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In May our team created hundreds of pieces of content for brands. And what I’ll always stress is - the difference between a good idea and a great idea is the execution of the good idea.

This means paying attention and deliberately having intention and reason for every second in a video. That’s the level of detail that needs to go into content that performs.

Where the majority of brands drop the ball is with their hooks…

And that’s today’s topic.

And a big thank you to Acoustic for partnering with us and letting us create media for a livin’.

In partnership with Acoustic

A Buffet Of Data, But Your Team Is Starving

Marketers will invest $31.29 billion in technology this year, but most aren't seeing the returns they expect. Here's why.

Insights.

Example: 73.9% of marketing teams have web analytics tools but do not know everything they can do with that data. That’s money left on the table.

It’s mostly due to what’s called a data silo (i.e. you only have pockets of data on your customers).

So, how do you fix it? Or even know what you’re missing?

That’s where this report from Acoustic comes in. And it is free. Everyone on your team should know what’s in it.

Here’s the thing - if Instagram gives you an insight to look at then it’s probably important. Not probably - it is important.

So, when you hit insights and scroll to the bottom you’ll see a KPI that says “view rate past first 3 seconds”.

This KPI tells you how good your hooks are.

Now, there are a few aspects to hooks that are very important.

Your hook isn’t just what you say.

Your hook is made up of three components:

1. Verbal Hook - What you say

2. Visual Hook - What you show

3. Title hook - What you write

The reality is not every video needs or will have a verbal hook but ALL should use a title hook and visual hook.

But let’s run through examples:

1. Verbal Hook:

The key to a good verbal hook is creating clarity, providing context, and a creating curiosity gap.

For example - in the first video above, I say…

“This is why your brand needs to launch a social show”.

• Clarity > Content strategy for brands

• Context > Creating a social show

• Curiosity Gap > Why brands need to do it

These rules apply for brands, creators, doesn’t matter.

2. Visual Hook:

This is what you show within the first 3 seconds.

For visual hooks - I always incorporate 1 of 3 elements: Angle, Aesthetics, or Actions.

And if you can nail all three, kudos.

But this essentially means leveraging the angle, aesthetic, or action to grab someone’s attention.

Above example:

• Angle - Top down, wide angle

• Action - Eating a baguette

• Aesthetic - Summer in Paris

So if we take element one and two - you should now think about how the visual elements in your video not only bring the verbal hook to life but elevate the verbal hook.

3. Title Hook: 

This is back to what you write on screen.

So, imagine this - someone is scrolling…fast. They’re just scanning waiting for something to catch their attention. Sound off. And they continue getting hit with videos that have no title hooks. Then your video hits their feed and they scan and read your title hook and it’s something that hooks them, provides context, and creates a small curiosity gap.

Which video do you think will garner someone’s attention? The one with the title hook.

So, it’s important to think about how people view content and how you can optimize for the majority who scroll without sound on.

One of my favorite brands who does a 10/10 job is Gant.

Every series they create has a perfectly crafted title hook.

“The Perfect Summer Getaway”, "The Holidays”, “Postcards from Puglia”.

So, for brands - I urge you to spend 5x the amount of time on your hooks. And leverage TikTok and trial reels to test different hooks before publishing to your main feed.

I always stress to brands, you can invest $100k into a production and create a movie-masterpiece level of content - but if you can’t get someone’s attention then it doesn’t matter.

So, consistently storyboard, find inspo, test, iterate, and religiously look at the “view rate past 3 seconds” to see if your hooks are getting better and better.