Yo. What’s up.
So, do you ever notice how scrolling Instagram long enough makes everything blur together.
The formats, pacing and ideas, just said slightly differently.
I didn’t realize this at first, but the reason most “research” never helped my content was because I was paying attention to everything except the posts that actually mattered.
I hope you’re not wasting time doing that. Let’s talk about:
The only content worth studying on Instagram
The outlier research method I now use
A smarter way to research without wasting time
Let’s go👇
Why studying averages slows you down
This changed how I approach research:
Most creators study consistency.
What actually teaches you something is contrast.
When you look at a creator and see every post getting roughly the same views, there’s not much to learn. That’s the baseline.
But when someone averages 10K views…and one post suddenly hits a million?
That’s the signal.
That spike tells you the result came from the content, not the creator’s size or reputation.
Once I stopped analyzing everything and started hunting for outliers, research stopped feeling overwhelming and started feeling useful.
A single breakout post will teach you more than studying 50 average ones.
The outlier research method
This is the exact way I research content without wasting time.
Curate your feed on purpose
Follow people in your niche so your homepage becomes a research tool, not entertainment.
Filter by size (under 100K followers)
Big creators get pushed no matter what.
Smaller creators only win when the content itself works.
Look for spikes, not consistency
Ignore the posts doing “pretty well.”
Study the one or two posts that dramatically outperform the rest.
Break down why it worked
Ask:
Was it the hook?
The framing?
The timing?
The emotion?
Remix, don’t replicate
Take the idea, not the execution.
Change the angle, lighting, caption, and context so it fits your voice.
“If a creator has one breakout post and everything else is average, that post is pure signal. Study it.”
Here’s what to do today:
✅ Find 3 creators in your niche under 100K followers
✅ Identify 1 outlier post from each
✅ Write down why you think it worked
✅ Create your own version using the same idea, not the same format
Stop studying everything.
Start studying what breaks the pattern.
Let’s build. 💥
Kien
