On a feed, nobody chose to watch your video. They're deciding whether to keep watching, and they decide in about two seconds. The hook is how you win that decision.
What a hook actually has to do
A good hook does three things at once:
- Says who it's for. The right viewer thinks "this is about me."
- Promises something. A result, an answer, a story ending, a laugh.
- Opens a loop. It raises a question the viewer can only close by watching.
If your first line does all three, you've earned the next ten seconds. Then the video has to keep the promise.
A hook is three layers, not one line
People scroll with the sound off and decide with their eyes. Your hook works on three layers at the same time:
- Visual hook: what's on screen in the first frame. Movement, a surprising object, a before/after, your face mid-reaction. A static wide shot of you about to talk is the weakest possible first frame.
- Text hook: the words on screen. This is the hook for everyone watching muted. Keep it under about ten words and readable in a second.
- Spoken hook: the first sentence you say. It can match the text or add to it.
The strongest videos line all three up: the text says the promise, the visual proves it's real, and the spoken line pulls them in.
8 hook formulas that work
1. The direct result
"How I [got result] in [time] without [pain]."
How I filmed a week of content in one afternoon, without a studio.
2. The mistake
"Stop doing [common thing]. Do this instead."
Stop posting at 9am. Here's when your audience is actually online.
3. The specific number
"[Number] [things] that [result]."
3 caption tricks that doubled my watch time.
Specific numbers ("3", "47 seconds", "$212") are more believable than vague ones.
4. The callout
"If you [specific situation], watch this."
If you've posted 50 Reels and still have under 1,000 followers, watch this.
5. The contrarian take
"[Popular advice] is wrong."
Posting every day is killing your account.
Only use this if you can back it up in the video. Clickbait you don't deliver on trains people to scroll past you.
6. The story drop-in
Start in the middle of the action.
So the brand emailed back and said the budget was… zero.
7. The before/after
Show the end result first, then rewind.
(Shows the finished room) This was a storage closet two days ago.
8. The question they're already asking
Why do some Reels get 100 views and others get 100,000?
Common hook mistakes
- Warming up. "Hey guys, so today I wanted to talk about…" Everyone who scrolled past during that line is gone.
- A logo or intro card. Nobody waits for branding.
- Burying the topic. If a viewer can't tell what the video is about in two seconds, they leave.
- Promising something the video doesn't deliver. The views come once; the trust doesn't come back.
- Text that's too long or too small. If it takes four seconds to read, it's not a hook, it's a paragraph.
- Dead air at the start. Trim the first half-second of every clip where you're taking a breath or reaching for the camera.
How to know if your hook worked
Open the video's retention graph. If there's a cliff in the first two or three seconds and then a gentle slope, the content was fine but the hook wasn't. See how to read your retention graph for what each shape means.
Write five, film one
Hooks are the highest-leverage line in your script, so write more than one. For every video, write five versions of the first line, then pick the one that's most specific and makes the strongest promise. Keeping the hooks next to the rest of your script means you film the one you chose instead of improvising. That's where a teleprompter that follows your voice helps.