How To Write Better Hooks: The easiest way to instantly improve your videos

Today’s Tip: To improve your video performance, prioritize using contrast in your hooks (explained below).

The easiest way to unlock ludicrous free growth for your business is to make video content.

The easiest way to get your video content to perform 4-5x better is to optimize your hooks.

The hook (first 3-5 seconds in short-form; first 20-30 seconds in long-form) accounts for the majority of retention.

If Pareto had a tattoo, it’d be Hooks = 20

Fortunately for you, I made the best video ever created on hooks. In it, I share all of my sauce, for free, on how I’ve driven billions of views, nearly 1 million followers, and sped run YouTube growth from 0 → 60K subs in 2 months.

If you are trying to use content to grow your business, watching it will be the best 16 minutes you spend today.

Here’s a tactical nugget from the video that will help you immediately…

The best way to improve your hooks is to create contrast. 

Tactically:

1. Pick a premise: Decide on your premise for the video

2. Establish common belief: Figure out the common belief around this premise

3. Give a contrarian perspective: Share your take that contrasts from that common belief

For example, let’s say we were making a video about Disney World and the reason it was a huge success.

1. Premise: Disney World was a huge business success

2. Common Belief: Walt Disney’s character IP (Mickey, Minnie, etc.) was beloved

3. Contrarian Perspective: Disney’s backdoor real estate deal with the Florida State government was why it printed money

Compare the following hooks…

Hook 1: “Disney World was a massive success. This is because they developed the most lovable characters that people came from around the world to visit.”

Hook 2: “Disney World was a massive success. Many people believe it was because of their unique character IP, but this actually isn’t the case. The truth is, Walt struck a backdoor real estate deal with the Florida State government that allowed them to unfairly print money for years.”

Which is more interesting? Which do you want to hear more about?

The 2nd…because it creates contrast against common belief.

Now that you know this…go study all of the media that you love and you’ll see this pattern everywhere.

Contrast is the key to hooking attention. Hooking attention is the key to turning views into dollars.

Watch the full video on hooks…it’s like the teacher left the test answers on her desk AND begged you to look.

PS - If you want more help improving your short-form videos, you can check out my full breakdown on how my Ironman video got 46M views and drove 29K new followers in 8 days.