September 9, 2025 | by David Summerall
The Two Things Every Hook Must Do -
Every Winning Hook does these Two Things:
Topic Clarity: The Viewer knows exactly what your video is about
Personal Interest: The Viewer believes the video will help them or entertain them
If your Hook does both of these things, people will keep watching.
If it doesn't do both, they'll scroll away.
How Our Brains Seek Relevance -
Our brains are wired to pay attention to things that might help us or entertain us.
When we're scrolling through videos, our brain is constantly asking:
"Is this important to me?"
"Will this help me solve a problem?"
"Will this entertain me?"
Your Hook needs to quickly answer "yes" to at least one of these questions.
the Curiosity Loop: Creating an Information Gap
The Best Hooks create a "curiosity loop." This happens when you show someone something interesting, but don't explain it right away. Their brain gets curious and wants to know more.
For example, if you say: "This simple trick helped me lose 20 pounds in one month,"
People will wonder what the trick is. That curiosity keeps them watching to find out.
Why People Choose to Watch -
Understanding Why viewers watch helps you align your Hooks with real motivators.
People watch videos for only a few reasons:
To Learn Something New
To Solve a Problem
To Be Entertained
To Feel Inspired
To Avoid Making Mistakes
Your Hook should clearly connect to one of these reasons. The more clearly you connect, the more people will watch.
Test, Iterate, and Improve Your Hooks -
You’ll never land the perfect Hook on your first try. The key is in Refinement and Repetition.
Here are 3 simple ways you can improve your Hooks over time:
1.) A/B Testing: Try two different hooks for the same content and see what preforms better (just change the first line or headline).
2.) Core Metric to Track: Average Video Watch Time per Hook
3.) Archive Winning Hooks: Collect the hooks that performed best with your audiance and use them as templates later.
Example Hook Frameworks You Can Use -
Hook Type | Hook | Template | Why It Works |
Question | Everything you know about Content Creation is wrong | “Everything you know about X is Wrong” | Engages directly and opens curiosity |
Result Based | “How I gained 100K Subscribers in 30 days” | “How I Did X Percived To Be Impossible Thing In Y Timeframe” | Shows outcome and social proof and poses “how did they do that?” |
Contrarian | Working Out Every Day Is Horible For Your Health | “Don’t do that one habit everyone praises” | Breaks Normal Expectations to Peak Interest |
Insider / Secret | I Learned This One Business Secret From A Billionare and It Transformed My Life | I Learned X Secret From Y Method and Z Happened | Implies Privileged Access or Information Is About To Be Given That A Viewer Would Not Get Otherwise |
Final Thoughts -
Great Hooks are not about gimmicks — they’re about aligning with how human minds naturally work to grab a viewer’s attention.
Writing great Hooks is a skill that improves with practice.
Start By:
Writing 5 different Hooks for your next video
Picking the best one based on the checklist above
Testing it and tracking the results
Learning from what works and what doesn't
Repeating the process for every video
Your Hook is a Promise to your Audience.
If you promise to teach them something, make sure you deliver.
If you promise to entertain them, make sure your content is entertaining.
If you promise to solve their problem, give them real solutions.
The best Content Creators are also the best Hook Writers.
They understand that getting attention is just the first step. Keeping attention and providing value is what builds lasting success.