A reference doesn't have to be in your exact niche The most common mistake is looking only at people who sell the same product as you. A good reference talks to the same kind of customer, or solves a similar communication problem. Widen your search in three circles: 1. Same niche, another city or country. A bakery in Portugal or Mexico may have ideas nobody has used where you live. 2. Neighboring niche. If you sell candles, look at natural cosmetics or home decor brands. The customer is similar. 3. Same format, different topic. A finance profile that explains things well in carousels teaches structure, even if it never touches your topic. Study the mechanism, not the post Copying means taking someone's sentences, stories and numbers. Studying means understanding why the post worked and applying that logic to your business. For every post that catches your eye, answer: Hook: what made you stop scrolling? Structure: in what order was the idea told? Format: carousel, talking video, split screen, behind the scenes? Tone: serious, funny, intimate, provocative? After analyzing about ten posts from the same profile, patterns appear. You notice they always open with a question, or that their most commented posts are opinion posts. Keyword CTA feature instagram accounts for inspiration Reference profiles + dossier English Page 8 of 65 Keep a short list Three to five profiles studied well are worth more than thirty followed without attention. Choose profiles you admire that make sense for your audience. Review the list now and then: if a profile has stopped teaching you anything, swap it. Turn what you learned into topics For every pattern you find, write a topic of your own. If the reference does "3 mistakes that...", you write the 3 mistakes of your niche, with your own examples. The structure came from outside. The content is yours. A simple rule helps: if someone who follows both of you sees your post and thinks of the other account, you copied. If they think of you, you studied.
Study your reference profiles in minutes. In Creathoria, you add the @ of creators in your niche and get a dossier with each profile's themes, hook patterns, structures, formats and tone, ready to become topics.