I write a newsletter for 102,000 startup founders and have 65,000 LinkedIn followers.
Combined, my content has been read tens of millions of times.
This post is everything I know about how to write hooks.
What is a hook?
A hook is the opener of anything you want people to pay attention to.
Whether it’s a:
Social post
YouTube video
Fundraising pitch
Cold email/DM
Presentation
Or even a quirky travel story.
People are gone if you don’t intrigue them within a few seconds.
They continue scrolling.
They mentally check out.
Or they mark you as spam.
A hook is the first:
1-3 sentences
The title slide of a presentation
The first view seconds of a video
Hooks have the power to make or break any piece of content.
A “meh” piece of content with a WOW hook has a better chance than a WOW piece of content with a “meh” hook.
This is true whether the post is short-form or long-form. Why invest in a 20-minute article if it fails to grip you in the intro?
I bet you could rewrite the hooks on all your posts and get upwards of 10x the engagement the second time.
This post will teach you how to write thumb-stopping hooks.
10 fundamental ways to write a hook
I write a newsletter for 102,000 startup founders and have 65,000 followers on LinkedIn.
Naturally, I wanted to reverse engineer what made posts go viral. I started going through the top posts with 10s and 100s of thousands of likes, and certain patterns emerged.
Here’s what I discovered after a lot of hours and coffee:
Note: You may have seen me previously say there were 12, but I’ve revised it to be just 10 as the other 2 were just subsets of the others.
Let’s go into each of these now with a ton of examples.
1. How to write a hook with Credibility
Telling people WHY they should listen to YOU for this topic.
This isn’t bragging. It’s contextualizing why they should take your advice seriously.
Credibility hook examples
You can write a credibility hook in three different ways:
Your experience and accomplishments
Your effort
Someone else’s credibility
Your experience and accomplishments.
Why should I listen to you?
“I have an MBA.”
“I was ranked CEO of the year.”
“I run two 7-figure startups.”
It feels like bragging, but you should be fine if you do it with humility and without standing in front of a Lamborghini.
Your effort.
Is this information worth anything?
“Oh damn, Naim spent 16 hours on this?”
This is a result of the Labor Illusion:
“A psychological phenomenon where people perceive a service to be more valuable when they can see the effort being put into it, even if it doesn't necessarily result in a better outcome.“
Speaking of which
Someone else’s credibility.
If you lack credibility, you can leverage the credibility and familiarity of a well-known and respected person or company.
This is why people do a lot of Apple and Steve Jobs posts:
2. How to write a hook with Fear
There’s a famous newspaper adage:
“If it bleeds, it reads.”
Fear and negativity works because:
Loss Aversion: We’re more likely to take action to avoid losses than seek gains.
Negativity Bias: People are more influenced by negative events, feedback, or terminology than positive ones.
Fear hook examples
Fear can manifest in various ways:
FOMO – Fear of Missing Out
FOBO – Fear of Being Outdone
“I hope I’m not doing it wrong.”
“I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”
FOMO – Fear of Missing Out
“I don’t want to miss out or be left behind.”
It is super popular with AI fearmongering.
FOBO – Fear of Being Outdone
This blurs the line of credibility and FOBO. The fact that she’s making a 1% salary without employees triggers anyone’s FOBO:
And Justin’s ridiculous schedule is enough to make anyone feel outdone.
“I hope I’m not doing it wrong.”
This benefits from the strong language of “suck at.”
“I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”
3. How to write a hook with Curiosity
When you're curious about something, your brain rewards you with a major dopamine hit when you satisfy that curiosity. So when it’s pique, your brain becomes a junkie looking for a sweet dopamine fix.
Curiosity hook examples
Frame things in such a way that makes you say:
“Then what happened?”
“I have to know more”
“Hmm, what is it?”
“What is going on?”
“…?”
“Then what happened?”
Tease a fun and interesting story.
Andrew uses fun, colorful language to paint an intriguing picture:
“I have to know more”
First, the “hot take” gets you a bit since we like spiciness.
Second, Shaan is saying that we’re all wrong about the Metaverse. What are we wrong about? Is he pro-Metaverse or anti-Metaverse?
“Hmm, what is it?”
Here, I share an image and tease at something. You’re forced to keep reading to figure out what I’m pointing out.
“What is going on?”
Casey Neistat’s “Do What You Can’t” video became a rallying cry for internet creators.
But it didn’t start with him. And it didn't start with any dialogue.
Instead, it started with a man hanging from a helicopter on a ladder (and a cryptic title).
“…?”
This was a popular hook for a bit:
It’s the start of a sentence normally followed by something interesting or spicy.
Some curiosity-piquers worth trying out:
Shocking truth: Ex: “I used to sell drugs.”
Strong words: Ex: “Everyone is wrong about…”
Open a loop: Ex: “I don’t know who needs to hear this…”
4. How to write a Counter-Narrative hook
Strong opinions and bold claims provoke dialogue and thought. Particularly if they contradict things we already believe to be true.
Counter-Narrative hook examples
For example, everyone always says our attention spans are shrinking:
By countering the common narrative, he grabs our attention and gets us to keep reading.
You don’t expect a guy making 7-figures and a gal with 100k+ followers to shit on money making and audience building.
Spiky points of view
Those examples are what Wes Kao calls “spiky points of view.”
5. How to write a hook with Eloquence
Eloquently putting a voice to an unvoiced concern, frustration, or opinion.
The magic is in finding and tapping into those unvoiced thoughts. And then summarize it succinctly and powerfully.
Eloquence hook examples
You want people to say:
“Finally, someone said it!”
“That’s so damn true.”
“Finally, someone said it.”
Many of the comments on the following post were people saying: “Yes, finally, somebody said this thing that I've been thinking.”
Chris hit an emotional nerve.
People are tired of companies virtue signaling rather than fixing fundamental problems.
“That’s so damn true”
Here, Andrew tapped into a feeling that every entrepreneur has had:
These are hard
You need to tap into unvoiced concerns and do sharp copywriting.
Tying it to a trending topic or news story is even better.
The remaining half are just for paid subs :)
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