]

Otherwise, answer directly from the platform reference below.

Step 3 — PainOnSocial platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full platform reference — capabilities, pricing, workflow tips, community selection strategy, and comparison with alternatives.

Answer the user's question using only the relevant section. Don't dump the full reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Based on the user's specific question:

1. Community selection — help them pick the right subreddits for their ICP using the 800+ recommendations + manual research
2. Score interpretation — explain what frequency/severity scores mean and how to filter actionable problems from noise
3. Idea validation workflow — design a scan strategy (timeframe, subreddit mix, iteration)
4. Tool comparison — position PainOnSocial vs alternatives for their specific use case

If you discover a gotcha, workaround, or tip not covered in references/learnings.md, append it there.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about plan-gated features and integration gotchas that may be outdated.

• No API, no webhooks, no Zapier. PainOnSocial is entirely UI-driven — you cannot automate scans or export data programmatically. PDF export is Professional-only.
• Reddit-only. Does not scan X, LinkedIn, HN, or any other platform. If you need multi-platform coverage, pair with Syften or Octolens.
• Scan limits are daily, not monthly. Starter gets 5 scans/day, Professional 15/day. Unused scans don't roll over.
• 2 subreddits per scan on Starter. You can't cast a wide net on the cheap plan — either upgrade or run multiple scans.
• AI scoring is opaque. Frequency and severity scores (0-100) are generated by AI without transparency on methodology. Validate scores against the evidence quotes before acting on them.
• No historical archive. Scans analyze a timeframe (7/30/90 days) of current Reddit data — there's no persistent database of past scans unless you export PDFs.
• Solution ideas are AI-generated guesses. Treat them as brainstorming prompts, not validated business plans.

Related skills

• /sales-social-listening — Social listening strategy — brand monitoring, sentiment, competitive intel, tool comparison
• /sales-reddinbox — Reddinbox platform help — AI audience intelligence across Reddit, X, Bluesky, HN, YouTube, Facebook, intent scoring, market briefs
• /sales-sparktoro — SparkToro platform help — audience intelligence (where audiences spend attention), persona development, channel discovery
• /sales-keymentions — KeyMentions platform help — Reddit keyword monitoring with AI comment generation and auto-publish
• /sales-syften — Syften platform help — AI-filtered keyword monitoring across 15+ community platforms, REST API, webhooks
• /sales-threadlytics — Threadlytics platform help ��� Reddit-specific monitoring, Share of Voice, opportunity scoring
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do

Examples

Example 1: Choose subreddits for a project management SaaS idea

User says: "I want to validate a project management tool for freelancers. Which subreddits should I scan?" Skill does:

1. Suggests profession-based communities: r/freelance, r/freelanceWriters, r/graphic_design, r/webdev
2. Adds tool-specific communities: r/projectmanagement, r/productivity, r/Notion
3. Recommends scanning in batches (pain-specific vs audience-specific)
4. Suggests 30-day timeframe for first scan to get a representative sample Result: Targeted subreddit list with scanning strategy

Example 2: Pain point scores seem meaningless

User says: "Every pain point comes back with a score of 60-70. I can't tell which ones are actually worth pursuing." Skill does:

1. Explains that mid-range scores often mean broad/generic problems — look for high-severity outliers
2. Recommends narrowing subreddit selection to more specific communities
3. Suggests using the evidence quotes (upvotes, reply depth) as a manual signal quality check
4. Advises comparing across multiple timeframes (7d vs 90d) to find persistent vs trending pain Result: Framework for interpreting scores beyond the raw number

Example 3: Compare PainOnSocial vs Reddinbox for idea validation

User says: "Should I use PainOnSocial or Reddinbox to validate my startup idea?" Skill does:

1. Explains PainOnSocial is pain-point-first (scores problems by frequency/severity, generates solution ideas)
2. Explains Reddinbox is audience-first (natural language queries, intent scoring, market briefs, multi-platform)
3. Notes PainOnSocial is Reddit-only and cheaper ($19/mo) vs Reddinbox multi-platform ($39/mo)
4. Recommends PainOnSocial for early-stage "what problem should I solve" and Reddinbox for "do people want what I'm building" Result: Clear decision framework based on user's stage

Troubleshooting

Scans return generic/obvious pain points

Symptom: Results are broad problems everyone already knows about (e.g., "project management is hard") Cause: Subreddits selected are too large/general (e.g., r/startups, r/entrepreneur) Solution: Select smaller, niche communities where people discuss specific workflows. Use profession-based recommendations. Try r/SaaS or r/microsaas instead of r/startups. Narrow the timeframe to 7 days for fresher, more specific complaints.

Running out of daily scans too quickly

Symptom: Hit the 5-scan limit (Starter) before finishing research Cause: Running exploratory scans across many communities instead of planning first Solution: Plan your subreddit selections before scanning. Use Reddit's native search first to verify a community is active and relevant. Group related subreddits into a single scan (2 per scan on Starter, 5 on Professional). Consider upgrading to Professional ($49/mo) if doing heavy research.

Pain points don't match what I see on Reddit manually

Symptom: Browsing Reddit reveals complaints PainOnSocial didn't surface Cause: Scan timeframe may not cover the period you're browsing; AI deduplication may be merging distinct problems; or the specific thread is in a subreddit you didn't scan Solution: Verify the timeframe matches your manual browsing window. Try scanning the specific subreddit where you found the complaint. Check if the pain point appears under a different label in PainOnSocial's deduplication (look at evidence quotes). For very recent threads (last 24h), the 7-day scan window may not have indexed them yet.