Other accounts in your field have already spent months finding out what people respond to, and you can read the result for free. The skill is taking the lesson without taking the post.
What to look at
- Which of their posts have the most comments, not likes. Comments say people had something to say.
- What the comments ask. Every unanswered question under a competitor’s post is a gap you can fill.
- What they never post. A subject nobody covers is either an opening or a reason to stay away.
- How they open and close a caption. The shape often transfers; the words never should.
A small routine
- 1Choose five accounts: two bigger than you, two your size, one you simply admire.
- 2Once a month, spend twenty minutes reading their top posts and the comments under them.
- 3Save the three structures that interest you — not the images, not the words.
- 4Write what you would do differently, and why.
Where copying starts
Borrowing a format — a question, a list, a before and after — is how every field works. Copying a photo, a caption or a distinctive idea is something else: it is unfair to the person who made it, and your audience tends to notice. If you would be uncomfortable telling them where you got it, change it.
Then look away
Spend more time on your own audience than on theirs. The people who already follow you will tell you more, in replies and messages, than a competitor’s feed ever will.
The best use of a competitor’s post is the question under it that they did not answer.