How to find a competitor’s best Instagram posts

Instagram shows a profile in date order. That’s useful for following someone and not much use for research, because the post that changed their month could be sitting six rows down between two quiet ones.

Do it by hand first

Pick one account in your niche and open its last 30 posts. For each one, note the likes, the comments and, for Reels, the views. Put them in a list and sort it.

It’s slow, but doing it once shows you what you’re looking for. A few posts will sit well above the rest, and the others will cluster around a normal level for that account.

Look for the gap, not the biggest number

An account that usually gets 2,000 likes and suddenly gets 20,000 has found something. An account that always gets 20,000 hasn’t. Compare each post with the account’s own middle number, then look closely at the ones furthest above it.

What to write down

For each standout post, note:

• Format: Reel, carousel or single image
• Opening: the first line or the first few seconds
• Topic: what it’s about in five words or fewer
• Prompt: whether it asks people to comment, save or share

After five or six posts, patterns usually appear. That’s the part worth keeping.

Then speed it up

Once you know what you’re looking for, this is the part to automate. contentideas ranks a public account’s posts by how far each one beat its usual, so you can spend your time on the notes rather than the spreadsheet.