Hook

The hook is the opening of a post: the first sentence of a caption, or the first second or two of a video. On a feed that decides what to show next based on whether people stayed, it is the highest-leverage part of anything you make.

What a hook is doing

Opening a gap. The viewer needs a reason to believe the next few seconds will resolve something — a question, a claim that sounds wrong, a situation they recognise. "Here are five tips" closes the gap immediately; there is nothing left to find out.

Common failures

• Warming up. "Hey guys, so today I wanted to talk about…" is four seconds spent before the video starts.
• Being clever instead of clear. A pun the viewer has to decode is a pause, and a pause is a scroll.
• Promising more than the video delivers. It works once, and it teaches the platform to distrust your retention.

How to get better at them quickly

Write the hook last, once you know what the post actually turned out to be about, and write three. The first is usually the most obvious one.