How to see what's working for creators in your niche on LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube

You can see what's working for creators in your niche by watching a short list of people a step or two ahead of you on LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube, and looking for the posts that did far better than their own usual. You can do it by hand once a week, or use a tool like Kadenza that shows you those standout posts from all three platforms in one place.

Either way, the method is the same, and here's how it works from start to finish.

Who to watch

Start with a list of ten to twenty people, and pick them carefully. The best ones are a step or two ahead of you, talking to the same kind of buyer you want, with an audience that's bigger than yours but not a hundred times bigger. What works for them has a good chance of working for you, because their followers look like the followers you're after.

Leave the famous names in your field off the list for now. A giant account can post almost anything and do well, so their numbers mostly tell you they're big. Add a couple of people who talk to your buyer from a different angle, like a coach who sells to the same founders you sell to, because they'll show you topics your direct peers haven't found yet.

You don't need the same list on every platform. Plenty of people are strong on one and quiet on the others, so pick the best few for each place you post. If you're still deciding where to show up, one platform or all three helps you make that call.

What "beat their own usual" means

This is the one idea that makes the whole thing work. Every creator has a normal range for their posts. When one post lands far above that range, something about that post made the same audience act differently, and that's the thing you want to learn from.

Raw numbers hide this. A big account's quiet day can look better than a small account's best week, so you compare each post to that creator's own usual and never to anyone else's. A post that got four times its author's usual is worth your time, even if the number on it looks small. Kadenza shows this as a simple multiple, so 4.2× means four times their usual, and there's more on the idea in our outlier score explainer.

What to look at on each platform

On LinkedIn, start with the first two lines, because that's all people see before they tap to read more. Note the topic, whether it's a story or an opinion, how long it runs and whether it's plain text, a carousel or a picture. Then read the comments, since they tell you what people actually cared about. The full walkthrough is in how to research your competitors on LinkedIn.

On Instagram, watch the first two seconds of each standout reel before anything else. Look at what's on screen, what's said first and whether a face is talking to camera. For carousels, look at the first slide and at how many slides it takes to pay off. There's more in which Instagram reels are worth learning from.

On YouTube, look at the title and the thumbnail together, since that pair is the pitch that got the click. Then check how long the video runs and what the opening minute promises. A video that beat the channel's usual tells you the topic had real demand behind it, and how to read a competitor's YouTube channel goes through it step by step.

How often to check

Once a week is the sweet spot for most people. Checking every day turns into scrolling, and checking once a month means you find out what was working after it's already old news. Pick the same slot each week, like Monday morning before you plan your posts, and keep it short.

Keep a simple note as you go, with the post, the creator, how far above their usual it went and one line on why you think it worked. After a few weeks you'll see the same shapes coming up again and again, and that's when this starts paying off.

Turn what you find into your own ideas

Copy the shape and leave the words alone. If three standout posts this month all opened with a mistake the author made, the lesson is that mistake stories are landing with your buyer right now. So you tell a mistake story of your own, which keeps the shape that's working and makes the post yours.

Then write it in your own voice. If you use ChatGPT or Claude, paste in the standout posts along with one real story of yours and ask for your version. We walk through that in how to use AI to write content that sounds like you. On YouTube, the same list turns into video ideas, and how to pick YouTube video ideas shows you how to choose between them.

Last, check your own results the same way. Compare each of your posts to your own usual, and when one jumps above it, look at what you did differently and do more of that next week.

Is there a tool that does this for you?

Doing it by hand works, and plenty of people start there. It does mean a lot of switching between three apps and a notes file, and it's usually the first habit to slip when a week gets busy.

Kadenza is built for exactly this job. You track the people ahead of you on LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube, and the Radar shows you which of their posts beat their own usual, with your own numbers sitting next to theirs. You can copy a standout post and ask your own AI, like Claude or ChatGPT, for your take on it, which turns the whole routine above into one short weekly check.

If you'd like to try it, you can see what it costs in the pricing section.