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How To Hook Your Audience In 30 seconds (YouTube Into Ideas)

Video creators today are in a constant battle for their audience’s attention and it’s a battle, where there are no prizes for second place. It is absolutely critical that the content we produce, hooks our audiences in, stops from scrolling down their news feeds and gets them to invest their time into watching our content. In this post, we’re going to uncover hooks and how you can use them in the content you produce, in your business, to increase audience engagement and retention. Coming up! I’m going to reveal how to structure a powerful YouTube intro ideas using hooks.

If no one gets beyond the first 30 seconds, you’re kind of more or less wasting your time. I know it sounds a bit self-evident, but the aim of the game really is, to earn the click and then encourage the viewers to stay watching your videos, for as long as possible. The more people choose to click through to your video, the longer they’re likely to stay around assuming of course that your content is genuinely offering them real value. The more time people spend watching your videos is quite simply, the whole they’ll rank. And in turn, the more people will get to see your videos.

So what this translates to in real life in terms of being a business owner or entrepreneur, is more potential customers getting the opportunity to discover you first off, and then as they come into contact with more of your great quality content, these people grow to know, like and trust you. In simple English, a proportion of these people will eventually potentially become your new customers. That’s new people, coming through your door, wanting to buy your products or services. So that is why creating great content is so important.

Why hooks for video are important?

The first 15 to 30 seconds are vital on YouTube but more generally you’ve only got seven seconds to attract a viewer’s attention on socials, and then to get them to engage with your content just seven seconds, we really do have goldfish attention spans. Now hooks or how you attract and hold the attention of the viewer. And that goes for copy posts as well as videos.

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Copy-based Hooks

A hook attracts your attention and gets people excited about the upcoming content. The hook itself is typically from around 15 seconds to 45 seconds long. So we’re not talking about a two minute graphical kind of intro sequence, we’re talking about really getting the viewers buy-in really, really quickly. You’ve got to identify and communicate what is in it for the viewer, in a really succinct way. So they understand very quickly what’s in it for them and then they can decide whether they want to invest the time in watching more of that content that you’re producing.

So an example of copy-based hooks might well be, today you’re going to learn… and obviously put the subject matter in after that. So you’re immediately going in telling people what they’re going to get out of it. It really is about communicating why a viewer needs to invest time in looking at your content.

You could also do a sort of more attention grabbing line in terms of something like, “it’s a bit morbid!” but something like, “I almost died and then this happened!” and you’re trying to hook someone into a story and then you can… Once you’ve got their attention and you’ve sparked and you’ve piqued their curiosity, you can then drag them is sort of grab them and entice them, let’s say into your story and into your content.

Another really strong way of using a hook is in terms of a copy-based hook, is something along lines , of “coming up, we’ll reveal the truth about whatever it is.” Again, there’s an element of, let’s say, call it mystery or whatever in that kind of a headline and it’s of, again, it’s piquing curiosity in the viewer. So they’re going to want to find out, well, what is the truth about the subject that you’re talking about?

Structure of a compelling YouTube intro

Let’s talk about how you can structure a compelling YouTube intro. Marketers, Sunny Lennar Doozy has a great way of breaking down how to create a compelling video intro. She breaks it down into three distinct areas under her hot or HOT formula.

  1. Hook – The hook has to get the viewers attention straight away, then you move on to the outcome.
  2. Outcome – You tell your audience exactly what they’re going to get out of your video, compelling reasons, for them to stick around and carry on watching.
  3. Testimonial – This is about establishing your authority on a subject you’re talking about and giving the viewers a reason to trust what you say.

So, for example, imagine that I’m a plumber and I’ve got a YouTube channel. My testimonial bit might sound a bit like, “I’m Colin and I’ve been a plumber for 15 years “and I’ve worked out “that I’ve changed over 500 tap washes, in the last decade. “In this video, “I’m going to walk you through how to fix a dripping tap.” So in that example, you see how the testimonial element of things, would segue really nicely, into a video about how to change the washes on a tap, for example, it’s just building your authority, in terms of the subject matter that you’re going to go on to talk about, fundamentally. So people really not making it up cause you get wrong and then not wasting their time, the viewer.

Visual hooks

As we’ve seen hooks, be statements or questions something that’s written or spoken but also hooks can be visual too.

Some examples of visual hooks would be, for example, imagine if you are shooting an interview and during interview, you get some absolute gold or some amazing soundbites from the interviewee One idea that works really, really well, is to effectively use a soundbite and then start the video with the sound bite moment. And if it’s something contentious or it’s just a really, really amazing fact that no one knows that in itself and of itself, will entice people to stick around because they’ll, then that again peaks their interest and their wants to know, well, if this was part of a larger conversation I want to be part of that conversation. I want to know, that little tidbit of information was really interesting but I want to know more about it so it’s a really good way of effectively, what you’re doing is time shifting and you’re saying, “coming up, this amazing facts was revealed, but we need to know more about the context therefore people will stick around to watch the whole interview.

So, like I say, it could be an interviewee saying something contentious, or if you’re not doing sort of interviewee type based things it could be showing some impactful video footage. And then, so, I don’t know, it’s something like an amazing thing that happens. And then again, you’re peaking the viewers interest and they’re going to think, well, how on earth did that particular thing happen? That’s quite a spectacular thing, whatever it is I want to know the story behind it. And so then you spend the video unpacking the moments that led to that peak moment. It’s almost like the crescendo moment, in the main body, the video, when you’re taking viewers on a journey to that moment. And that is a really, really powerful way of engaging people, getting people into wanting to know more about your video.

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4 Hooks to use in your next videos

Let’s have a look at some examples of hooks that you can use in your next videos that you make. Four hooks to use in your videos.

  1. Fascinating Facts

One great way is to use kind of surprising facts or fascinating facts, “did you know,” and in this way, like we said before, you’re peaking the interest and the curiosity of the viewers, but also, because it’s a fact, you’re also demonstrating that you’ve got a depth of knowledge again which builds up the sort of credibility that you have in terms of what you’re talking about in this subject matter of your content.

2. Problem or Solution

Also, you can structure it in a problem solution kind of way. What I mean by that is, “have you ever struggled to, whatever it is? “Well, coming up, I’ve got three tips that will help you this, this and this.” So you’re setting yourself up in that way as potentially being able to help your audience with an issue or a pain point that they’ve got.

3. Ask a question

The other thing you can do, is to you ask questions. So, something along the lines of, “have you ever wondered or how do you, whatever it is.” If you ask a question, and then obviously you need to go on in the video to then answer the question, but again it just puts the viewer and the audience into a more active state rather than passively consuming your content. You’re asking them to engage their gray matter which is a really strong way of getting people engaged in your videos and by getting them to buy into the content in that way.

4. Use image

Also another really, really good way of making… Of transforming viewers into active viewers rather than passive viewers, is using words like, “imagine.” If you’re getting people to put themselves into a future state to imagine things, that is a very, very powerful way of getting people to watch your video and consume your content. So that might look like something like this, “imagine a world where dirty dishes were a thing of the past.” Clearly I’m not going to win any copywriting sorts of awards, but you get the jest, you’re asking the viewer to engage with your video content.

Final thoughts

So now you know all about hooks and how to attract and engage with your audience in super quick time. Now you’re also going to need to know about how to structure the ideal YouTube video too. So make sure you check that out.

I really hope you have got lots of value from this. We’ve got a free YouTube resource, obviously which is a Bitly link there Business Growth With Video. If you’d like to download a Business Video Guide, go to that URL and ping us your email details, and we will be really chuffed to rush you a copy of the 20 page PDF, that’d be fantastic, I’d hope you’d find that super useful.

To dive into more detail about how to create video for your business, do check out the other videos on our YouTube channel.

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