The 'hook' is your first line — on-screen text and the opening second. It does more to determine reach than almost anything else you control. A few patterns hold up again and again:
What wins
- Payoff-first / 'look at this' — show or promise the result immediately ('Watch what happens when…').
- Social proof with a number — a crowd already moved ('1,300 people switched to this'). People follow crowds.
- A clear, specific promise — one concrete outcome, not a vague tease.
What quietly kills reach
- Question openers ('Did you know…?', 'Struggling with…?'). They feel engaging but tend to suppress reach hard — often several times fewer views than a payoff-first version of the same idea.
- Slow builds that hide the point past the first few seconds.
Note · Rule of thumb: if your hook can be rewritten to state the payoff instead of asking about it, do that. The Hook Lab (Strategist) generates these from your own winners.