A hook does not compete with other videos. It competes with a thumb that is already moving. Stopping is cheap when the viewer sees, in under a second, a specific thing they do not have yet.
Two rules follow. A plain, specific claim beats an elegant, general one. And the hook must make sense on its own: a viewer who has to wait to learn what the video is about is already gone.
Why hooks fail#
It names a category, not a claim#
“Let’s talk about email marketing” names a subject. It asserts nothing, so there is nothing to agree with or be curious about. The fix: say the thing you planned to say two sentences later.
It starts before the beginning#
Greetings, context, “so I’ve been thinking about”, a list of what the video will cover. That is the writer getting comfortable. Find the moment your draft actually starts and cut everything before it.
It promises what the body does not deliver#
The hook works, the video gets watched, and the viewer leaves annoyed. Do that a few times and the account has a reputation. You will not see this in any metric.
It is about you#
“We just launched”, “I’m excited to share”. These ask the viewer to care about your situation before you give them a reason. A launch hook works when it starts from what the thing does for the person watching.
Five edit passes#
Run these in order on every hook.
- Delete the first sentence. Then read what is left. Often the video is better and you are done, because the first sentence is the writer arriving.
- Put the noun back. “This trick” becomes “this three-word subject line”. “A mistake” becomes “putting your logo on the first frame”. Vague nouns protect the writer and cost the viewer.
- Read it at half a second. Look at the hook briefly, look away, say what it promised. If you cannot, it is too long. Keep first-frame text short enough to read at scroll speed.
- Check the promise against the body. Write “this video will tell you X” and confirm the body delivers X, not something nearby. If the body delivers something better, rewrite the hook to promise that.
- Say it out loud. Even for a text-only video. A line that is hard to say is hard to read fast.
The first frame is more than words#
The viewer’s eye reaches the image before the text. A concrete, slightly odd image buys the words an extra beat. Layout signals the content type before a word is read: a centred block reads as a statement, text above an image reads as a list. If something moves first, the eye goes there, so animate the words, not the background. Sound is a bonus: many people watch muted, so never let audio carry the hook.
Twelve hook patterns, by mechanism#
Group hooks by why they work, not by wording. Once you can name the mechanism, you can write many more of the same kind. These work for videos and for slide one of a TikTok slideshow, where the hook must earn a stop and then a swipe.
Information gap#
- Named but withheld: “One setting in [product] changes how long the battery lasts. Most people never open that menu.” Fails when the image gives the answer away.
- Count with an outlier: “7 ways to write a subject line. I only use the last one.” Fails when overused; audiences learn it fast.
- The wrong answer: “Everyone says post more. That is not why your account is flat.” Fails when nobody in your audience held the “obvious” answer.
Recognition#
- Specific symptom: “You have 40 drafts and posted twice this month.” Fails when generic: “you want to grow” describes everyone.
- Overheard objection: “‘I do not have time to film every day.’” Use your audience’s exact words. Your support inbox has them.
- Two-column sort: “People who post daily / People who plan to post daily.” Make both groups survivable, not one good and one insulting.
A number doing work#
- Unexpected unit: “That one-minute video took 6 hours of editing.” Cost in hours or abandoned drafts surprises more than cost in money.
- Threshold: a line above and below which things change. Only use a number you can support. Never invent one to sound authoritative.
- Before and after: “Calendar in January. Calendar in March.” Fails when the change is not visible in a still.
Stakes#
Use sparingly. A channel built only on stakes reads as anxious.
- Named mistake: “The pricing-page mistake that loses buyers who were ready.” Fails when slide two strains to justify it.
- Real deadline: “This changes on the 1st.” Only for real, checkable dates. Fake urgency ruins trust in every later hook.
- What you are doing now: “You are holding your phone in the hand that makes this worse.” Strong attention, so deliver on it immediately.
Rules for every pattern#
- One idea. Two claims on the first frame is two hooks, which is zero hooks.
- No brand name up front. Your logo and handle belong later. The first frame is too valuable.
- Write the hook after the body. Write the body, then describe its most interesting point accurately. If that point is not strong enough for a hook, fix the body.
- Close every curiosity gap. “The one thing nobody tells you” followed by common advice teaches viewers to stop trusting you. That cost does not show in your analytics, but it is real.
Testing two hooks fairly#
Comparing two hooks on two different videos compares two videos. A fair test:
- Same body, two openings. Everything after the first frame identical.
- Comparable slots. Same time of day, comparable days.
- Repeat the shape. One pair tells you little. Several pairs of the same two hook shapes start to tell you something.
- Judge early retention. For hooks, look at whether people stayed in the first seconds, or swiped on a slideshow. Total views mixes in everything else.
The free hook analyzer scores a line you paste in. Looptake scores every generated video with a viral score, and its scene editor lets you change an opening without rebuilding the video. Treat any score as a way to sort a review queue, not a prediction of views.
Vary the shapes across a batch#
When you make many videos at once, the easy result is that all of them open the same way, because one pattern looks strong in isolation. Your audience sees the batch, not the single post. Before you review quality, write the mechanism name next to each hook. If one mechanism covers more than about a third of the batch, rewrite some.
Where good hooks come from#
The best hooks are noticed, not written: the line that made a colleague stop typing, the support reply you rewrote three times. Keep a file, one line per entry, and start each batch from it. Looptake also pulls current trends into hook ideas when you generate videos from a prompt.
To carry a hook into a full script, use short-form script templates. For the reasoning behind hook scoring, see viral content principles.