You will be able to write an opening line or first seconds of video that stops the target viewer scrolling.
Farah sells modest workwear online from a small studio in Geylang. Last month she posted a short video of a new blouse. It opened with three seconds of her logo, then a slow pan across the fabric, then her voice saying "Hi everyone, so today I want to show you..." By the time she said anything about the blouse, most viewers were gone. The video was well lit and the blouse was good. The first seconds gave nobody a reason to stay.
On social media there is usually no headline. The first line of a post, or the first seconds of a video, does the headline's job, and it does it before the viewer has any context. They do not know who you are, why you are posting, or whether this is for them. They are scrolling with a thumb and deciding in a moment whether to stop.
A hook is the opening line or first seconds of a social post or video, written to make the right viewer stop and keep going. Everything from lesson 2.1 still applies: specific beats clever, and the hook must lead into something that pays it off. The difference is that the hook competes with everything else in the feed, and the viewer did not choose to look for you.
In a written post, the hook is the first line or two that show before "see more". In a video, it is the first words spoken and the first words on screen, which should usually say the same thing. Many people watch with the sound off, so text on screen carries the hook for them.
Filming, editing and posting times are taught in Social media and short-form video, a separate course in this track. This lesson is only about the words.
Strong hooks tend to name one of three things. The first is a situation the viewer is in. "If you have to look office-ready by 8am and you're still ironing at 7:45" stops exactly the women Farah sells to. Her voice-of-customer file had several versions of the morning rush, and every one of them was a better opening than her logo.
The second is a mistake they might be making. "The reason your blouse gaps at the buttons isn't your size" stops anyone who has had that problem, because it suggests the fix is something they have not tried. Mistake hooks work when the mistake is common and the fix is real. They backfire when they scold.
The third is a result they want. "One blouse, three ways to wear it from the office to dinner" promises something the viewer can picture. As with outcome headlines, the result has to be one the video delivers.
For Priya's tuition centre, the same three kinds might read: "When your child knows the work but goes blank in the test" (situation), "Most parents check the answer and skip the working" (mistake), and "How to tell in two minutes whether she understood the topic" (result), and she took every one of them from her file.
Curiosity is the strongest pull in a feed. "Nobody tells you this about P5 maths" makes people want to know what "this" is. That is fine, as long as the post tells them.
A bait hook promises something the post does not deliver, or delivers so weakly that the viewer feels tricked. Picture "You won't believe what happened" above an ordinary class photo. That may pick up a few extra views the first time, and it teaches your audience that your hooks lie, so the next time your face appears in their feed they keep scrolling. Platforms tend to notice when people stop watching early, too, so a bait hook can cost you reach as well as trust.
A simple rule: whatever the hook promises, deliver it in the first few lines or seconds after the hook. If the hook says "the reason your blouse gaps", the second sentence should start giving the reason, not a story about how Farah started her business.
Hooks are short, so they are cheap to write. Do not settle for the first one. Write ten for one topic, each opening in a different way, and you will find the obvious ones first and the interesting ones later.
When Farah sat down with one topic, a blouse that does not gap at the buttons, her first three hooks described the product: "New in: the Aisha blouse", "Our best-selling blouse is back" and "Meet your new office favourite". When she opened her voice-of-customer file, the next seven came out differently, such as "Safety pins between the buttons?" "You're not the wrong size, the blouse is the wrong cut." "I tested this blouse by raising my arms in a lift full of people."
Then she went through the list asking whether the woman she was writing for would stop for each line, and whether the video delivered on it. The three she kept all came from the second batch.
A useful check before you post is to read your hook with everything after it covered up. If someone saw only that line, would they know whether it was for them? Would they want the next line? If you would not stop for it, nobody else will.
The activity below asks for ten hooks on one topic your customers care about. Pick the topic from your voice-of-customer file rather than from what you happen to want to sell this week, and mix the three kinds so you are not writing ten versions of the same opening.
Write ten hooks for one topic your customer cares about and mark which three you would actually post.
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