How to find viral video ideas in your niche (a repeatable method)

Stop brainstorming from a blank page

Sitting down to "think of content ideas" is the slowest way to make content. You end up with what you'd like to talk about, which isn't always what anyone wants to watch.

Flip it. Your audience is already telling you what they want, with their views, shares and comments, on videos in your niche every day. Your job isn't to invent ideas. It's to notice what's already working and make your own version.

Build an outlier list

Once a week, spend twenty minutes collecting outliers: videos that did far better than their creator's usual.

• TikTok: search the phrases your audience types and check the creators' profile grids for the video that towers over the rest.
• Instagram Reels: check the Reels tab of accounts in your niche for the Reel with the outsized play count.
• YouTube Shorts: open channels' Shorts tabs and look for the one that beat the channel's average.
• Competitors: accounts selling to the same people as you.

Small accounts are the best source. When a small creator hits big, it's almost always the idea and the hook doing it, not their audience.

Mine the comments

Under every outlier is a comment section full of free ideas. Read the top comments and copy down:

• Questions. "How do you do this with a newborn?" is a video someone just asked for.
• "Part 2?" requests. The audience wants more of exactly this.
• Disagreements. "This doesn't work if you rent" is a follow-up with a built-in hook.
• The words people use. Use them in your hooks and captions. They're the words people search, too.

Look sideways at other niches

Formats travel. A "things I'd never do as a ___" video that works for dentists will work for mechanics, accountants and dog trainers. A "rating every ___ at Trader Joe's" format works for gyms, apps and hiking trails.

So once a week, look at outliers just outside your niche. If you see a format your niche hasn't tried yet, you get the proven structure and the novelty, which is a strong combination.

Turn patterns into a weekly idea bank

Keep a simple table: the outlier link, the hook pattern, the format, what the comments asked, and your version. Ten rows a week is plenty.

Then let your AI turn each outlier into a batch. After a teardown, the tool's Copy teardown + prompt button copies the breakdown with an idea-bank prompt. Here it is on its own, so you can add your comment notes:

You are my content strategist. Here is the breakdown of a video that outperformed in my niche: [paste the teardown]

My niche / account: [describe it in one line]
What my audience keeps asking in comments: [paste a few questions]

Give me 10 video ideas built on this video's hook pattern and format. For each: a working title, the on-screen hook for the first 2 seconds, and which audience question or feeling it answers. Mark the 3 I should film first and say why.

Use search suggestions as a second source

Outliers tell you what people watch. Search tells you what they want and haven't found yet. Spend five minutes a week typing your topic into:

• TikTok search. The suggestions that drop down as you type are real searches.
• YouTube search. Same idea, and the autocomplete often surfaces "how to" questions.
• Google. The "People also ask" box is a list of questions someone could answer in a 30-second video.
• Reddit. Search your topic and sort by top. Long threads full of the same question are ideas waiting to be filmed.

When a question shows up in search and you've also found an outlier format that fits it, you've got a video with built-in demand and a proven shape.

Pick which ideas to film

You'll have more ideas than time. Score each one quickly:

1. Is the hook pattern proven? It should come from an outlier, not a hunch.
2. Does it answer something your audience asked? Comments beat guesses.
3. Can you film it today? The best idea you never film loses to a good one you post.

Film the top three, post them, and see which pattern your audience responds to. Feed the winner back into next week's list.

Questions people ask