• What is a story hook?
• 3 Reasons you need to get hooked on story hooks: 1) It’s a core skill for all digital media, 2) Winners use it as a competitive advantage, 3) It can be very good fun.
• 5 Things the Best Hooks Have in Common: Brevity, accessibility, relatability, trustworthiness, intrigue.
• 6 Successful hook types – Pain point/Solution, Succinct Explainer, The Surprising Stat, The Curiosity-builder, The Heart-warmer, Good News.
• How to use AI to get the creative juices flowing

What’s a story hook?

It’s the concise expression of the idea behind an article, email, or video that fires up a user’s interest at first glance. So, it’s the headline on your article, the copy in your social post, your email subject line, or the opening caption of your social video or carousel.

The hook is the most important thing to get right for busy users scrolling through endless content streams. And hooks only work if you know your audience well. And while the advent of social media and email has sharpened interest in the idea, like much else, it is as old as communication itself. 

David Ogilvy wrote this about advertising copy half a century ago:

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” 

And yet, the need for a hook is still undervalued, and sometimes ignored. This is frequently likened to fishing without any bait.

In experiments I ran at the World Economic Forum, a well-thought-through hook could generate a 10x, sometimes a 100x, increase in engagement. Here’s an example of a story that got a 100x uplift after an effective hook was created:

You’re more likely to live the American dream if you live in Denmark

The original title for this post was ‘Without Equality of Income There Can Be No Equality of Opportunity‘, which is nice and pithy but lacks the surprise factor. The reworked headline helped the story do more than 10x the original.

So the stakes are high. And it is worth sorting out your hook before you commit time and energy to producing a piece.

What makes a good hook?

The role of your hook is two-fold:

1) To grab the attention of a busy scroller 

2) To create enough curiosity to leave them wanting more

That’s a lot to achieve with a few words, so you should spend quality time with your hook formation. 

To be effective, your hook needs to tick most, if not all, of the following boxes: 

1. Concise: Because my time is short, and I will see your ability to write a succinct hook as a signal you’ve taken care with the full piece. 

2. Accessible: I want someone who speaks my language. If you are over-formal or use lots of technical terms, I will worry you’re not right for me. As a result, strong hooks tend to sound conversational. 

3. Relatable: I need someone who can help me. So I want to see an understanding of my challenges and concerns. This means successful hooks identify specific ‘pain points’ (and their solutions). 

4. Trustworthy: I need to know you’re credible and won’t waste my time. Ways to convince me include data points, references to entities with strong reputations, and personal experiences.  

5. Intriguing: Because I’m only going to watch your full video or click through to a longer piece if you’ve piqued my interest but not given away the full story. 

What types of hooks are there?

There are lots. And this is just a selection of those types that worked well at the World Economic Forum and for which there are particularly sharp examples from Buzzfeed – widely regarded as very good at hooks.

1. Identify ‘pain points’ and offer solutions

These could be the hurdles faced by individuals, teams, societies, or even the World! The essence is to express the pain point succinctly and then either present the solution or promise lots of ideas for those who read on.

There are lots of frameworks for this category of hooks, many of which have been honed in the world of commercial copywriting. The basic formula is to pinpoint a problem or challenge, which is highly relatable for your target audience – the ‘pain point’ – remind the reader of the consequences, and then offer a solution.

Listicles

Buzzfeed really made its reputation on the back of a huge volume of listicles. The format remains particularly powerful because it tells readers exactly what they are going to get. And the simple structure saves a lot of thinking time for writers.

42 Quick Solutions For the Small Annoyances in your Life 

The beauty of the format is partly to do with the way it can span the super-serious to the extremely light-hearted:

Here are 24 cognitive biases that are warping your perception of reality

25 Signs You Drink Too Much Wine

Entity X is doing Thing Y to Tackle Problem Z

When I look back, I think this is the formula that did most of all to generate awareness of the World Economic Forum’s work. It offers readers some hope and respite from the doom and gloom of mainstream media. It also signals a simple structure, which isn’t going to overtax the reader.

Scientists say taking an ‘Awe Walk’ can transform your mental health

Guatemala is stopping trash from entering the sea using special plastic-catching barriers

For more on how powerful such simple structures can be, see Guatemala’s biofences are cleaning up Latin American rivers. And it’s thanks to a Facebook video

2. Promise to explain something succinctly

The world’s a complicated place, and those who take the time and trouble to decode it for others get rewarded with attention and loyalty.

Costa Rica is one of the world’s happiest countries: Here’s what it does differently

QAnon explained in less than two minutes

Those that tackle controversy get an additional topicality boost

17 Things You Should Understand About Abortion, As Told By Women Who Have Had Them. 

What is the Metaverse? And why should we care?

3. Share Astounding Statistics

Memorable factoids are wonderful indicators of accessible and interesting content. Remember, you are generally looking to stop impatient scrollers from scooting past your content and surprising facts are a great way of doing this.

More plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050: Report offers blueprint for change

This one is notable for a couple of reasons: The first is that this detail was buried in a lengthy report and had been overlooked until a smart media relations executive spotted it and elevated it to the central role of the press release and related content. The phrase went onto be discussed in numerous legislatures around the world as laws to tackle plastic pollution were hatched.

The Netherlands has become the world’s second-biggest food exporter

With a relatively small population, I didn’t believe this when I first saw it in National Geographic. But Dutch government sources confirmed it. The fact that the Netherlands has managed to do this while minimising water and pesticide use was somehow even more impressive, but there’s only so much you can say in a hooky headline.

4. Build Curiosity

‘Curiosity gap’ hooks are associated with clickbait headlines that promise the world and deliver little. But well executed, they retain engagement power.

8 sexist laws you won’t believe still exist

15 money lessons people learned the hard way in college

5. Heart-warming personal stories

Hooks for human interest stories require something more – a dash of intrigue or wider education.

John’s Crazy Socks:  The father and son team that spreads happiness

Just 21 really good things that happened during quarantine

6. Good news

Because mainstream media does such a thoroughly effective job at explaining how bad things are, there appears to be a gap for those with a more positive outlook and stories to back up their optimism.

Global health: 4 reasons to be optimistic despite current challenges

Rank society’s biggest problems, and we’ll give you a reason to hope for a better future

How to come up with the best story hooks?

The very best way is to have a web-savvy team of highly creative people around you so that you can workshop ideas and angles in real time. But that’s a dream for most organisations. Instead, you can get the process started using an AI ChatBot.

To start off simply ask the GenAI chatbot to take your topic and target audience and ask it to suggest engaging headlines. You may need to play around with this to get decent ideas, perhaps adding an objective.

“I want you to act like a world-class headline-writer. Please give me five headlines that are short and cover the topic of writing engaging story hooks for communications professionals who want to increase their digital engagement.”

I’ve been collecting hook structures that seem to work particularly well. It’s a good idea to test to see if your topic would work well with a proven hook structure. So I also use a more detailed prompt that attempts to train the chatbot, to see if any of the proven approaches work:

“I want you to act like a world-class social media producer. Your challenge is to come up with story hooks based on structures that have worked well for my content and for others that I respect. I want you to take your time and to consider the following key performance factors – the hook should be succinct, avoid over-formal or technical language, and be relatable and intriguing.

“I’m going to provide you with a topic, target readers, and end-goal. Please write a hook for each of the following structures.

“The topic is [], the target readers are [], and the outcome is [].

“These are the hook structures with some examples:

1. [Reason X] to be [Positive Emotion Y] about [Thing Z]
   • Global health: 4 reasons to be optimistic despite current challenges
   • Ranks society’s problems, and we’ll give you a reason to hope for a better future
2. [Entity X] is doing [Thing Y] to Solve [a Problem Like Z]
   • Scientists say taking an ‘Awe Walk’ can transform your mental health
   • Guatemala is stopping trash from entering the sea using special plastic-catching barriers
3. [Situation X] has [Complication Y] the answer is [Thing Z]
   • Your Blog Has Great Content but Low Traffic? The Answer is Search Engine Optimisation!
   • Your Social Media Campaigns Have Wide Reach but Low Conversion? The Answer is Targeted Advertising!
4. What [Group X] Should Know About [Thing Y]
   • What Everyone Should Know About Effective SEO Practices
   • What Everyone Should Know About Crafting Captivating Headlines
5. What is [Phenomenon X] and that matters because [reason Y]
   • What is the Metaverse? And why should we care?
6. [Thing X] explained [in manner Y]
   • Costa Rica is one of the world’s happiest countries: Here’s what it does differently.
   • QAnon explained in less than two minutes
7. What [Entity x] can teach us about [Topic y]
   • What Serena Williams Can Teach Us About Mental Toughness
   • What Elon Musk Can Teach Us About Innovation and Risk
   • What Stephen King Can Teach Us About Storytelling
8. [N] [things of type X] that could be [present continuous verb Y] to your [Relatable thing Z]
   • 5 Under-the-Radar Diet Errors That Could Be Tanking Your Metabolism
   • 3 Little Known Indoor Pollutants That Could Be Worsening Your Allergies
   • 8 Hidden Youtube Influencers That Could Be Shaping Your Teen’s Worldview
9. [N lessons] from [Experience X]
   • 10 Lessons Learned From A Decade Of Digital Marketing
   • 6 Lessons Learned From Bootstrapping a Startup to Profitability
10. [N Things] You Need to Know About [Topic X], from [Group who should know Y]
    • 17 Things You Should Understand About Abortion, As Told By Women Who Have Had Them. 
11. Why we [do thing X] according to [specialist field Y]
    • Why We Procrastinate (According To Neuroscience)
    • Why We Prefer Certain Music Styles (According To Psychology)
    • Why Social Media Captures Our Attention (According To Behavioural Science)
12. The [N things] [Group X] Don’t Know About [Activity Y]
    • The 10 Things Most People Don’t Know About Corporate Negotiations
    • The 15 Things Most People Don’t Know About Sustainable Living
    • The 5 Things Most People Don’t Know About Modern Art Collecting
13. Want to Achieve [Objective X]? Try [Possible Solution Y]
    • Want More Engaging Social Media Content? Try These Proven Copywriting Hacks
    • Want To Improve Your Sleep Quality? Try This One Evening Routine
    • Want To Enhance Your Memory? Try These Brain-Training Games

“Please take your time and make sure that the story hooks are tightly aligned to the subject, audience and outcome that I have specified.”

The aim here is to get as many ideas as possible and to sift out the ones that could be developed into something that will work for your piece. I’ve yet to find a Chatbot suggestion that would be usable, but this approach has helped me endless times when my mind has been a blank.

Looking for more ideas? Read Runcible’s Digital Storytelling Tactics Series:

Headlines: 5 Ways to Guarantee Yours Will Cut Through

Simple SEO: 10 Ways to Max out on Google Traffic

This is Why Your Content Isn’t Cutting Through – Scanning

Storytelling is Hard. This Tactic Makes it Easier.

4 Genius ChatGPT Prompts I Wish I’d Known About Earlier