---
title: 'How To Create Viral Hooks That *Actually* Get Views'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=2WHJv3Xo28Y'
video_id: '2WHJv3Xo28Y'
date: 2026-06-14
duration_sec: 2055
---

# How To Create Viral Hooks That *Actually* Get Views

> Source: [How To Create Viral Hooks That *Actually* Get Views](https://youtube.com/watch?v=2WHJv3Xo28Y)

## Summary

This video provides seven tips for creating effective hooks for short-form videos like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok. The speaker emphasizes that the hook is the most critical part of any video and shares strategies to grab viewers' attention within the first few seconds.

### Key Points

- **Importance of Hooks** [00:00] — The hook is the most important part of any short-form video; if it doesn't grab attention in the first few seconds, the rest of the video is wasted.
- **Hook Swap Strategy** [01:07] — Repurpose underperforming content by replacing or adding a stronger hook to get more views without creating new content.
- **Tip 1: Empathize with Audience** [04:07] — Understand your target audience's pain points, struggles, and desires to create hooks that resonate with them.
- **Tip 2: Hook Length** [06:02] — Hooks should be 5-8 words; a study of 1,300 viral reels found this length performs best. Avoid less than 5 or more than 12 words.
- **Tip 3: Keep It Simple** [07:42] — Use language at or below a fifth-grade reading level to avoid confusing viewers. Use AI tools to check and simplify hooks.
- **Tip 4: Use Negative Words** [09:31] — Negative words like 'don't', 'stop', 'avoid' grab attention more than positive ones due to human psychology. But don't overuse them.
- **Tip 5: Visual Hook** [14:15] — Bright visuals, a person's face and eyes, and relevant props improve engagement. Avoid random or silly elements.
- **Tip 6: Audio Quality** [16:18] — Use an external microphone, balance audio levels, and choose appropriate music and sound effects to enhance the hook.
- **Tip 7: Curiosity Gap** [19:27] — Create a Goldilocks curiosity gap: enough to intrigue but not so much that viewers are confused or so little that they lose interest.
- **Bonus Tip: Success Leaves Clues** [22:03] — Pay attention to your own consumption habits to learn what hooks work.
- **Hook Idea 1: Problem Hooks** [22:39] — Identify a pain point the audience already knows they have. Example: 'If you're working out 5 days a week but not seeing results, watch this.'
- **Hook Idea 2: Hot Take Hooks** [24:10] — Use unpopular opinions or controversial statements to grab attention. Example: 'Counting calories is the reason you're not losing weight.'
- **Hook Idea 3: Curiosity Gap Hooks** [25:08] — Pique interest with a promise of a secret or trick. Example: 'I bet I can get your lazy ass to stop procrastination in less than two minutes.'
- **Hook Idea 5: Shocking Stat Hooks** [25:52] — Lead with a surprising statistic. Example: 'Did you know missing just 30 minutes of sleep reduces your productivity by 30%?'
- **Hook Idea 6: Call Out Hooks** [27:38] — Name your target audience directly. Example: 'If you're a teacher planning lessons the night before, watch this.'
- **Hook Idea 7: Transformation Hooks** [29:57] — Show a before-and-after with a time frame. Example: 'Before budgeting: stressed. After: debt-free in 2 months.'
- **Pro Tip: Measure Hook Performance** [32:08] — Use Instagram's 'view rate past first 3 seconds' statistic to see if your hooks are effective.

### Conclusion

Creating effective hooks is essential for short-form video success. By applying these seven tips and seven hook ideas, you can significantly improve viewer retention and engagement.

## Transcript

I'm about to share with you exactly how
you can make better hooks for your reels
in order to get more views and
potentially go viral. By far the most
important part of any short form video,
whether it's a real, a YouTube short, or
a Tik Tok, is the hook. Those first few
seconds are absolutely key. It doesn't
matter if the rest of your video has a
great story, or a super educational tip,
or the cure for cancer. If those first
few seconds aren't powerful enough to
grab someone's attention, the rest of
your video is a waste of time. And
that's why I believe that the majority
of your time, energy, and effort should
be spent on those first few moments of
your video. The first few frames, the
first one to two sentences, and the
first 3 seconds. And so that's why in
today's episode, I'm going to share with
you seven tips to creating better hooks
for social media and seven different
kinds of hooks that you can use with
examples of each. But before we even get
into the tips or the ideas or the
examples, I have a super juicy hack that
you're going to be able to use that you
can keep in mind for the rest of today's
episode. And it's what I like to call
the hook swap strategy. Here's what the
strategy is. Basically, take the content
that you've already posted, the talking
head reels, the videos, the stories.
Take the content that has already been
shared that maybe didn't perform very
well, or maybe you just thought it could
have performed better. Maybe you thought
it should have gone viral or maybe there
was a really great story or a really
great tip in the video, but it just
didn't get the recognition that it
deserved. take that content and either
replace the existing hook with one of
the stronger hooks that you're going to
learn in today's episode, or if that
original video didn't have a hook to
begin with, create a new hook and add it
onto the front of the video. It doesn't
matter that you've already posted the
video because remember a few minutes
ago, you've already decided that not
enough people saw it or didn't get
enough views or didn't get the
appreciation that it deserved. And even
if some people did see it, the
likelihood that they're going to
remember seeing it, especially remember
seeing it when it had a different hook
is going to be super super slim. There's
going to be like 1% maybe probably even
less than 1% of people who remember that
they saw this post before. And that
small group of people who does remember,
they only remember because it was that
good. And so they probably wouldn't mind
seeing it again. So, yes, what I'm
telling you is to go back through all of
the short form videos that you've posted
over the last few months and pick out
the ones that didn't get the recognition
they deserve. They didn't get enough
views, or maybe you just thought it was
a super juicy tip and it should have got
more engagement. Take that video, use
the hook strategies that you're going to
learn in today's episode, and apply it
to that video. And you're welcome. Now,
you'll get more views and you won't have
to do as much work to create new content
that's actually going to get views. But
with that being said, let me get into my
top seven tips for improving your hooks
on Instagram. And let me tell you that
the tips I'm going to share with you
today, as well as the examples and ideas
that I'm going to share with you towards
the end of the episode, are not just
from my brain. They're not just randomly
picked out of the universe. These are
strategies that have been proven to work
not just over the last few months or few
years on social media, but these are
strategies that have been proven to work
for hundreds of years. And I know what
you're probably thinking, Brock, there
weren't Tik Toks 100 years ago. Brock,
there were no Instagram reels back in
the 1800s. I hear you. But there were
books, there were newspapers, and there
was news. And that's why you'll often
hear me say that hooks aren't a new
strategy. They're not something that was
invented for social media. Sure, social
media has really accelerated the pace at
which hooks have become popular and
studied and the pace at which we can
discern what a good hook is versus what
a bad hook is. But hooks are the covers
of books. It's the headlines on
newspapers. It's the first sentence in
the chapter, right? It's the thing
that's going to keep you consuming the
content for longer. And so the idea of
needing an effective hook isn't
necessarily new, but I can guarantee you
in today's episode, you will learn
something new about hooks to improve
your content. Tip number one for
improving your hooks is to empathize
with your audience. The better that you
can understand who your target audience
is, the better you're going to create
content for them. The more you can use
words that they understand and that
really tug on their heartstrings, the
more you can talk about topics and
choose things to say that are really
going to grab their attention and hook
them in. And I know we're talking about
hooks today, so I'm not going to go too
far off subject, but the foundation for
growing a following on YouTube, on Tik
Tok, on Instagram, on Twitter, on
threads, on any social media platform is
to know your niche, to know your market,
to know exactly who it is that you're
trying to reach. If you're trying to
reach everyone on the planet, it's going
to be very tough to come up with hooks
and languaging and opening sentences
that grab their attention. Because
something that's going to grab a
21-year-old college student athletes
attention is very different than what's
going to grab the attention of a
72-year-old grandmother of 17 kids who
lives in the Middle East, right? Totally
different things are going to grab their
attention. And so the more you know
about the pain points, the struggles,
the dreams, the challenges, the
financial status, the education level,
the marital relationship status, the
interests and hobbies and passions of
your ideal audience, the better you're
going to be able to create hooks that
actually do their job of hooking them in
and grabbing their attention. But
admittedly, empathy is a skill set. It
is something that is developed over
time. You can't just pick out who your
target audience is and then suddenly
have empathy for them. You have to
practice to get good at understanding
what their needs, their desires, their
wishes, their dreams, and all that other
stuff actually is. Tip number two, and
really the rest of the tips of my seven
tips for improving your hooks are a lot
more practical and tactical than
empathy. But I will say I think empathy
is the most important one. So with that
being said, let's move on to tip number
two, which is in regards to how long
your hooks should be. Your hooks,
generally speaking, should be between
five and eight words. We at the Insta
Club recently conducted a study of about
1,300 different viral Instagram reels.
And for this analysis, we classified
viral as any reel with more than 1
million views. And we took all of those,
we transcribed them, and then we took
out the first sentence of the reel. And
what we found was the ones that
consistently performed the best and got
the most views were between five and
eight words long. I will tell you that
you can go up to 12 words, but what we
see is as soon as you use less than five
or more than 12 words, the return on
investment or the number of views and
the amount of engagement that you're
receiving, it starts to decline
relatively rapidly. So sure, it's okay
to have a four-word hook. It's okay to
have a 15-word hook. And there are
definitely outliers of people who went
viral with 27 word hooks, but generally
speaking, try to keep that first
sentence to 5 to eight words. And when I
say that first sentence, I don't
necessarily just mean the words that
you're saying because sure, you might be
someone who does talking head reels or
voiceover reels. And so that makes
sense. I'm going to keep the first
sentence that I say to 5 to eight words.
But this also applies to those of you
who primarily do meme reels or B-roll
reels. The kinds of reels where you're
not talking. There's no face on the
screen talking to the camera, but
there's just some text on the screen,
maybe layered on top of a funny video or
a B-roll video of you. Make that text on
the screen follow the same general rule
of five to eight words. Tip number three
is to keep it simple, to dumb it down,
to not use words in your hook that are
above a fifth grade reading level. The
simpler you can make your hooks, the
better. And this is not because your
followers are dumb, though I will admit
that the average media literacy rate is
declining. This is not because you are
trying to attract lowhanging fruit. This
is because most people are distracted. I
mean, think about it. As you are
watching or listening to this episode
right now, you're likely doing at least
one other thing. Maybe you're also
scrolling on reels. Maybe you're also
doing the dishes. Maybe you're also
working out. Chances are you're at least
doing something else while watching or
listening to this. I highly doubt you're
sitting in a classroom with this on your
TV and you're like writing notes. If you
are, take a picture, post this on your
Instagram stories, and tag me cuz I need
to see that unicorns like you still
exist. But if you're like everyone else,
you're probably distracted. you're
probably doing multiple things at once.
And so when the hook in your reel uses
some fancy term or some acronym or
insider lingo or just anything that your
average follower would not understand,
people don't take the time to stop and
figure it out. They're not going to
crack open a dictionary and a thesaurus
and go to Google and start trying to
figure out what those words and acronyms
mean. They're probably just going to
scroll away. When you confuse, you lose.
One key thing that I just said that you
might have missed is that you want the
words to be understood by your ideal
audience. So yes, dumb it down, keep it
simple below a fifth grade reading
level, but you should also consider
where your ideal audience is at. And the
ideal audience you are trying to attract
might understand words and phrases that
a different ideal audience might not.
For example, I love Pokémon. I subscribe
to a lot of Pokémon YouTube channels. I
watch a lot of Pokémon videos on Tik Tok
and on Instagram. And when a video about
Pokémon comes up, they don't have to
simplify their hook to say, "Hey, you
know that video game that was
popularized in the late 1990s that was
originally called Pocket Monsters where
you travel around and you try to capture
and battle with different colorful
monsters." They don't have to say that
because they don't have to do that
background. They don't have to give that
context because their ideal target
follower understands what Pokémon is.
their ideal follower might understand
some of the terms and topics that the
average person on the planet might not.
And so that's why it's important to
understand who your target audience is
because you don't need to dumb it down
so far that like literally anyone could
understand, but you do need to simplify
it enough so that your average target
audience member will understand. And I
don't know about you, but it's been a
while since I was in fifth grade, so I
don't know exactly what a fifth grader's
vocabulary level is. So, a simple way to
check is just to take the hook that you
plan on putting on your video or that
you plan on saying at the beginning of
your video, pop it into any basic AI
tool. I usually just pop it into chat G
TBT and then I will ask it, is this at
or below a fifth grade reading level? Or
if I have a hook that I've come up with
that I think might be a little bit too
wordy or too advanced, I will ask Chat
GPT to help make it simpler or more
concise or just easier to understand. An
easy example of when I've done this
wrong recently is I posted a talking
head reel where my opening sentence I
said to the camera if you loathe talking
head videos and then I went on to talk
about what you should do if you dislike
creating talking head reels. But why did
I use the word loathe? That was a
mistake I made. I should have used the
word hate or dread. Something that is
simpler and easier to understand and
easier to pronounce than loathe. like
who was I trying to impress? Dumb it
down. Keep it simple. More people will
understand your content. More people
will consume it. More people will
engage. Tip number four also relates to
the words that you're saying or the
words that are on the screen. And it's
be negative if possible. Now, when I say
be negative, I don't mean that you have
to be a Debbie Downer. And I know you
might be a positive person. I myself
consider myself quite an optimistic
positive person. But that doesn't mean
that you can't be negative in your
hooks. And here's what I mean by that.
Simply by using a negative word like
don't, stop, avoid, stay away from,
crash, diet, lose, etc. Those sorts of
things are going to grab people's
attention more than their positive
counterparts. I bet, and you can check
me on this right now, go to ESPN or go
go to Sports Center's website, and I bet
you a lot of their headlines will be
negative. they will be the the team lost
the game, the person got hurt, something
like that. A great easy example of this
that I saw recently on ESPN was that a
team won a game, but rather than the
headline being the team won the game,
which would be positive, it said the
team snapped a three-game losing streak.
Snapped is a negative word. It's also
quite a strong verb. It's not one, it's
snapped, right? It's it's very
aggressive. It's strong. And then they
didn't just snap anything. They snapped
a threegame losing streak. Again,
focusing on the negative. It's
ultimately a positive story, but the
headline, also known as the hook, is
framed in a negative point of view,
which is more likely to grab our
attention. Marketing is 80% psychology.
I am a firm believer that making great
content is more about psychology than it
is about tricks and tips. And so, let's
think about human psychology for a
second. For hundreds of thousands of
years, human beings have evolved to pay
a lot more attention to the things that
could kill us, things that could harm
us, the things that are dangerous and
negative, rather than the positive
things. A couple hundred thousand years
ago, when we were living in caves, we
had to pay attention to the poisonous
berry or the lion that was going to
stalk us tonight a lot more than the
pretty sunset or the butterfly that just
flapped by. My one word of caution with
negative hooks is you don't want to
overdo it. Unfortunately, I can't give
you an exact statistic or an exact
percentage of the time that you should
be negative versus positive. But if
every single one of or let's say greater
than 80% I told you I wasn't going to
give you a percentage and then I did. If
you do more than 80% of your content
with a negative hook, it can start to
have diminishing returns because over
time people stop paying attention to
your negative hooks because everything
is negative. every single hook that you
have is so in their face that they kind
of get bored with it and then they
either unfollow or they become
disengaged. So use negative hooks, but
don't use them on every single post that
you make. My fifth tip for improving
your hooks has nothing to do with the
text on the screen or the words that we
just said, but it's arguably more
important and that is the visual. What
is on the screen? Not just in those
first 3 seconds, but even in that first
half a second, even in those first few
frames, what are people seeing? Is that
going to grab their attention? A few
quick things to keep in mind when you're
considering the visuals of your hooks is
number one, brighter is usually better.
We've seen that videos that just have a
slightly brighter hook average about 60%
more engagement. So, it doesn't mean
that you need to make your hooks like
overexposed and super bright, but just
making sure that they're not dimly lit.
making sure that you have vibrant colors
on that you maybe slightly turn up your
brightness or your exposure or your
saturation so that the video really pops
and stands out from those before it.
That can be a great way to visually grab
people's attention. Besides that, we
also see that having a person's face and
especially their eyes on the screen
within the first second really improves
retention. People are more interested in
people most of the time. And so when
there's a human being, especially a
human being who we can see their eyes,
right? they're not wearing sunglasses or
something in those first few seconds.
It's more likely to grab our attention.
We also find that hooks perform a lot
better when there is a visual prop or
element or even just like clip art,
something on the screen that relates to
the topic of the video. A mistake that I
think people often make is they think,
"Oh, I need to grab people's attention.
So, at the beginning of this video, I'm
going to put an emoji of a monkey or I'm
going to put a a gif of a dancing clown
because that's really exciting and
that'll grab people's attention and it
might, but it's also going to really
confuse them and frustrate them and make
it feel like you're just trying to gify
or fool them into continuing to watch.
And so, don't use silly props. Don't add
unnecessary elements. Make sure that if
you're doing a video about rock
climbing, you are rock climbing. or
maybe there's a rock climber in the
background or maybe you're at a rock
climbing gym, but don't use some random
unnecessary prop or element. My sixth
tip for improving your hooks is to
consider the audio. We often times
forget that audio is half of video. So,
people spend so much time focusing on
getting an HD camera and what's on the
screen and is it clear and high contrast
when we forget that audio is so
important. I'll never forget I was
having a conversation with a well-known
YouTuber when I was first starting to
blow up and have a lot of followers on
Instagram and he was like, "Dude, why
are you not using an external mic for
your reels?" And I was like, "What do
you mean? Is my phone's microphone
quality not good enough?" And he was
like, "Look at this one." And he played
me my reel from that day and it sounded
like I was like filming in like a tunnel
or something. Like there was echoes and
it just sounded super hollow. And so
luckily this was a good friend and so he
gave me a microphone. But to this day I
have never not considered my audio
before creating my content or before
pressing post. So besides just the
video, make sure that you're paying
attention to the audio in those first 3
seconds. Three things that you can do to
easily improve the audio version of your
hooks is number one, make sure that your
audio levels are equal. Basically, make
sure that your music isn't too high and
your voice isn't too low or vice versa.
You want to make sure that things are
balanced and so that as someone is
listening to it, what they are hearing
is what you want them to hear. Speaking
of making sure that they are hearing
what you want them to hear, get yourself
an external microphone. If you don't
have a good friend who's just going to
lend you one like I did, go on Amazon or
go to your local tech store and just
purchase a 10, 15, $20 external
microphone. I do find that the ones that
plug right into your device, whether
you're using your phone or a
professional camera, the ones that plug
right in are actually usually better and
cheaper until you get to a certain
point. Yes, there are some distinctions,
and yes, there are some great USB
wireless microphones, but honestly, the
plug-in ones work great. You don't have
to worry about charging them oftent
times, and they produce really great
sound quality. Additionally, when you're
improving the audio quality of your
hooks, consider the music that's playing
in the background, using popular songs,
trending audios, or even just stock
copyright free music can really improve
your video. Maybe you're going to add an
inspirational piano onto the background
of your motivational message. Maybe
you're going to add some music that
really builds suspense and tension to
keep someone watching to the end. Maybe
you're going to use some rock and roll
music to go along with your more
aggressive, in-your-face video. Music is
so important for eliciting an emotional
response and getting your audience to
continue watching. There are some really
funny examples on YouTube that you can
find where they'll take a popular
Hollywood movie and they'll remove the
music from the background. So, you can
still hear the native sounds that were
in the scene. You can still hear the
characters talking, but without the
music, the feeling is totally different.
And then last but not least, sound
effects can be used really well. Don't
use the silly, goofy sound effects like
alarm bells for no reason. Be
intentional and make sure that your
sound effects actually relate to
whatever the video or whatever the topic
is. And my final tip for improving your
hooks before I share some examples and
ideas with you is to create what's
called a curiosity gap. The curiosity
gap is a little bit of a Goldilocks
situation. And let me tell you what I
mean by that. when you are planning out
what that first sentence is going to be
or what your hook is going to include,
you want to elicit enough curiosity that
someone wants to keep watching. But if
you elicit too much curiosity, if
there's too much ambiguity or too much
unknown in the beginning of your video,
again, you're going to confuse and
you're going to lose. So, when that
curiosity gap is too wide, people just
aren't going to keep watching. They're
not interested. Maybe they don't know
what your video is about. Maybe there's
too many words that they didn't quite
understand and so they're going to
scroll. On the other hand, on the
opposite end of the spectrum, there can
also be curiosity gaps that are too
narrow where you kind of spill all the
tea and you give all the answers and you
share everything that everyone would
want to know in those first few seconds.
For example, maybe there's a real estate
agent who's making a real helping other
real estate agents to sell homes. And so
in their hook, they're like, "Okay, I'm
going to use negative words. I'm going
to keep it short and simple. And so I'm
going to say something like, "The reason
you're not selling homes is because
you're not doing enough open houses."
Well, that was negative. And I don't I
didn't count how many words that was,
but it was relatively short. It was
relatively simple. But you spilled all
the tea. You gave me everything I need
to know. There was no curiosity gap.
There's no reason for me to continue
watching your video because either I
agree and I'm like, "You're right. I'm
probably not doing enough open houses
and so I'm just going to start doing
that." or I disagree. I'm like, "Yeah,
no, I disagree. I'm actually doing
enough open houses. I have a different
problem." And either way, I already know
what you're going to tell me and so I'm
not interested in continuing to watch
the video. So, that would be an example
of a curiosity gap that's too small. On
the other end of the spectrum, a real
estate agent might say, "Here's why
you're not having success." That's so
vague. Success in what terms? Financial
lifestyle. Here's why you like who is
you? real estate agents, people who are
selling homes, people who are trying to
learn to do a 360 on a snowboard. Like,
who are we even talking to? What is
success? It's so vague. And your thought
is, oh well, it's so vague it could
apply to anyone. But the reality is when
you try to appeal to everyone, you
appeal to no one effectively. And so, we
got to find that Goldilocks zone. We got
to find that sweet spot where the
curiosity gap is interesting people and
they want to continue watching to hear
what else you have to say, but you're
not withholding too much information or
giving away too much too soon. Those are
my seven tips for improving your hooks.
I will throw in one more bonus tip,
which is that success leaves clues. So,
as you're scrolling through social
media, just pay attention to your own
consumption habits. If there's a video
that really grabs your attention, it
really hooks you in, it really makes you
want to keep watching, just pay
attention to why. Was there a word in
the hook? Was there something they did?
Was there something in the video, in the
audio, in the visual? Just pay attention
to how you use and consume on social
media? And you'll start to pick up on
little hooks and little ideas that you
can incorporate and apply to your own
content. With that being said, I'm going
to share some of those clues with you
right now. Here are seven different hook
ideas that are proven to be effective
and they can be used in almost any niche
on repeat. The first one is what I call
the problem hooks. These hooks are all
about identifying a pain point, a
challenge, or a problem that your ideal
audience is dealing with. Again, going
all the way back to tip number one, we
got to empathize with our ideal audience
to truly know what they are struggling
with. A mistake that I see so many
people making with their hooks is
they're calling out pain points that
your audience doesn't already know that
they have. And here's the key
distinction. You might know that your
audience has this pain point, but if
they don't already know that they have
that painoint, then you have double the
work. You don't just have the work of
hooking them into your video, but you
also have the hook of convincing them
that this is a problem that they didn't
know that they had. For example, if
you're in the fitness niche, you could
say something like, "If you're working
out 5 days a week, but not seeing
results, watch this." Or if you're in
the parenting toddlers niche, you could
say, "If you're tired of repeating
yourself thousands of times a day, try
this instead." Here are some other
examples in other niches. You're messing
up your reels by putting your face in
the middle of the video. There's an
imaginary line that divides the middle
and upper third of your video, and it's
called the ey line. By lining up your
eyes with the ey line, your followers
will stay more engaged. To make sure you
remember this for your next reel, hit
the bookmark button and save this post.
The second category of hooks is what I
like to call hot take hooks. These are
the unpopular opinions, the
controversial points of view, or just
the unexpected plot twists that are
contrary to the norm. For example, if
you're a nutritionist, you could say
something like, "Counting calories is
the reason you're not losing weight." Or
if you're in the mental health niche,
maybe your hook is going to be daily
journaling is actually making your
anxiety worse. Unpopular opinion. If
it's taking you more than a few minutes
to make your reels, it's taking you too
long. Here's an easy to make three-step
reel that is proven to get more shares.
Step number one, record a clip of
yourself saying unpopular opinion. Then
record a second clip where you say your
unpopular opinion. And then just finish
your reel by saying, "Share this if you
agree." And that's it. You're done. And
if you agree that it's been taking you
too long to make your reels, comment I
agree down below.
Hook idea number three is what I like to
call the curiosity gap hook. And yes,
while all hooks should create some
curiosity, these ones are all about
peing people's interest, getting them to
lean forward in their seat and be
curious to learn more. For example, if
you're in the personal development
niche, maybe you're going to use the
hook, I bet I can get your lazy ass to
stop procrastination in less than two
minutes with this easy trick. Or if
you're in the real estate investing
niche, you could use a hook like with
this secret hack, you could buy your
first investment property with next to
nothing down.
Hook idea number five is one of my
personal favorites. It's one that I use
all the time and it's one of our top
performing hooks in our paid media, also
known as the ads that we run. We see
that this style of hook works really
well in our advertising and it's the
shocking stat hook. Basically, for this
hook, you lead with some sort of
statistic or numerical value that would
really surprise people. I do want to
encourage you do your research. Use real
stats. Don't just make stuff up. But if
you can find stats or data that shock
people and surprise them, it can be a
really powerful way to peique their
interest and get them to want to learn a
little bit more. For example, if you're
in the sleeping niche, maybe your hook
is going to be something like, and by
the way, these stats are totally made
up, so I don't know if they're true, but
your hook could be something like, "Did
you know missing just 30 minutes of
sleep reduces your productivity by 30%."
Or if you're in the dog training niche,
maybe the opening stat, and again, I
don't know if this is a real stat. Did
you know that more than 50% of dogs are
overweight? Again, these stats are very
surprising. They make people say, "Wo, I
didn't know that." And then they're
curious to hear your explanation as to
why 90% of people miss this in their
captions. Everyone, myself included, is
always talking about the hooks on your
reels. But then when it comes to
captions, you're just winging it. Here's
the fix. The first line of your caption
is by far the most important and it
should be treated like a second hook.
Just like you're putting in the effort
to come up with a good hook for your
reel, put in that same effort to come up
with a good hook for your caption.
Otherwise, people probably aren't going
to read it and you're wasting your time
typing it. And if you want a free list
of caption starters, I have some listed
in the caption below. Feel free to
screenshot and save this post.
Hook idea number six is what I like to
call the call out hooks. And essentially
for these ones, you are going to name
your target market by name. You're going
to call them out. You're going to say
exactly who your video is intended for.
For example, if you create online guides
for elementary school teachers, you
could use a hook like, "If you're a
teacher who's planning their lessons on
the night before, watch this." Or if you
help people learn to rock climb, you
could use a hook like, "If you have less
than 10 days of rock climbing
experience, here's what you need to
know." Basically, when you call out a
group of people by their exact name, the
people who go by that name and who
recognize or identify with that group
go, "Oh, hey, that's me." And then they
keep listening. If you aren't using AI
every single day as a business owner,
you're going to be left behind. You
don't have to be an AI expert, but you
need to at least be AI curious. Now, I
don't know about you, but I'm often
overwhelmed by the seemingly neverending
stream of new AI tools that I have to
learn. The reality is 95% of them are
junk and you don't need to learn them.
If you can just use chat GPT, but use it
better, you're going to be ahead of 90%
of other business owners. So, to help
you out, I put together a free list of
16 Chat GPT prompts. These are the exact
prompts I use on a daily basis to help
me create better content, write scripts,
and work smarter. Comment chat, and I'll
send you that list right now for free.
And then last but not least, the seventh
hook idea is transformation hooks. These
are hooks that show off a before and
after or some sort of change over time.
The two key elements in a transformation
hook are number one, the thing that is
actually transforming and then number
two, the time frame in which it
transformed. Again, I don't want you to
spew misinformation. I don't want you to
make up stories, but if you can
highlight examples of massive
transformations or transformations in a
relatively short time frame, it really
grabs people's attention and makes them
want to learn more. For example, if
you're in the finance niche, maybe
you're going to take a B-roll of
yourself typing on a computer or writing
in a notebook and then you're going to
add some text on the screen that says,
"Before I started budgeting, stressed.
After I started budgeting, debt-free in
2 months." Or if you're in the skincare
niche, you could use a hook that was
like, "I used to be embarrassed to go
out in public, but now my skin is
totally clear in less than one month.
Here's how." I did an experiment to see
what would happen if I posted 100 trial
reels in one day.
Boy, have you lost your mind, cuz I'll
help you find it.
I didn't lose my mind, but I kind of
broke my Instagram in the process. But I
also got tens of thousands of free views
and a ton of new followers. But my
biggest takeaway of all from the study
is that you need to be posting more
trial reels. If you want my exact
advanced trial reels strategy and to
learn exactly what I learned from that
experiment, comment the word vid on this
reel right now and I'll send you the
link to my full YouTube video where I
explained everything in depth. And I'll
even tell you how I've used trial reels
to go viral multiple times.
Now, wait, wait. Before we go, I do have
one last pro tip that is super helpful
to figure out, are my hooks actually the
problem? Because you might be creating
great content and maybe your hooks are
really good, but the rest of your video
is where it's falling flat. Instagram
actually gave us a statistic to look up
whether or not our hooks are performing
well. And before I show you that, don't
forget to hit subscribe if you found
this valuable today. Every single
Thursday, I put out a new episode on the
latest tricks and tips and strategies to
growing and having success on social
media. So, don't forget to hit
subscribe. But now, let me show you this
statistic. All you have to do when
viewing your individual reel is tap the
view insights button and then scroll
down. down towards the bottom of the
page, you will see a statistic that's
called view rate past first 3 seconds.
It's a mouthful, but basically this
statistic is telling us how many people
or what percentage of your viewers are
watching after the 3se secondond mark.
It will show you this pink bar, and if
the pink bar surpasses the little tick
mark, that means that the average viewer
is watching for more than 3 seconds. If
it's right at the tick mark, that means
that your average viewer is watching for
3 seconds. And if it's less than the
tick mark, then that means we really
need to improve our hooks because that
means that the average person isn't even
watching the first 3 seconds. Also,
below that, you'll see an actual
percentage where it tells you what your
average is. So, you'll be able to see
what your baseline is. And I would
recommend writing that down today so you
know, hey, my average views past first 3
seconds for my typical reel is 41.5
seconds. Okay, I'm going to write that
down and then see a month from now. Have
your hooks improved after watching this
video and implementing what you learned
today in this podcast? Is that
percentage increasing? And one last
thing before I let you go. If you do
want a free list of 25 viral hook ideas,
this is the actual list of the top 25
most popular hooks that we found from
that analysis of all of those viral
videos. That list of top 25 totally
free. I'll put that link down in the
show notes below so you can download it
and check it out. Don't forget to
subscribe. I will see you next Thursday.
And as always, happy networking.