What is an outlier video? How to spot a real winner, not just a big account

Two videos land in your feed. One has 500,000 views and the other has 60,000. Which one is the better idea?

If you only read the numbers, it is the first. If you look at who posted them, it may well be the second. The 500,000-view video came from an account that gets around 400,000 views on an ordinary day. The 60,000-view video came from an account whose ordinary day is 6,000. One of them did a little more than usual. The other did ten times more.

That gap is the whole idea behind an outlier video.

Why raw views mislead

Views tell you how many people saw a video. They do not tell you whether the video did something special, because every account starts from a different place. A large account's average post can out-view a small creator's best one, and copying the large account's average post teaches you very little.

Illustrative numbers, to show the logic.

Sorting by raw views would put the large account's video first. Sorting by outlier score puts the small account's video first, which is the one that actually shows something new about what an audience wants.

How to calculate an outlier score

The formula is one division:

Take a recent sample of the account's videos, usually the last 12 to 30. Find the median views. Divide each video's views by that number. A score of 1× means the video did what the account normally does. A score of 3× means it did three times as well.

A worked example

Here are the views on ten recent videos from one account: 4K, 5K, 6K, 6K, 7K, 8K, 9K, 10K, 12K and 300K. Add them up and divide by ten and the average is 36.7K. Sort them and take the middle, the median between 7K and 8K, and you get 7.5K. Now score two of the videos both ways:

Against the median, the 12K video is a little above normal and the 300K video is a huge outlier. Against the average, the 12K video looks like a flop at 0.3×, even though it was the second-best result the account had. The average was pulled upward by a single viral post and no longer describes the account.

Why the median, not the average

The average adds every video together, so one enormous result changes it for everything else. The median is simply the middle video, so it stays close to what the account typically gets. That is exactly what you want a baseline to do: describe a normal day, so that anything unusual stands out. Our glossary entry on median vs average views covers the difference in more detail.

Where to draw the line

There is no official cut-off, and anyone who gives you a single magic number is guessing. These bands are a practical convention:

Statly's niche overview counts a Reel at 2× its account's median views or more as an outlier, and Trend Finder lets you set your own cut-off. The Breakout Performance Rate goes one step further and measures how often an account produces a result above 3× its median, which separates accounts that get lucky once from accounts that do it repeatedly.

Why outliers are worth studying

In most accounts, a few videos carry the results. In our own scan of 42 public accounts (the last 90 Reels each, about 3,800 Reels), the top 10% of an account's Reels drove about 66% of its total views, and the typical account's single best Reel did about 6.2× its median. We describe the method and the limits in our research on outlier Reels and retention.

The pattern matters because it tells you where to look. The ordinary videos tell you what the account does every day. The outliers tell you what the audience and the platform rewarded. If you want to know what is working in a niche, the outliers are the part worth your time.

What an outlier video tells you

• Something in this video worked for this audience. The platform kept showing it to more people, and they kept watching or reacting.
• It probably travelled beyond the followers. You can check this with View-to-Follower Ratio: views divided by followers. A video that reaches several times the follower count has been served to strangers.
• Where to start looking. The first few seconds, the promise the video makes, its format and its length are the places a breakout usually shows its cause.

Retention and hook are private numbers that only the account owner can see, which is why an outlier is the closest public signal of them. We explain that argument in full here.

What an outlier video does not tell you

• Why it worked. Topic, hook, timing, a trending sound and a lucky push can all produce the same number. You find the cause by watching, not by calculating.
• Whether it was helped from outside. Public numbers do not show paid promotion or a repost by a much larger account. An exceptional score deserves a second look for that reason.
• Whether it will repeat. One outlier can be luck. Several outliers with a shared shape is a pattern. Count how many videos in the last 30 cleared your threshold.
• Whether it sold anything. Views are attention, not revenue.
• The final number for a fresh video. A video posted yesterday is still gaining views. Compare videos of similar age, or wait a few days before judging.
• Much about tiny samples. With fewer than about a dozen videos, the median moves too much to trust.

How to find outlier videos by hand

You can do this with a spreadsheet and ten minutes per account.

1. Collect the last 12 to 30 videos from one public account

Record each video's link, post date, length and view count.

2. Calculate the median

Put the views in column B, then calculate the median in a spare cell:

3. Divide each video by the median

If the median is in cell E1, put this in C2 and fill it down:

4. Sort and mark the outliers

Sort by column C, largest first. Mark everything at 2× or higher.

5. Open the outliers and write down what they share

Watch the first three seconds, then note the promise, the format and the length. Do this for every marked video before you decide what the pattern is.

How to find them across a whole niche

The method is simple and the workload is not. Tracking 20 accounts at 30 videos each means 600 rows to refresh, and the numbers change every day. That is the part Statly automates.

• Statly scans your tracked public Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts every day on its servers, so the data is ready at a time you choose, with your browser closed.
• It scores every video against its own account's median. You do not build the spreadsheet or refresh it.
• Trend Finder shows the outliers across all your niches in one place, and can sort by which videos are growing fastest right now.
• Watchlist explains one profile in depth: its baseline, posting pattern and every video's numbers.

What to do once you find an outlier

• Watch the first three seconds and write down what the viewer is promised.
• Note the format and the length. Compare them with the account's other videos.
• Check whether it repeats. Does the same promise or format appear in the account's other outliers?
• Turn the pattern into an original test. Borrow the structure and the angle, not the footage, the words or the identity of the creator.

If you brief other people to make videos, our 30-day UGC research system for agencies and our guide to faceless Instagram competitor research show how to turn outliers into briefs.

Outlier, breakout and viral: how the words differ

For more on the loose word, see how many views count as viral on Instagram Reels and what percentage of Reels go viral.