Your hook is costing you impressions — 3 frameworks to FIX it

Hellooooooooo!!!!!

It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve talked to you guys. Tbh I missed it 😭

How are you guys doing? I want all the goss! Give me all of it.

I’ve been dealing with low energy due to Vit b12 deficiency. Despite this, we are doing so much babyyy. We have launched an e-book (buy here), we are niching down to brand positioning for D2C brands, we are writing another e-book on — How to Outreach, we have made March goals and we have completed February goals. I’m coming for you Narayan Murthy, Sir. You have no chance now. 💅

For today’s edition we are talking about the second most important topic after global warming, Hooks. LinkedIn hooks, LinkedIn algorithm, LinkedIn posts — these are creators first-world problems but we are gonna make one aspect of it easier today.

Recently I saw a shift in my hooks and I also noticed a shift in impressions. So, I went back to the hooks from the past week and tried to find out what was working, what the common pattern was that you can apply to your LinkedIn posts. 

I noticed three common frameworks in my hooks. Let’s talk about it.

This is the easiest one to get the hang of. Of the 7 hooks that worked well, 3 were questions. It works particularly well if the question challenges an assumption.

Is your brand unknowingly giving two messages? — Brands don’t want to give two messages. So, it instantly clicks with them.

How do you find clients as a freelancer? — Freelancers would want to know about this.

Why are you providing so much value for free in your newsletter? — People would want to subscribe to a newsletter with value, again instant click.

For context:

1/ Is your brand unknowingly giving two messages?
The post was about Sweet Karam Coffee, who was unknowingly giving two messages. But instead of starting from Sweet Karam Coffee, we started with a question.

2/ How do you find clients as a freelancer?
The post was about the ebook I launched on this topic. But instead of saying  — hey, I’ve launched an ebook in the first line. I straightaway talked to the freelancers in the first line.

3/ Why are you providing so much value for free in your newsletter? 
The post was the question asked by Dhruv. Instead of leading with ‘Dhruv asked me a question,’ I put the question first. 

There are two common patterns: (too meta?)

1/ Hooks are talking directly to the target audience
2/ Hooks aren’t the beginning of your story. Hooks are lines that capture your audience first then you lean into your story. Also, hooks are not the topic of your posts either. 

Two of the hooks that worked well last week were statements.

I have two newsletters. 
24 comments and 30 reposts. 

Both of these hooks are connected to what you are about to read in the post, but without context you may not get much of an idea. These hooks work better than starting your post right away because they leave context hanging, which makes people click the view more option.

For Context:

1/ I have two newsletter
In this post I’m talking about owning two newsletters. I’ve only mentioned one newsletter (this one) on LinkedIn repeatedly. Very few people know about the second one. 

2/ 24 comments and 30 reposts
This post is a sarcastic comment on company culture. It also had a screenshot which proved that numbers were real. It makes people more interested.

Note: I used statements when I knew it would make my audience curious about the rest of the post. They aren’t random statements; there is some context which makes the reader more curious.

Two of the hooks were concluding statements.

And this is why brand positioning is important.

Now people would want to know what ‘this’ is. If you have written blogs, then you would already know about top-down approach, where the writer starts from the result/conclusion and unpacks from there. In the similar way, when you have a solid result/ conclusion, then you can use a top-down approach, which works better.

Context: The post also had a picture, so the hook wasn’t random. It had some context but not the full context, enough to make people curious to click more.

Of course, this is a non-exhaustive list. There are many formats and frameworks out there. The best way to apply them is by experimenting and by spending time on it. Even for these 3, there is no set formula for when to use what, just sit with it and see which one makes more sense according to the content. 

This may sound tiring but over the last month, I’ve been more conscious about hooks. I’ve noticed what others have written, what clicks with me, what I think could be better in other people’s posts. And after repeatedly working on it, my instincts started clicking.

I would recommend you do the same — study it, experiment with it and spend some time on it. The changes that follow are worth it.

But if I had to say more, I’d say

Important to note: Hook is an important part of the post, but it is still ‘a part’. Much of it depends on the content of the post. Hooks may give initial impressions but it is the content that determines engagement and then second degree and third degree impressions.

This is it for today’s newsletter. I’ll see you next Saturday with another topic. And yes, I’m still waiting on that gossip.

Have a happy Holi, everyone!