Outlier videos on TikTok and Reels: what they are and how to find them
An outlier video is a video that gets several times its creator’s usual views. A common line is 3×. We measure “usual” as the median of the creator’s other recent videos, which makes the idea work the same way for a 2,000-follower account and a 2-million-follower one. Here is how to measure it on TikTok and Instagram Reels, with the math shown.
Updated Oct 26, 2026 · based on 1.4K videos from 1.3K creators · How we measure
The idea comes from YouTube research tools. vidIQ describes an outlier as a video performing well above its channel’s usual level. OutlierKit flags anything at 3× a channel’s average views over its last 30–50 videos, and 1of10 puts every video above 3× on a list and anything above 10× at the top of it. On TikTok, Eden’s outlier filter starts at 5× by default.
Short video needs three changes to that recipe. Feeds recommend videos by interest, so one video can travel far past an account’s follower count. Views pile up in the first few days, so a two-day-old video can’t be judged on the same scale as a two-week-old one. And on a profile where one video hit 410K and the rest sit near 12K, one runaway hit wrecks the average. This guide covers each fix: judge a video against its creator’s own median rather than their follower count or average, wait three days before a video counts, and use views per day for anything younger.
Sources: vidIQ Outliers, OutlierKit’s outlier guide, 1of10 on trending videos and Eden’s TikTok outlier help page, checked Oct 26, 2026.
What counts as an outlier video
Measured against the creator’s own usual, not against other accounts.
An outlier is measured against its own creator, never against other accounts. 300,000 views is a quiet week for a creator who usually gets a million and a career best for one who usually gets 20,000. So the number that matters is a ratio:
outlier = a multiple of 3× or more
Two details keep the ratio honest. The video being scored is left out of its own baseline, so a breakout can’t raise the bar it is measured against. And videos younger than three days stay out of the baseline, because they are still collecting views.
Followlly uses this rule in the app, where 3× is the default flag (you can change it), and in the free outlier finder, which lists everything from 2× so the near-misses show up too. The full method, with sample sizes, is on our methodology page.
Median vs average: why one viral video breaks the average
Here is a made-up but typical profile: ten recent videos with 8K, 9K, 10K, 11K, 12K, 12K, 13K, 14K, 15K and 410K views.
| By the median | By the average | |
|---|---|---|
| The creator’s usual video | 12,000 views | 51,400 views |
| Their nine ordinary videos | 0.7–1.3× (normal) | 0.2–0.3× (all look like flops) |
| A new video at 30K | 2.5× | 0.6× |
The average says the usual video gets 51,400 views, yet nine of the ten videos got less than a third of that. Against the average, all nine ordinary videos look like flops at 0.2–0.3×, and the next good video, a 30K one at 2.5× the real usual, looks like a flop at 0.6×. The median skips the one extreme value, so it keeps describing the typical video. One hit can’t move it much, which is exactly what you want from a baseline.
Two more rules for the baseline. Use 10–20 recent videos when you can, because a median of 3–5 videos moves a lot from one video to the next. And keep it recent, such as the last 30 videos or the last 60 days, because accounts change.
On real data: @natalia_aurora is one of the Reels creators in our fitness sample, with 5 recent videos in it. The median of those videos is 151K views and the average is 376K, 2.5× the median. One video pulls the average up. Their biggest video, 914K views, is 23× the median of their other 3 videos. Measured against that average, three of their other videos score under 0.5× and look like a flops; against the median of their other videos, the typical one sits at 0.2×.
| Posted | Views | Views / day | Multiple (vs. median of their other videos) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 12, 2026 | 39K | 2.8K | 0.1× |
| Oct 13, 2026 | 757K | 57K | 19× |
| Oct 15, 2026 | 914K | 81K | 23× |
| Oct 16, 2026 | 21K | 2K | 0× |
| Oct 26, 2026 | 151K | 151K | 0.4× under 3 days, still growing |
These are only the videos of theirs that showed up in our niche samples over the last 21 days, not their whole profile, so treat the multiples as a rough read. Videos under three days old get a multiple. They stay out of a creator’s baseline whenever that creator has at least three older videos here; with fewer, all their other videos count, as on our methodology page.
The 3-day rule: let a video mature before you judge it
Short videos collect most of their views early. The curve the Followlly app uses to judge your own videos puts a typical video at about a third of its final views after one day, about 70% after three days and about 94% after a week (details). Your own curve will differ, so treat those numbers as a rule of thumb.
- Keep young videos out of the baseline. A two-day-old video at 6,000 views may finish at 10,000. Counted now, it drags the median down and makes every other video look stronger than it is.
- Don’t call a young video a hit or a flop yet. Either wait until day three or compare it with the creator’s other videos at the same age.
- Score it twice. Check the multiple again around day seven. A video that was 3× on day three and 6× on day seven kept traveling, which tells you more than the day-three number alone.
Three days is a trade-off. A week is more accurate, but by then a format that is working may already be crowded.
Videos under 72 hours: use views per day
Sometimes you want to know before day three. Then compare speed instead of totals:
The one-day minimum keeps a six-hour-old video at 30,000 views from counting as 120,000 a day. To read the result, set it against the creator’s usual. Using the curve above, a creator whose videos usually finish near 12,000 views gets about 4,000 of them on day one and about 8,400 by day three. By day two the same curve expects about 55% of the final total, so a video already at 20,000 is on pace for about 36,000, three times their usual: an outlier in the making. One at 15,000 is on pace for about 27,000, a near-miss.
For the closest read, note a fresh video’s views twice, 6–12 hours apart, and divide the gain by the hours between checks. That is its current pace. Followlly marks a video as rising when it runs at 3× the creator’s usual pace and at least 30 views an hour, within a week of posting.
In our samples: 203 of the 1,389 videos (15%) were posted in the last three days. The fastest of them, @malibulauren1’s this TikTok, had 4.3M views at 19 hours old, about 4.3M views a day. Its creator’s usual decides whether that is an outlier in the making.
Why views ÷ followers misleads
Follower count is the tempting baseline because every profile shows it. It is also the weakest one.
- Followers measure the past. The count includes everyone who ever tapped follow, including people who stopped watching long ago.
- Feeds run on interest. TikTok says that neither follower count nor a history of high-performing videos is a direct factor in what its For You feed recommends (TikTok newsroom). A small account can pass its follower count on an ordinary day.
- Big accounts look like constant flops. An account with 900,000 followers that usually gets 45,000 views a video is doing its normal, yet views ÷ followers scores every one of those videos at 5%.
- Small accounts look like constant hits. At 1,200 followers, a 3,000-view video is 2.5× by followers and completely ordinary for that creator.
In our TikTok samples: 52% of the 272 videos with a known follower count got more views than their creator has followers.
Hashtag samples lean toward videos that are already spreading, so these shares run higher than on a typical account.
Use follower count only as a rough filter when you pick accounts to study, never to score a video.
How to read 2×, 3× and 10×
| Multiple | What it usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Under 1× | Below the creator’s usual. By definition about half of all videos land here. | Nothing, unless it keeps happening. |
| 1–2× | A normal good video. | Note the format. No action needed. |
| 2–3× | A near-miss, often the first sign that an idea is starting to work. | Watch for a second video with the same mechanic. |
| 3–10× | An outlier. The audience wanted more of something. | Break it down and test the mechanic this week. |
| 10× and up | A breakout that reached well beyond the usual audience. | Study it frame by frame, and expect it to be hard to repeat on demand. |
Read a multiple together with its sample size. 5× against a median of four videos is a hint; 5× against 25 videos says something real about that account. One outlier can also be luck. When a second video with the same mechanic clears 3×, you have a pattern.
A second number helps: the share of a creator’s videos at 2× or more of their median, sometimes called hit rate (how creators use it). An account with a high hit rate has found a format it can repeat, which makes it a better model than an account with one giant hit.
Recent outliers in our niche samples
The biggest multiple in each niche sample, from creators with four or more videos in it and a median of at least three other videos. Where no creator has enough videos, the sample’s fastest video by views per day is shown instead. Every video links to the original post.
Sample caveat: these come from niche hashtag samples, which lean toward videos that are already spreading, and a creator’s “usual” here rests on the few videos of theirs we have. The outlier finder reads up to 30 recent videos of a public account for a fuller picture. How we collect and measure: methodology.
How to find outlier videos in your niche
About 30 minutes a week for five accounts with a spreadsheet. The free finder checks two accounts a day.
- Pick the accounts and log their videos. Pick accounts with the size-band rule in how to find your competitors and log their last 20 videos with the TikTok or Instagram template.
- Score each video against the others. With the template’s columns (creator in A, date posted in B, views in D), put this in the multiple column and fill down:
=D2/MEDIAN(FILTER($D$2:$D$500,($A$2:$A$500=A2)*(ROW($D$2:$D$500)<>ROW(D2))*($B$2:$B$500<=TODAY()-3))). It leaves the video out of its own median and skips videos under three days old, in Google Sheets and Excel 365. - Mark the outliers. 3× and up is an outlier; open everything at 10× and up.
- Write down the mechanic. Hook type, structure, format, length and whether the sound carries the idea. Then drop the topic and ask whether it would still work on a different subject.
- Test one mechanic this week. Film it in your own voice and topic, then score it against your own median after three days.
The free outlier finder runs steps 2 and 3 on up to 30 recent videos of any public TikTok or Instagram account (two free lookups a day). To find accounts worth checking, search a niche keyword in the trend finder and look for small creators behind fast videos.
What to copy from an outlier, and what to leave
Copy the mechanic, not the video. The mechanic is whatever would still work on a different topic:
- The hook. The first line or first frame, and the promise it makes.
- The structure. A list, a before and after, a test, a story with a turn.
- The format and length. Talking head, voiceover over b-roll, a screen recording, a nine-second loop.
- The role of the sound. Does the audio carry the joke or the pacing, or is it background?
- The cover, on Reels. The frame that earns the tap from the profile grid.
Leave the topic, the script, the footage and the exact edit. A straight copy gives your audience nothing new, and the idea stays someone else’s. Your own version of a proven mechanic, in your voice, is the test worth running.