17 Hook Formulas for Short-Form Video (With Examples)

You have 1.3 seconds. These 17 hook formulas are the ones that consistently survive our A/B tests.

Spoken hooks

1. Negative promise: “Stop doing X.” 2. Specific result: “This edit added 40k subs.” 3. Contrarian: “Everything you know about Y is wrong.” 4. Direct callout: “If you’re a video editor, watch this.” 5. Mid-story start: begin at the climax.

Text hooks

6. The list promise (“3 tools, 30 seconds”). 7. The stakes line (“I almost lost the channel”). 8. POV framing. 9. The forbidden angle (“what agencies won’t tell you”). 10. Numbers with decimals — oddly specific converts.

Visual hooks

11. Motion in frame one. 12. Unusual object/setting. 13. Fast push-in. 14. Result-first (show the after). 15. Pattern break from your usual style. 16. On-screen countdown. 17. The unfinished action a viewer must see completed.

Stack one from each category — spoken + text + visual — and your hook survives the scroll. See them working in our short-form portfolio.

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