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Hook - Instagram Glossary

The hook is the opening moment of a piece of content - the first one to two seconds of a reel, the first slide of a carousel, the first line of a caption. It is the only part most viewers see, and it determines whether the rest gets distributed at all.

Instagram decides whether to widen a post's audience largely on early retention. A reel that loses half its viewers in two seconds signals low quality regardless of how good the remaining fifty seconds are. This is why editing the hook usually outperforms editing anything else.

A working hook does one of three things: states a specific outcome, contradicts a belief the viewer holds, or opens a loop the viewer needs closed. What it never does is introduce itself. 'Hi guys, in this video' is the single most reliable way to lose the audience before the content starts.

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