Content research · Step-by-step build

The Outlier Method

How to find 100 content ideas in one hour, from posts that already worked in your niche. Every step, every tool, every formula and prompt.

Stop guessing what to post

Most low-view accounts aren't being punished by the algorithm. They're guessing. Every post starts from a blank page and a hunch about what people want.

The fix is to start from proof. In every niche, some posts do far better than the creator's usual. Those outliers tell you exactly what your buyers want to watch. You don't copy them. You take the idea and remake it with your own experience, opinion and examples.

One hour, six steps:

1	Pick 20 creators	10 min
2	Pull their recent Reels with view counts	15 min
3	Find the outliers	5 min
4	Get the words	10 min
5	Have Claude decode why they worked	10 min
6	Turn them into 100 ideas of your own	10 min

Step 1 · 10 min

Pick 20 creators

Pick creators who sell to your buyer, not just creators in your topic. Use this mix:

10 Direct peers. Same buyer, same size as you or a bit bigger. Their wins are the ones you can actually copy the shape of.
5 Adjacent niches. Same buyer, different topic. A fitness coach and a meal-prep creator both sell to busy people who want to look better.
5 Leaders. The biggest accounts your buyer follows. Fewer outliers, but they show where the niche is heading.

Where to find them:

Search 3 to 5 keywords your buyer would type into Instagram or TikTok search. Open the accounts behind the top results.
On a good creator's profile, tap the arrow next to Follow for "Suggested for you". That list is usually the same niche.
Look at who your best customers follow. That's your buyer's feed.

Skip accounts that post less than once a week or haven't posted in a month. You need recent data. Put the 20 handles in column A of a new Google Sheet.

Step 2 · 15 min

Pull their recent Reels with view counts

You want the last 30 Reels from each creator, with the views. Two ways:

By hand. Open the creator's Reels tab. Instagram shows the play count on every thumbnail. Type the views into your sheet. This is fine for a first pass on a few creators.

With a scraper (faster). On Apify, open the Instagram Reel Scraper (by Apify) or, for TikTok, the TikTok Scraper (by Clockworks). Paste your 20 handles, set about 30 results per profile, run it, and export the results as CSV. Apify has a free monthly credit; check the actor's pricing before a big run.

Set up the sheet with these columns:

Col	Field	What goes in
A	creator	@handle
B	url	link to the Reel
C	views	play count
D	posted	date
E	hook	first line, typed or from the transcript
F	multiple	formula below

Step 3 · 5 min

Find the outliers

Views alone lie. A creator with 2M followers gets 300K views on an average post. What you want is the post that did far better than that creator's usual. So compare each Reel to its own creator's median:

=C2/MEDIAN(FILTER($C$2:$C,$A$2:$A=A2))

Paste that in F2 and fill it down. It gives each Reel a multiple: 1.0 is a normal post for that creator, 3.0 is three times their usual.

3x or more is an outlier. Sort column F from high to low.
Keep the top 5 per creator. 20 creators × 5 = 100 proven ideas.
Drop giveaways, collabs with much bigger accounts and anything older than 90 days. Those won for reasons you can't repeat.

Keepy · waitlist

Steps 1 to 3, done every day, without the spreadsheet

Keepy is the tool we're building to run this research for you: it watches the creators in your niche and surfaces the posts beating their usual. Join the waitlist for early access.

Step 4 · 10 min

Get the words

The idea lives in the first lines. For each of your outliers you need at least the hook (the first sentence) and ideally the full transcript.

Fastest: a transcript API like Supadata takes an Instagram, TikTok or YouTube link and returns the transcript.
Free: watch the first 3 seconds and type the hook into column E. For 100 posts that's about 10 minutes.

Step 5 · 10 min

Have Claude decode why they worked

Export the outlier rows (creator, views, multiple, hook or transcript) and paste them into Claude with this:

Below are outlier posts from creators in my niche. Each one did at least 3x that creator's usual views.

For each post, tell me in one line each:
1. The hook type (number, contrarian, story, question, before/after, list, warning).
2. The promise: what the viewer gets if they keep watching.
3. The structure, as 3 to 5 beats.
4. Why it likely beat the creator's usual.

Then, across all posts: the 5 hook types and 5 topics that show up most among the biggest multiples. My buyer is [describe your buyer in one sentence].

[paste rows]

Save the answer. Those patterns are your playbook: they tell you how your niche likes to be opened, built and closed.

Step 6 · 10 min

Turn them into 100 ideas of your own

Same chat, next message:

Turn every outlier above into one content idea for me. Keep the idea and the structure. Change the story.

For each idea give me:
- a working title
- the hook in my own words (one breath, under 15 words)
- what makes it mine: my experience, my opinion, my example, or my visual style
- the format (talking head, faceless, screen demo, carousel)

Rules: never reuse their words, script lines, footage or examples. If the idea only works by copying, drop it.

About me: [your offer, your results, your opinions, 3 of your captions so it sounds like you].

Read the list once and cut anything you couldn't say with a straight face. What's left is a backlog built on proof.

Step 7 · ongoing

Post, then find your own outliers

Pick 10 ideas your buyer cares about and you can make this week. Post them. After 72 hours, run the same formula on your own account: every post divided by your median.

Anything at 2x or more is a winning topic. Don't move on from it. Make 10 more videos on it with The Videomaxxing Playbook.

Honest limits

View counts are public signals, not the whole story. Saves, shares and comments matter too, and you can only see some of them.
Scrapers and transcript APIs have their own pricing and limits. Check them before a big run.
An outlier from 6 months ago may have been riding a trend that's gone. Stick to the last 90 days.
Take ideas, never content. Their words, footage and examples are theirs.

Keepy · waitlist

Want the whole loop without the spreadsheet?

We're building Keepy to do the research for you: find the creators, rank their outliers every day, and hand you ideas in your voice. You approve what goes out. Join the waitlist for early access.

Unlock the Decode Prompt and Remake Template

The two Claude prompts that turn 100 outliers into 100 ideas of your own. Free, opens instantly.