Video hook tactics

Same video concept, different platform name in the hook. 'Stop using LinkedIn to apply to jobs' reaches white-collar workers who apply to hundreds of jobs and will pay to automate it. 'Stop using Indeed' / 'Who's still using Indeed?' reaches blue-collar workers who get interviews easily and flood the comments with hate about paying to apply. Read the comments to tell whether you hit the right audience.

To recruit creators, SideShift's co-founder Nick posted his own non-talking video (April of the prior year): big on-screen text 'I have a master's degree / PhD and couldn't find a job' at the bottom, pointing at a screen with facial expressions (hook + demo), riding job-market anger. Once cracked, the format was given to all creators; variants like 'I graduated from Yale and can't even get an interview'. A year later a campaign manager turned it into a one-minute talking-head story ('denied from a cashier's job, I have a master's degree') ending with 'but I'm making money with SideShift'.

Faceless TikTok slideshow: girl without makeup -> girl with makeup with GlamUp branding -> app screenshot of the personalized routine. Hundreds to thousands of posts used the identical on-screen hook ('never saw myself with the / right makeup routine' + two crying-face emojis on a third line), identical caption ('I will be unstoppable' + exhausted emoji), same hashtags and one of ~10 proven audios. On-screen text kept small and off-center, 'Gen Z Insta-girly' style. Hook wording, line count and text size were tested; other audios did not go viral. Earlier formats that failed: Latina makeup slideshows, color theory, celebrities, makeup tutorials. Posted across ~20 UGC creators' accounts.

Creator mispronounces a word that sounds like something else (often rude) in English, or is just bad at the language; Pingo roasts them instead of saying 'great job'; creator shows emotion, often crying via a Snapchat crying-filter hook. Variations: Pingo is mean without crying; creators add props or activities (knitting, writing, slime, cutting fruit). Run in Korean, German, French, Arabic, Japanese, Russian and more.

Only one format, no deviation: (1) an absurd AI-generated image as the hook with a prank caption (e.g. 'Pranking my dad, I cooked his koi fish'); (2) screen recording of generating it in the app, with a big loading screen showing the Halo AI name and logo for ~2 seconds as the only call to action; (3) a screen-recorded text conversation with the pranked person that builds up to a twist/payoff. Mostly pranks. A good format must be viral, repeatable and convert. Sounds matter; hashtags don't affect reach.

Brands paying a creator effectively fund format experiments. Gelato (print-on-demand) booked ~5 videos; the best got ~1M organic views (24K likes). A week later Casper reused the exact hook and structure for Payout, changing only the number: 'Watch me make up to $900 in just 30 seconds. First I go to Google and search class action... or an easier way could be using an app where you select a bunch of companies you've used... Here's up to $500 from T-Mobile, 250 from Mitsubishi, and 147 from Cash App... Just comment claim and I'll send you the app.'

When the pure how-to format dried up, Casper made a skit: 'Hey Temu, is it true that I can make $1,000 from your lawsuit?' / 'Yeah, and some people can make up to $5,000.' / 'How can I apply?' / 'Fine, but you didn't hear this from me.' The 'company' character then walks through the steps: 'First, you go to this app, find the Temu lawsuit... click claim... fill out a simple form... Just comment claim and I'll send you the app.' Skit is the first ~30-40%, the rest is how-to. Swap in any sued company.

Format: on-camera reaction (hand over mouth, OMG) with a text hook, then straight into the app on a phone on a table. Text hook adapted from another niche's 'I've been doing X for Y years and now I find out about this': 'I've been solo traveling for 2 years and now I find out about this [facepalm]'. Voiceover shows planning activities with nearby solo travellers and the chat. End with a specific personal detail ('Where was this when I had the most unsocial hostel in Thailand?') so it feels real and not like an ad. Creators run variants such as 'Imagine being scared of solo traveling when this literally exists', reacting while sipping a drink and winking.

The dishwashing video's paragraph text originally opened with 'Everybody needs a side hustle'. Switching the opening to 'Don't get a second job' made it go viral. Nic's reading: no one likes being told what to do, and 'you need a side hustle' makes assumptions about the viewer; the new line says the same thing with a different sentiment.

Format: a 5-second clip of the creator making a surprised face, with a long text overlay that takes ~15 seconds to read, so viewers watch it about three times. Matt writes the overlay word for word. Example: 'Just seen a girl in the library writing an essay, no notes, no open tabs, no ChatGPT, no Jenni AI, no textbooks, no music, just her and her own thoughts against the world, like a psychopath.' The aim is 'engagement bait', not pure rage bait: the claim should split opinion so some viewers attack it and others defend it (here, 'no tabs and no music is what makes this crazy'). The product name sits inside the text. Coming up with the angle takes emotional intelligence about what people are talking about now, adapted to the niche.

Copied and slightly improved a competitor's format. Hook: filmed over the shoulder 'in the wild' at night or in the rain, the founder doing push-ups next to his phone on the pavement, caption and a female AI voice saying 'My bro is doing push-ups at 2:00 a.m. to scroll Reels' with a skull emoji. Within 2-3 seconds it cuts to him explaining and demoing the app ('every push-up I do gives me 1 minute I can use to scroll'), mentioning a secondary feature, and ending with a CTA. The more bizarre the setting, the more curiosity. Posted as an open ad rather than disguised. Repeated the same hook over and over; recommends having 3-4 formats in rotation because one fatigues, and studying competitors' hooks rather than copying 1:1.

Make ~90% of each campaign cloned content and ~10% new experiments. Take a post that already performed (yours or a competitor's), clone it and change one element: hook, CTA, avatar, colors, a slide image, text font/copy, creator, language or product demo. Choose subtle, moderate or dramatic variance so TikTok does not detect it as a duplicate (avoids shadowbans). Post the variations on other accounts. At a median of 20% of the original's views, 5-10 clones match the original's total volume. Feed winning hooks/CTAs/avatars into future campaigns.