Someone on your team says "did you see what they posted?" and sends a competitor's video with ten times your views. The obvious move is to make your own version. Usually that's the wrong move, or at least the wrong half of the right one.
Competitors' videos are the cheapest research a brand has: someone else has already paid to test an idea in front of your customers. The trick is to find the posts that genuinely worked, take the reason they worked, and leave the rest.
Find the posts that really worked
Raw views mislead. A big account's ordinary post can out-view your best one, and that tells you about their following, not about the idea.
Compare each post to that account's own usual. A post that got several times the account's normal views did something different; a post that got their normal views didn't, however big the number looks. Look at their last 20 to 30 posts, note the usual, and mark the few that clearly beat it.
Look past direct competitors too. The accounts your customers also follow, in neighbouring categories, are often where a format shows up first.
What to take, and what to leave
Take the reason, not the video. For each post that beat its account's usual, write down:
- The first line or first second. What made someone stop.
- The format. A demo, a reply to a comment, a day in the life, a before and after, a list.
- The question it answered for the viewer.
- Who was on camera. Someone talking to camera and a product-only video are different ideas, even on the same topic.
Leave the specific script, the jokes and anything that depends on their product. Your version answers the same kind of question with your product, your people and your places.
The realistic options
By hand, in a spreadsheet
One row per competitor post: date, views, the account's usual, the four notes above. It costs nothing and you learn your market closely. It also takes real time every week, and it is the first habit to go when the week gets busy.
Pasting into an AI assistant
Paste a competitor's captions or transcripts into ChatGPT or a similar assistant and ask for ideas in your brand's voice. It is fast and good at variations. It only knows what you paste: it hasn't watched the videos, and it can't tell a post that beat its account's usual from one that didn't unless you tell it.
A social suite's competitor benchmarking
Socialinsider includes competitor benchmarking on every plan, from $82 a month (Socialinsider); Rival IQ starts at $239 a month for 10 companies (Rival IQ). These give you the numbers side by side, which makes the "account's usual" comparison easy. Turning a strong post into something you can film is still your job.
A short-form research tool
Tools built for short-form video research track competitors' posts for you. Virlo starts at $49 a month (Virlo) and ContentScout at $29 (ContentScout). We have compared both with Rankfield, with sources: Rankfield vs Virlo, Rankfield vs ContentScout.
Rankfield
Rankfield does the whole job on this page for you. It watches the competitors you name (their best posts, hooks and formats) and your own videos, finds the accounts closest to yours on Pro, and shows where you lead and where you trail against them. Then it ranks what your brand should film next, in your own voice and around who can be on camera, each idea with the competitor posts behind it and a shot list.
It is a paid plan after a free first audit, and it reads the accounts you and it pick, not the whole market every day.
Which to pick
Watching two or three competitors on one platform: the spreadsheet is enough, as long as someone owns it. Reporting competitor numbers to a manager: a suite earns its price. Following many accounts across the market: a research tool. Wanting the research done and turned into what your brand films next: Rankfield. In every case, the step that decides whether any of it becomes a video is the same: writing down the reason it worked, then matching it to what your team can film.
Where Rankfield fits
Rankfield does that last step for you, and the reading before it. It watches the competitors you name and your own videos, audits your account against benchmarks for businesses like yours, and gives you ranked ideas in your brand's voice, built around who can be on camera and what you can film, each with the posts behind it and a shot list. What you filmed and rated shapes the next run. Your first audit is free: a first look at what to film, benchmarks and the to-film list for your own account.