I Studied 100 Viral Hooks, These 6 Will Make You Go Viral

Learn the 6 viral hook formats that can boost your social media video performance and create irresistible curiosity loops.

Key Takeaways

Mastering hooks is essential for viral social media content.
All successful viral videos use one of six proven hook formats.
Creating strong contrast in the hook builds curiosity and viewer engagement.
Hooks must be clear and aligned across visual and audio elements.
Experimentation and teaching through hooks can build authority and trust.

What the video covers

The key to winning on social media is mastering the hook, which drives 80% of video success.
The creator studied thousands of viral videos and identified six core hook formats used by top performers.
Hooks work by creating a curiosity loop through contrast, making viewers want to keep watching.
The six hook formats include the Fortune Teller, Experimenter, Magician, and others that leverage psychology.
The Fortune Teller hook contrasts present reality with a future possibility to spark curiosity.
The Experimenter hook shows creators testing or demonstrating something new to solve a problem.
Hooks must grab attention within the first 5 seconds to be effective.
Visuals, audio, and verbal hooks must be aligned to maximize viewer comprehension and retention.
Examples from popular creators like Colin and Samir and MrBeast illustrate these hook formats in action.
The video also covers tactical advice on writing hooks and common mistakes to avoid.

Chapters

What are the six viral hook formats discussed in the video?

The video identifies six viral hook formats including the Fortune Teller, Experimenter, Magician, and others that create curiosity through contrast and storytelling techniques.

How do hooks create curiosity in viewers?

Hooks create curiosity by presenting a contrast between what viewers currently believe and a new alternative, forming a curiosity loop that compels viewers to keep watching.

Why is alignment between visual and audio hooks important?

Alignment between visual and audio hooks prevents confusion, improves comprehension, and helps the viewer stay engaged with the content, increasing the chances of video success.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

The biggest difference between winning and losing on social media is the hook. This is the 80/20 of video. If you want your videos to perform better, you need to focus on leveling up your hooks. Now, I've studied thousands of videos, and it turns out all of the best performers only use six different hook formats. If you know these six, you're set. So in this video, I'm going to break all that down.

Speaker A

first we're going to walk through all six hook formats with examples and then I'm going to give you a full playbook for how to actually write winning hooks on your own I guarantee this this will be the best video on hooks you ever watch and I know this works because I've done billions of views myself using these exact same methods all right now first before anything else we need to

Speaker A

First, we're going to walk through all six hook formats with examples, and then I'm going to give you a full playbook for how to actually write winning hooks on your own. I guarantee this will be the best video on hooks you ever watch, and I know this works because I've done billions of views myself using these exact same methods. All right, now first, before anything else, we need to

Speaker A

viewer starts the video believing one thing and then we introduce an alternative in the hook they believe a we show them B and the distance between A and B is contrast the bigger the contrast the more the Curiosity and the deeper the hook it really is as simple as that but the hard part is you only have 5 Seconds to make it stick so each of these six hook formats are

Speaker A

understand the psychology behind how hooks work. This is super important. Hooks are designed for one reason: to create a curiosity loop. Think of it like a rabbit hole in the viewer's brain. We need to get them curious enough about the topic that they couldn't dream of doing anything else other than watching our video. Now, the best way to create that curiosity loop is with contrast. The

Speaker A

going to change cooking forever or that little blue light is going to impact traffic moving forward here are a couple other examples of the fortun teller hook in action we're witnessing one of the largest breakthroughs in marketing this is the future of animation and this fortune teller hook format Works super well because the human brain is designed to constantly think about the future so

Speaker A

viewer starts the video believing one thing, and then we introduce an alternative. In the hook, they believe A, we show them B, and the distance between A and B is contrast. The bigger the contrast, the more the curiosity and the deeper the hook. It really is as simple as that, but the hard part is you only have 5 seconds to make it stick. So each of these six hook formats are

Speaker A

interest around knowing the future of some topic and again I'm going through all six of these base formats first so we can build that Baseline before going deeper tactically into how to actually write the hooks and I'll go through that in a minute okay now the second hook format is called the experimentor and this one is all about the Creator showcasing how something works using a

Speaker A

specifically designed to create that contrast and build the curiosity loop. All right, now the first hook format is called the fortune teller, and it's all about positioning the present against the future. The creator is using some scenario or question to build curiosity about how the future might change. So this could mean saying something like, "That new microwave is going to change cooking forever," or "That little blue light is going to impact traffic moving forward." Here are a couple other examples of the fortune teller hook in action: "We're witnessing one of the largest breakthroughs in marketing," "This is the future of animation." And this fortune teller hook format works super well because the human brain is designed to constantly think about the future, so

Speaker A

weird about this shot to you I actually don't have have a camera in my hands I'm recording with these glasses on my face these are the rayan meta smart glasses and they're about to change the way that we create this right here is the brand new cha gbt agent that literally controls your browser and does tasks for you and this is an 11-step process and we're going to see if it does it now I

Speaker A

it's playing into that. So the tactical steps for using this hook format would be: A, establish what the current reality is; B, figure out how the future might change based on the video subject; and C, frame a question or statement teasing that new future as a possibility. And this format is great for breaking news, product innovations, really anybody that's trying to build authority or

Speaker A

experiments but he's basically doing human experiments and then letting you watch in real time to see what happens so the Tactical steps for using the experiment hook framework are to a establish the base pain point that needs solving B show that you solved the paino or tried some new method or tool with an experiment and then C walk through why that new experiment or solve is

Speaker A

interest around knowing the future of some topic. And again, I'm going through all six of these base formats first so we can build that baseline before going deeper tactically into how to actually write the hooks, and I'll go through that in a minute. Okay, now the second hook format is called the experimenter, and this one is all about the creator showcasing how something works using a

Speaker A

going if you like the way I break this content stuff down using the metaphors and the names to make it a little bit easier I actually did the exact same thing around virality how does virality work breaking into a formula you can actually grabb that it's a free 5-day email course called The virality Blueprint explains Concepts like this but in way more depth you can grab that

Speaker A

demo or experiment, and specifically this is angled as peer-to-peer. It's one friend showing another what they learned or came across. So the contrast that's being built is coming from: I used to do something this way, I figured out some method or format, let me show you how. Now I'm doing this thing this way. And here are a couple examples of the experiment format in action: "Does anything look

Speaker A

I'm the teacher of this topic I just saw somebody who solved X with Y method let me break that down and explain to you how they did it again the contrast is coming from you're failing at this thing

Speaker A

weird about this shot to you? I actually don't have a camera in my hands. I'm recording with these glasses on my face. These are the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and they're about to change the way that we create." This right here is the brand new ChatGPT agent that literally controls your browser and does tasks for you, and this is an 11-step process, and we're going to see if it does it. Now I

Speaker A

how I got this shot I made this Ecom brand a million dollar in 12 hours using something called the product drop method and again these are all teaching setups so it's either the Creator tried something and extracted the lessons and is now teaching it not like experiment but teaching the methods or they studied someone else who solved that thing and then is now teaching those lessons back

Speaker A

especially love the Colin and Samir one because Samir is actually showing how the glasses work in the hook as well. He doesn't have to use the hook to tee it up in the future because the glasses camera is the subject itself, and that video did 50 million views for a reason. And a lot of MrBeast videos fall into this hook category as well. He doesn't always explicitly explain them as

Speaker A

sell that expertise okay now the fourth hook framework is a little bit different than the other five it's called the magician and it can be used as a precursor or in combination with the rest of them now the magician is basically a stun gun it's strategically using visuals and or language like hey look at that to visually Force the viewer's attention to a specific thing

Speaker A

experiments, but he's basically doing human experiments and then letting you watch in real time to see what happens. So the tactical steps for using the experiment hook framework are to: A, establish the base pain point that needs solving; B, show that you solved the pain or tried some new method or tool with an experiment; and then C, walk through why that new experiment or solve is

Speaker A

tactic like what Carl Shakur uses the kind of snap click or it could be the spoken words themselves like look at that crazy thing and really forcing the attention my favorite example of this is the neon sign guy who starts out as Trump with the wig makes a joke in the voice and then throws the wig off and immediately starts talking about the neon signs I've been using this on my

Speaker A

different and helps solve the pain better. And this format is great for product demos, new frameworks. It's also great for B2B trying to showcase how your tool or product works. This is also the same hook framework where those people that make the elaborate outdoor structures, camping or building a log cabin by hand, this is the same format they're using as well. And before we keep

Speaker A

this it just gives that kind of unique signature pattern that people recognize audibly when they hear it another great way to achieve the magician is with something called a visual pacifier now this is an activity that the subject is doing passively which holds just enough of your subconscious attention to let you focus on the thing this could either be like Alex Earl doing her makeup or

Speaker A

going, if you like the way I break this content stuff down using the metaphors and the names to make it a little bit easier, I actually did the exact same thing around virality—how does virality work, breaking into a formula you can actually grab. That is a free 5-day email course called The Virality Blueprint. It explains concepts like this but in way more depth. You can grab that

Speaker A

magician with any of the other five a lot of people stack them so they use the magician immediately as a visual stun gun and then layer on one of the other five below so tactically to do this you

Speaker A

there's a link below or go to viralityblueprint.com and you can sign up. All right, let's keep going. Now the third hook format is called the teacher, and this one is similar to the experimenter except that instead of going peer-to-peer, it's going more teacher to student, and instead of showing things with a live experiment, it's more showing them by framing a lesson. So it's kind of like

Speaker A

that nobody knows about so the contrast is today you don't know the thing I show you the thing now you know the thing very simple almost all of my personal short form videos fall into this category it's kind of unearthing some tech or AI thing about the future potentially that people don't know about and there's a ton of amazing examples showcasing this format as well so this

Speaker A

"I'm the teacher of this topic. I just saw somebody who solved X with Y method. Let me break that down and explain to you how they did it." Again, the contrast is coming from: you're failing at this thing,

Speaker A

then frame it against their current reality which is not knowing and the communicated contrast in this one is pretty straightforward because the base cases they don't know and then you tell them something they know some of these don't have to be super cheeky they could be pretty straightforward but inherently they'll still grab and create that interest this format is great for people

Speaker A

I found a new way to do it. Let me explain how to do it so that you can start winning. And here are a few examples of the teacher format in action: "Three things you can learn from Aritzia," "Here's

Speaker A

specifically and say what they believe about the topic that is different than the conventional wisdom and the difference between this one and some of the others is that a few of the s kind of slightly try to hide that contrast in the framing whereas this one immediately you come straight out and just say you're doing your branding wrong you should be doing it this way it's very

Speaker A

how I got this shot," "I made this e-commerce brand a million dollars in 12 hours using something called the product drop method." And again, these are all teaching setups, so it's either the creator tried something and extracted the lessons and is now teaching it—not like experiment but teaching the methods—or they studied someone else who solved that thing and then is now teaching those lessons back.

Speaker A

brand and the weird thing is they're best sellers are almost never in stock NOW of the six hook formats this one is the most direct at creating that contrast and it's really easy the Tactical steps would be figure out what you believe that most people don't believe and then say it explicitly this is great for the smarty pants expert use case or somebody that's trying to frame

Speaker A

Either way, it's show by teaching. And so the tactical steps for using this one would be: A, establish the base pain; B, show that you have a solve through some set of learnings or method; and then C, walk them through why the process or steps worked because of your solve. And this format is super good for anybody who's trying to build authority in the category or become an expert to then

Speaker A

manipulated to use any of the six hook formats for example let's say I made videos reviewing backpacks and this new interesting backpack just came out that I wanted to make a video about how would I go about using all six of these in different ways so for the fortune teller I may say something like this backpack is going to completely change the way Millennials travel for the experimenter

Speaker A

sell that expertise. Okay, now the fourth hook framework is a little bit different than the other five. It's called the magician, and it can be used as a precursor or in combination with the rest of them. Now, the magician is basically a stun gun. It's strategically using visuals and/or language like "Hey, look at that" to visually force the viewer's attention to a specific thing

Speaker A

which of these backpacks is the best for a guy in their 20s for the investigator I may say something like I can't believe this company isn't marketing this one flaw in their bag and then for the contrarian I may say something like everybody loves this bag but if you use it every day it is so overhyped and see so you can pick any of those hooks directions with every single video topic

Speaker A

in the visual, and it's usually something outlandish or just rhythmic and visually pops to stop the scroll. Now, there are a ton of amazing examples of people who do this: China CH, what's up MTTV, Chis, yo check this out. So President Trump just ordered the resurgence of a 1980s plan for nuclear war in space. Let me explain. So this can either be executed with some visual stun

Speaker A

gets into the second part of the video which is tactically how do you actually write a banger hook that crushes every single time cuz that's where the sauce really lies so let's walk through that I'm going to break the whole thing down right now all hooks are made up of four components the spoken hook which is what you say the visual hook which is what you show on the screen the text hook

Speaker A

tactic like what Karl Shakur uses—the kind of snap click—or it could be the spoken words themselves like "Look at that crazy thing," and really forcing the attention. My favorite example of this is the neon sign guy who starts out as Trump with the wig, makes a joke in the voice, and then throws the wig off and immediately starts talking about the neon signs.

Speaker A

misalignment and then the hook is not as effective to nail the hook you need all four of these things to line up perfectly and the reason this matters is because because of comprehension comprehension is the degree to which the viewer actually understands what they're seeing and hearing you can't hook them unless they fully understand and are interested in what they're watching if

Speaker A

your verbal spoken Hook is different from your visual hook which is different from the music in your audio hook well that leads to confusion and confusion leads to comprehension loss which just makes it harder for the viewer to stick with the hook the way to drive Max comprehension is to make sure the visual and audio hooks are aligned and so how do you do this the way you do this is to

Speaker A

understand exactly how the viewer takes in the video when they're watching and this gets to the Deep psychology which is my favorite thing to do imagine a subconscious heat map when somebody's watching the video where are they actually focusing their attention I'm going to tell you this is what all viewers do the first thing they do is they take in the visual and text hook

Speaker A

they see the visual they may read the text hook if it's obvious enough in the right place and then their ears catch up and they hear the spoken hook after and after they hear what you're saying they look back at the visual and they're seeking visual confirmation with what they heard so it's visual audio visual that sandwich is how people actually take in videos at the subconscious level

Speaker A

now why is this the case well the reason is our eyes process 10 to 100 times more information per second than our ears and this is essentially the speed of light vers speed of sound phenomenon so the viewer is seeing first then hearing and then looking back at the visual to match what they heard okay so tactically tying all this together what does this actually mean and why did I spend so

Speaker A

much time going through those six hook archetypes what this means is that the most important part of getting the hook to actually perform well is the visual it's not what you say it's the visual I call this the key visual so when you first have your video idea the very first thing you should do is figure out what visual or visuals you have at your disposal that you could actually slot

Speaker A

into the first 3 to 5 seconds and based on that key visual you then need to decide which of the six hook archetypes will create the most contrast and perfectly aligned with what that visual shows knowing the visual lets you set up the speech to then set back up to the visual this is the golden approach to hooks that nobody talks about at this level all right so now I'm going to say

Speaker A

it again one more time but more organized so the very first step is you need to look at what visuals do you have the better the visual the more you can lean on the visual and the easier it

Speaker A

will be to set up the contrast back to the visual if you don't have a good visual you need to really think should I make this video and if you do want to make it how are you going to manufacture

Speaker A

the key visual with Motion Graphics or some stock footage to create this interesting thing to look at step two is that once you have the visual you need to think about what are the most interesting fact sets or angles things about the story that you have to work with and based on those what has the biggest contrast whichever one has the biggest contrast will inform which of

Speaker A

the six hook archetypes that you actually use step three is that I would then write the spoken hook this is going to be two to four lines and it's going to follow the context lean contrast and contrarian Snapback approach that I detailed in my other Hook video I'll link that here step four is then what text can I put on screen overlaying the video to support that initial Visual and

Speaker A

the reconfirmation of the visual after someone hears the speech and then step five I'm going to watch it back and gut check with myself does this achieve Max comprehension if the viewer goes visual speech visual are they very clear on what I'm talking about in this video and does that align with where I think the rest of the video will go if not I will stop not move forward and rework the

Speaker A

hook that is how important it is all right now really quick I just want to walk through a couple examples of my own content to illustrate what I mean by good and bad hooks we're going to show one of each the first one is an example of a perfect hook this video is about life-size floor plans which is this really cool projected home floor plans in a warehouse this video did 15 million

Speaker A

views so the first thing I want you to do is watch this video with no sound we're going to turn the sound off just watch the hook visually and I want you to think where do your eyes go what do

Speaker A

you notice and what do you see so we're going to play that right now all right now the first place your eyes probably go is that sliding text that comes across that says the future of Home Design This first clip with a split screen you don't actually see that well the girl with the arms going up that was more just a visual stun gun the actual hero visual the key visual that I

Speaker A

saw in the idea that I knew I was going to build the whole video around was the next visual in the full screen with the people walking on top of the floor plans what I did is I put text that said

Speaker A

life-size floor plans with an arrow enhancing the fact that your visual eyeline went directly to that thing I wanted to make sure you saw that and so this was the visual shocker right there's embedded contrast here most people have never seen this before so the fact that it existed on its own created a large contrast I knew that visual was a great key visual to build

Speaker A

off of okay so the next thing is I had actually pick which of the hook formats that I want to go with and then how would I actually write the hook itself so when I looked at the formats there

Speaker A

were two that made sense one was the fortune teller this is the future of Home Design and the second one was The Secret Keeper I found this secret about how people are designing homes that nobody knew they're close to the same but slightly different I went with the fortune teller one because which is easier to explain and creates more of a shock this is what the future of Home

Speaker A

Design will look like right so that's what I picked and then step three was I had to actually write the hook so context lean contrast contrarian take so I literally said check this out that was my magician scroll stop thing and then I said these are life-size floor plant you can literally walk through your exact Home Design before you build it right so

Speaker A

that's context lean that is me literally describing exactly what you're seeing that is perfect alignment with showing the visual and saying the thing then for this one I didn't actually need a contrasting word I didn't need to say but here's what's crazy because the fact that it existed on its own was already contrast enough so my contrarian take which maps to the Future hook fortune

Speaker A

teller was I think this is the future of how people are going to design their homes right so it's exactly what I'm saying I picked the fortune teller I talked about the future I set up the context lean what you're seeing with pure Al alignment and then I framed this is the future of how people are going to design their homes that is tailor made how you build the hook with pure

Speaker A

alignment and this one worked 15 million views now before we end the video Let's quickly go through one bad example where I made a video but it didn't work out that well it got maybe 100,000 views or less and the hook was just executed super poorly so I want to explain what went wrong and what I should have done looking back okay so the same thing here I want you to watch this video without

Speaker A

sound just watch the first 15 seconds and tell me where you focus your attention [Music] right away you see the tech sliding across again future of Storytelling and then you see a bunch of these rooms kind of like magically appearing out of nowhere just that alone is kind of

Speaker A

misaligned future of Storytelling is a bit of an abstract concept and so visualizing that with those rooms does that really mean future of Storytelling not really so already just in the visual and with the text there is comprehension lost then when you turn the sound on it gets even more confusing so I say this is the future of Storytelling it's called a generative World model it lets

Speaker A

you turn a single image into a photorealistic cinematic World okay so if you really take that down future of Storytelling it's so abstract it's like what do you even show for that maybe it's a book with a video or a robot coming out of it maybe I could have used that the problem is nobody knows what generative World model is nobody knows what photorealistic world so I use these

Speaker A

crazy terms that I didn't have good visuals to show and you can tell immediately it's just a little confusing it's not as straightforward as the life-size floor plans one and so when you watch this yeah maybe you're like oh those are cool visuals but you're not actually hearing what I'm saying when you don't hear what I'm saying you have comprehension loss when you have

Speaker A

comprehension loss you're not purely tied and aligned with the video and so looking back maybe what I should have done has gone more explicit so these rooms are the future of commercials and if I had visuals of guys actually using those rooms to film commercials and I could show that perspective maybe that would have worked the truth is this video didn't have great b-roll that was

Speaker A

easy to explain so what I should have done is probably canned the idea not made it in general and that's really what you need to decide when you're going through this process what is the visual what is the hook format writing the hook is there Clarity and Alignment if there isn't you probably should throw out the video because there's always more ideas that you could make so that's

Speaker A

really the process in a nutshell you have to have that Clarity and if you don't that's the difference between 10,000 views and 10 million views and look the reason that I can go so deep and I'm so nerdy on this stuff is because I live and breathe this content stuff all day long and I'm making this channel because I'm trying to show my experiments and show my work to help

Speaker A

other people grow with content but look if you don't want to have to worry about which hook format to use and how to exactly write it you don't want to take 60 minutes a day making videos that's completely fine I built sand castles which is a software to infuse all of these learnings and formulas and formats into it so all you have to do is put your video in and we'll do it for you we

Speaker A

go through the full diagnostic to figure out what is the right hook formula how should we frame it where is the best contrast it's all automatic so if you want to try that out sandcastles a have a free trial for you below that's the easiest way that you can close the gap on this without having to do all the work and guys if you like how I think about this stuff there is a ton more for

Speaker A

free in the description I have a free contact Community called wavy world with over 13,000 people that are learning the advanced psychology behind this stuff there's a free invite for you below make sure to grab that and keep me posted on what you guys want next keep the shares coming keep the comments coming until then we'll see you guys on the next one peace

Topics:viral hookssocial media growthvideo marketingcontent creationcuriosity loopvideo hooksviral video formulacontent strategyvideo engagementKallaway

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