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Social CRM is your ticket to high-quality real-time engagement with customers, on the platforms where they already hang out. You'll get solid data on behavior and sentiment with unprecedented granularity. Social CRM tools empower sales and marketing teams to deliver a...
Jun 26, 2025
8 seconds – that’s the average attention span of a human. If you think that number is promising, know that a goldfish is said to have an attention span of 9 seconds. Not too hopeful now, are you?
But wait, don’t despair. With the right social media hooks, you can get past those short attention spans and tap into the minds of your ideal customers.
You see, humans are naturally wired to look for helpful information and filter out the rest. It’s part of our survival kit. So, if you want to stop your audience from scrolling past your content, you need to offer them something vital.
In this article, we’ll explore strategies to craft compelling hooks that resonate and draw people to your content. I’ll also explain how to capture attention, increase engagement, and drive content visibility using the right social media management tools for agencies.
Social media hooks are the first few seconds of your content that capture attention. They create intrigue and compel viewers to stop scrolling and engage with your content. Contrary to popular belief, a hook isn’t a catchy phrase. Think about it. McDonald’s famous tagline, “I’m loving it”, might be snappy and catchy, but it isn’t a hook.
A hook takes many forms, depending on the social media channel and target audience. But it always serves just one purpose: to capture your audience’s attention and lead them to the rest of the story.
A good hook taps into universal human psychology. Daniel Kahneman’s research in “Thinking, Fast and Slow” reveals that our brains operate on two systems: System 1 (fast, emotional, automatic) and System 2 (slow, deliberate, logical).
Social media hooks work because they target System 1 – that instant, gut-level response that happens before people even realize they’re thinking. When someone scrolls through their feed, they’re in System 1 mode, making split-second decisions based on emotion and instinct.
To capture this fast-thinking system, hooks must trigger three key psychological drivers:
Kahneman talks about our brain’s constant desire to fill gaps. Curiosity is one of the easiest hooks to use because humans are wired to seek closure. If you tease with just enough information, people will feel compelled to click for more.
Example: “You won’t believe what happens next. Click to find out.”
The strongest hooks tap into emotions. Emotional engagement, whether it’s joy, surprise, or even frustration, sticks. In fact, Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power explains this principle better than I ever could, showing that emotions can control any narrative. People remember emotions better than logic.
Example: “This one change saved me hours every week. You need to try it.”
The bandwagon effect is real. We trust what others do or when we see big names involved. When you highlight trends or what others are doing, you make people feel part of the group. It’s a hook that makes them feel like they’ll be left out if they don’t click.
Example: “Join over 10,000 people who have already signed up for this…”
Now, let’s break down how to use these psychological principles to craft the most exciting and clickable hooks across social media platforms.
This is the “I need to know more” hook. Don’t give everything away. Give just enough to make them curious. Think about this attention-grabbing element like the first bite of food: you don’t get the full taste yet, but you know you want more.
Example: “I spent 10 hours doing this. Here’s what happened…”
When using curiosity, don’t leave your audience hanging too long. Give them enough to feel like it’s worth it, but don’t let the gap be too big.
Make your audience feel something when they come across your social media content. As Kahneman explains, emotional memory is stronger than rational thinking. So play into that when creating content.
Example: “I’ve never felt so empowered. You need to watch this story.”
The key is to focus on universally relatable emotions like joy, surprise, or fear of missing out (FOMO). It doesn’t matter if you’re B2B or B2C or manage social media accounts across opposite platforms (like LinkedIn vs. TikTok). Everyone feels these things.
FOMO works; it’s plain and simple. People want to be a part of the bigger picture, and when they see everyone else doing something, they feel a pull to join.
Example: “Everyone’s doing this, and so should you. Here’s why…”
This is also part of our survival kit, wired deeply into our brains, whether we like it or not. Back in the day, being in a group meant you were safer than wandering alone, so we developed this innate instinct to seek belonging.
To boost engagement even more, try combining these types of engaging hooks with user-generated content or influencer collaborations. Seeing others participate increases the likelihood of engagement.
A question-based hook makes people stop and think, as it’s an instant call to action. When you ask a question that hits home, you’re forcing them to engage. It could be a direct question or a rhetorical one that makes them want to answer.
Example: “What’s the one thing you wish you knew before starting out as a business owner?”
The key is to be specific in your question. Ask about their pain points or something that matters to them if you really want to spark interest with a captivating hook.
The unexpected works, because no one’s mind is saturated with the uncommon. People love learning new things, hearing breaking news, seeing a bold statement or an unpopular opinion, especially when they’re taken aback by surprising stats or facts. It creates that “wow” factor that makes them pause.
Example: “Did you know 95% of your competitors are doing this wrong? Here’s how to fix it.”
But to truly build that audience retention, don’t just throw random facts. Instead, make sure they’re relevant and valuable to your audience. Back them up with credible and reliable sources to build trust.
Here are examples of each type of hook. Regardless if you’re a content creator, social media manager, agency owner, or all of the above, you’ll notice that these work wonders, and you can apply them to video, images, or written content.
People love a good mystery, and the sneak peek hook capitalizes on that. This hook offers just enough information to pique curiosity but keeps enough hidden to compel the audience to want more and continue consuming content from your post.
Examples:
This technique plays into a psychological principle where the brain craves resolution. When you tease the audience with something juicy but without fully revealing it, you increase the likelihood they’ll engage.
These are the best formats:
Use a short time frame, like the first 2-3 seconds of your video, to tease, and save the payoff for the next post.
This is the hook that goes beyond logic and straight to the heart. You’ll want to spark joy, inspiration, or empathy with emotional hooks. Then, you’ll create a strong, visceral connection with the audience. When people feel something from your great hook, they engage more.
Examples:
Psychology shows that people remember emotions more vividly than facts. According to Paul Ekman, emotions like happiness, surprise, or even frustration have universal appeal, which makes them powerful triggers.
Best formats:
We’re wired to want to be part of something bigger. The FOMO (fear of missing out) hook taps into this social need. Highlighting trends, communities, or a group achievement makes your audience want to be part of the “in-crowd”.
Examples:
Best formats:
Questions are a straightforward but highly effective way to drive engagement. A well-placed question can get people thinking, and when they think, they’re more likely to respond.
Examples:
This technique uses a Socratic-inspired method to get the audience to reflect on their own experiences. Questions create a natural opportunity for engagement through comments and replies, as long as you ask questions that require more than a “yes” or “no” answer.
Best formats:
We all love new, surprising information. This hook grabs attention by providing unexpected facts or statistics that challenge what people think they know.
Examples:
Best formats:
This hook is incredibly effective when you’re directly addressing a pain point and offering a solution. People are always looking for ways to improve their lives, so presenting your product or idea as the fix works wonders.
Examples:
Best formats:
Before you read this section, please note that there is no one-size-fits-all perfect formula. However, the best hook formula is like cooking, which means you have to mix ingredients to create something unique. The best way to go about it is to:
For example:
If there’s one thing to take away from this, it’s this: hooks are not one-size-fits-all. What works for TikTok may not work for LinkedIn, and what drives engagement on Instagram might need tweaking for Twitter.
As we’ve seen, there’s psychology behind these hooks, but the key is testing. Figure out which hook works for your audience and the platform you’re using. Test your copy, video hooks, CTAs, and even the format.
Use social media analytics tools to track performance. These platforms help you gather feedback, adjust copy, and track how hooks perform across various formats and platforms.
Look at key metrics like engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversion metrics. The more you analyze, the more insights you’ll gain.
If a hook fails, check these boxes:
Social media strategy equals collaboration. Your team works together to craft compelling hooks, refine messaging, and make sure everything aligns with your brand goals. And with the right tools, they can do it in real time. Yup, that means no more endless email chains or messy document revisions.
A shared workspace where teams can leave comments, approve posts, and schedule content together.
What could really help your social media strategy is Planable’s visual previews. Before you even hit “Publish”, you can see how your content will look across different platforms. Tidy, branded, purpose-led feeds are one click away.
Post previews with team comments and feedback shown side by side for easy collaboration.
And then there’s the social media approval process. Social media teams, including those in agencies or larger businesses, deal with multiple stakeholders. That means that approvals can get messy and lengthy. But Planable’s job is to help clear this system up. You can set up customized approval flows so that content passes through the necessary hands before going live.
For teams using Planable, the real value comes from its ability to harmonize workflows and save time while staying flexible.
And hey, Planable also includes Planable AI, which helps generate captions and new video ideas, as well as test new hooks.
AI editing tools offering quick ways to rewrite post content with options like shorten, expand, or punch up.
Crafting hooks is a skill every social media marketer needs in their toolkit. Hooks play a huge role in your social media content success, as they are the first impression and your chance to stop the scroll.
So, to share some of my final tips, I’m going to let you in on a question that reframed my POV on how I write hooks:
What’s in it for them? And what story are you inviting them into?
Okay, two questions. Anyhow…
Ready to start? Planable is here to help with your content creation and testing process. Sign up today and get 50 free posts.
George – Content Marketing Strategist, storyteller, and self-appointed cringe detector. 7 years in marketing, starting from graphic design to social, campaigns, and content. Writes, shoots, edits – if it’s creative, he’s on it. Knows what’s funny, what’s fresh, and what should never see the light of day. Always up to date, always cooking up something (and trying to hit his protein goal), all while pretending to get 8 hours of sleep.
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