no-one will see your posts if your hook is shit...
your mini-guide to creating hooks that actually stop people scrolling
As I’m writing this, it’s the run up to the launch of my big old beefy Instagram guide - how to survive Instagram as a yoga teacher without losing your fucking mind. (edit: the guide is now live!)
It’s structured to walk you through everything I’ve learnt from ‘traditional Instagram training’ (all the grim grow grow grow! tactics) alongside all the things I never hear talked about. Like whether it’s actually USEFUL for your business to be on Instagram, or how to protect your nervous system and sanity when you do use it.
It’s practical, incredibly thorough, and written for yoga teachers, by a yoga teacher.
Whilst I slowly record the audio version because I keep fucking it up, I thought I’d whip up a little cheat sheet as a freebie. Something light. Just a quick one-pager to support a specific area of your Instagram world.
HA.
One pager.
I’m so funny.
Fast forward 48 hours, and my brain has done it’s usual thing….
I polled my community to see what you wanted the one pager on, then promptly fell down a rabbit hole and wrote this instead. I’m nothing if not consistent!
Soooo here we are, 3,000+ words deep into a mini masterclass on hooks 🙃
Don’t worry. It’s still free. But also, this isn’t actually in the guide. It supports it.
The full guide is digestable and covers a lot (like…so fucking much). But it also can’t (and shouldn’t) be a deep-dive like this on everything, or it would turn into the size of a fully publishable book. Although…there’s an idea… 👀
What this post does do though is give you a good sense (if you’re new around here) to how I operate, write and share ideas. And it gives you a bloody good sense of the exactly what will be coming your way if you buy the full shebang.
It’s written in this style, but on so many topics.
The guide will be out next week with a full supporting workbook and audio version too, and you can join the waitlist to get it first, along with a tasty little waitlist-only discount.
In the meantime, I hope this helps you with your hooks.
Oh, and tag me in your new beautifully hooked Instagram posts - I want to see them live in the wild!
your mini guide to hooks
Do you remember once upon a time when Instagram used to literally just be a photo sharing platform?
Your feed was chronological. They had that retro brown logo which I still kind of love and there were some questionable filters which you’d relay over even more questionable, grainy food photos.
Yep. I remember those days well.
Now I also feel old.
There’s so much thats on the Instagram radar now that just wasn’t a thing in those early, hazy-days (reels, stories, maybe even hashtags…?!) and one thing NO bugger was talking about circa 2012 was the idea of hooks.
This is because Instagram wasn’t seen as a place to need to ‘compete’ for attention. You just threw up a picture of the pretty sunset on holiday, your morning coffee or an artsy shot of some clouds, and your followers - who, let’s be honest were only really ever your mates - threw some lovely little likes at you.
That all changed once the creator economy was born, and and brands realised they could pay people to pedal their products to a captive audience in a WAY more specific way than traditional advertising ever could.
Suddenly, those previously-slow feeds became a battleground for attention. Even Instagram quickly realised the power of being strategic about who saw what, rather than just relying on your feed only ever being the most recent content.
Enter: the algorithm.
That delightful black box of mathematical fuckery (and yes, it is predominantly maths…it’s not personal) that decides who sees what, when, and how often.
And with the introduction of the algorithm, came the birth of ‘the hook’ in everyday, social media speak.
Now there’s a lot of Insta-bollocks out there - things that 99% of yoga teachers (who definitely don’t need to embrace the influencer/content creator life) do NOT need to give much headspace too.
But hooks do matter.
The infuriating but accurate truth is that we scroll at WARP speed now. The average person spends less than a half second deciding whether your post is worth their time.
Let that sink in.
Half. A. Second.
They’re scrolling-scrolling-scrolling-scrolling until BAM. Something has to break that mindless scroll and capture enough of their attention for them to throw their thumb on the screen and hold it there.
Half a second isn’t enough time to finish a sentence, let alone understand the depths of whatever insightful, deep message you're trying to share through your content. Half a second is barely even enough time to register someone's face.
What this means, is that it’s (sadly) not enough to have absolutely banging content. You have to really intentionally think about how the hell you’re going to capture someone split second attention so that they stop and look.
Otherwise your wonderful words of wisdom are just going to get buried in the algorithm.
what IS a hook?
If you’ve read this far and are wondering WTF I actually mean by a hook…I’m talking about that very first bit of your content that someone sees.
It’s the first slide of a carousel, the opening moments of a reel or the first words of a caption.
More often than not now it’s in the form of text (the opening few words that someone scans on a static post or reel), but you can also have visual hooks too that capture your attention. It might be a weird angle, a cool location or an interesting transition. You can see how ‘extreme’ physical yoga has ended up performing so well on Instagram - it’s naturally going to be more eye catching to see someone balancing on one hand than it is seeing someone looking steady in tadasana.
If you're finding this concept whole familiar, it’s because hooks aren't just an Instagram thing. Why do you open some emails in a sea of other unread ones? Because often a good subject line has hooked you. The title of this guide itself? A hook. You’ve probably even noticed how some yoga class names function as hooks. Once you start seeing them everywhere, you realise how often we’re all competing for that crucial first moment of attention, where someone is likely to make a snap decision.
what makes for a shitty hook?
Where things get shady is when people use their hooks to be manipulative, misleading, or to steal your attention for something that’s of little to no value to you, just so they can get the views or clicks.
You feel mugged off when you carry on watching or reading something that started out sounding interesting, only to discover it’s completely unrelated to the hook, or doesn’t deliver on what it promised. It’s the equivalent to signing up for some incredible sounding workshop that promised loads of value and insight, only to be given nothing more than a sales pitch.
In the beauty industry, it's common to see someone put up a post with some fucking weird makeup thing going on - like drawing a thick black stripe down their face at the start of their video - that obviously makes you think 'what the hell is that for?' precisely because it’s so weird and unusual. It's visually jarring enough to stop your scrolling and keep watching, but by the end of the video, you realise that black stripe was completely pointless and not related to the video at all. It was only ever about getting you to watch the entire thing for engagement metrics.
This is clickbait. It’s all about only getting people hooked without being bothered about offering any real substance in the post itself. You’re basically luring someone into your world on false pretences. It feels gross as a viewer but it happens a LOT when people end up more interesting in playing the game for their own gain. You’re probably not going to build much off a community off that kind of effort though and it’s exactly what gives the thought of ‘hooks’ a bad rap.
A hook doesn’t have to be manipulative, or mean putting on some weird Instagram persona. When used well, it’s just an intentional opening of your content that makes someone think ‘ooh, I need to see this’ rather than continuing their infinite scroll.
what makes for a good hook?
There are two types of ‘good’ here.
First is morally good (and not being manipulative or shady, as discussed above - if that’s your style, I’m probably not the person to be learning from),
The second type of good is in terms of successful. Does that opening bit of your content call in the right people to go on and take a longer look at your post? ie. Does the hook work?
Good hooks aren’t clever. Our brains don’t have the TIME to process clever.
This means they have to be CLEAR.
You just want the people who would actually benefit from your posts to stop, notice, and engage with them.
For yoga teachers specifically, a good enticing hook:
is specific and is relevant to something someone in your world is already feeling or wondering so they feel seen
it relates to the point of the post
it doesn’t bury the interesting bit of the message and says the thing up front
it sounds like you would actually say it out loud ie. sound like they’ve been written by a human and not a robot
it earns trust quickly, instead of just grabbing attention then not following through with anything of value
The kinds of hooks that definitely DON’T make me stop the scroll are one that:
are super vague: ‘let’s talk about something important…’ - this could be anything, for anyone
sound like a content coach: ‘5 ways to scale your yoga business overnight’ 🤢
use fake drama: ‘you’ll NEVER believe what happened in my class today’
CONFUSING: ‘The real reason behind the truth you’re not facing’. Er…what?
try too hard to be clever, mysterious, or profound. Our brains want clear, remember.
And for the love of fucking everything, please do your best to avoid these hook clichés that are absolutely polluting Instagram:
‘the ONE thing your yoga teacher isn't telling you...’
‘THIS is why you're not progressing in your practice...’
‘I almost quit teaching until I discovered this one thing...’
‘want the secret to my six figure business?’
….unless it’s followed up by some kind of advice that is ACTUALLY gold. I’m yet to see much of that though….
The caveat is where the follow up makes me chuckle because it’s pretty tongue in cheek or goes against the grain of what you’d expect. But from a hooking perspective, that’s a risky strategy to take unless your audience know you well enough to keep on watching precisely because those types of hooks are so out of character.
so... how do you write a better hook?
Like anything, creating decent hooks takes practice and potentially a bunch of trial and error. I know that sounds like such a twatty, cop-out answer but it’s true. You’ll figure out the kind of hooks that work well with the types of content you’re creating, and hopefully if you can balance the things that are enticing (and offputting) from above, you’ll find a style that begins to pay off.
It also involves a TON of observing. You’ll get better over time just by paying attention to what stops YOU scrolling - and what doesn’t.
It can help to actually spend a bit of time going full Miss Marple. Have a purposefully slow scroll through the explore pages and see what jumps out at you. Get critical about the things you aren’t interested in continuing to read or watch.
What creates juuuust the right amount of tension in a way that isn’t gross, false or manipulative? You want to highlight some real life situation or curiosity that your specific audience actually has, without manufacturing fake urgency or creating problems that don't exist just to flog a solution.
Aside from ‘just keep practicing’, next time you are stuck, this hit list of pointers will help you in the creation stage:
spell out the point quickly. I know this feels counterintuitive because you feel like you don’t want to skip to the ending, but it’s important you’re clear on the actual purpose behind the post?
make sure whatever you’re saying is legible. I mean this literally…colours, fonts, text size.
don’t clutter up that key point with a hundred other things. Make it a bigger title, or JUST have that single point on its own at the start of the reel or on the first slide of a carousel.
if it’s a reel, don’t make people wait TOO long for the rest of the info. If you’ve said you’re about to share a list and then have people wait 10 seconds, chances are you’ll lose them.
use regular, everyday language that people can relate to so their brains don’t have to work overtime to make sense of what you’re getting at.
BE SPECIFIC. If you’re talking to a particular group, name them so the immediately feel seen and go ‘hey! that’s me!’. It’s way more valuable for our content to be seen by a smaller audience of the right people than be generic and go viral, but to a million randomers - specific content tends to get more meaningful engagement, and that engagement is what helps Instagram push your post further to others who behave in similar ways.
if you’re not specific about the person, be specific about the situation. Is it something super relatable that feels uncannily familiar to the viewer?
try and make sure the tone of the hook matches the tone of the content. Don’t write some hook that feels incredibly urgent and spicy if the content is pretty chilled and reflective.
share something that might have someone nodding along in agreement
test it with yourself! Does it sound interesting enough to catch your attention?
keep it relevant to the rest of the content….
I’ve said it already (twice?) but I’m going to throw it out there again. Don’t try to be clever. Clarity will always beat cleverness.
Don’t feel like you need to start with the hook either when you’re planning things.
Just get down your post or idea as if you were explaining it to someone in real life (or if it helps, actually explain it to someone). Doing things out loud can help. Then look for the bits that feel the most interesting or would make someone pause. That’s usually the best place to start.
It’s likely to be:
the question someone would immediately ask on that topic
the part where the other person goes ‘wait, really?’
the bit that makes the person feel seen
the sentence that sums up the feeling of what you’re trying to say (emotion is always powerful here. Flat content = flat engagement)
All you’re doing is putting the most relevant, interesting bit first.
For those who know me well, you’ll know I’m not going to give you a bunch of ‘fill in the blank’ templates. You don’t need them and more often than not they end up feeling fake and forced. If you desperately DO want some templates or inspo, a good idea is to scroll until something hooks your attention. It doesn’t have to be anything to do with yoga - in fact, it’s great if it isn’t.
Look at how the post did and then see if you could take something similar to that structure or theme, and put your own spin on it? How could you turn that hook into something that’s relevant to you, your audience and what you want to talk about?
some examples
Okay so I’m not saying I’m the queen of hooks by any stretch - I try and think about them intentionally when I post and some land more effectively than others.
There’s no magic formula to follow - again, it’s just a combination of practicing, trying things out, observing, and paying attention to what YOU find interesting.
Short of being able to spoon feed you a process, I thought it might help to give you some real world examples of posts of mine that have done well in the past, with a little review of the hook I chose.
First up….'teaching yoga is not an easy side hustle’.
This was an early post of mine last year and performed brilliantly on a metric, growth and community building POV. It started SO many conversations and worked beautifully to pinpoint so much of how I feel and what I’m about as a creator in this space.
From a hook perspective, it works because it’s specific, pretty opinionated and CLEAR. It’s pretty emotive too…I had so many ‘FUCK YES’ style comments and DMs from a post that leads with only 7 words.
It immediately signals who the post is for (yoga teachers) and gives you an idea of what’s inside if you read on (ie. the topic I’m going to push back on).
If I’d softened the language or said something vague like ‘my thoughts on the yoga teaching world…’ I don’t think nearly as many teachers would have read on.
The second post has a similar punchy feel in the hook, which is ‘your students will not be bored.’
This was actually a new type of post for me where I shared an audio clip from a program I offer with a captioned overlay. Speech happens fast and not everyone is into those kinds of posts, so I was incredibly mindful of the opening words I chose to kick off with.
With this as the cover too, if anyone was scrolling through my profile it acts as a hook there too, showing them what’s within that post.
This particular statement is fairly attention grabbing because it’s a clear, bold statement. There’s a natural kind of tension in it too - so many of us naturally worry about keeping students engaged (or even entertained) and this acts as a stopper to make someone pause and go ‘hmmm, tell me more…’. It turns a common narrative lots of people hold on its head, and addresses a bit of a secret fear we don’t often talk about.
What wouldn’t have worked so well would have been picking a slower piece of the audio that didn’t say the thing as quickly, or even going for one of my traditional reel covers with something like ‘your students actually benefit from repetition.’
I mean…that option would be fine, and it’s definitely true. But it’s pretty dry and doesn’t really create any sort of tension - either emotionally, or in terms of wondering what’s to come.
The final example is probably my most popular ever post ‘green flags in a yoga teacher’ which I definitely credit for getting the ball rolling on my account.
At the time, this worked well I think for a few reasons. The first is that it was during a time when there were so many ‘red flag’ lists going around. The number of people that messaged me to say they loved the fact this post had a positive, more meaningful spin was insane.
It also worked because it was specific (to yoga teachers…obv) but also universal within the community of yoga teachers. Some of my posts have a smaller target audience because they talk about quite niche problems/goals/fears/circumstances etc. But this one appealed to both experienced teachers who wanted to get the warm and fuzzies and nod along in agreement, AND newer teachers who were like ‘TELL ME WHAT TO DO’.
Lists tend to be pretty popular, but it wasn’t super generic…it was a deeply personal post about the things I really care about, without me spouting off that this is way you should do things.
If I’d gone with ‘advice for yoga teachers’ it wouldn’t have piqued the same kind of interest. Some people might have even felt a bit turned off by that sort of wording when it doesn’t feel quite as human.
the bigger picture
Like any part of this whole temperamental Instagram game, hooks aren't some magical silver bullet. They're just one piece of a bigger puzzle that includes content that doesn’t have any real depth, is illegible or fundamentally just misses the mark.
A killer hook can't save fundamentally boring content, just like amazing content won't get seen without something that captures attention first. There are bunch of different elements that need to work together cohesively - it's more of an ecosystem where each part supports the others. You just want to do your best to understand those different parts and how they all work together, so you’re not wasting time or energy pouring hours into something that won’t give you a return.
The more you understand Instagram as a whole, and how to make it work for you as a yoga teacher, the easier and more enjoyable this whole thing becomes.
And PLEASE remember that what works for one yoga teacher's audience might not work for yours. The best way to know for sure is to experiment with different hook styles and track which ones get better engagement from YOUR people. Over time, patterns will emerge that are specific to your teaching style and student community, that sound just like you.
The ideas in this post are pulled from part two: taming the big bad algorithm, which is from my bigger (much, much juicier) guide: how to survive Instagram as a yoga teacher without losing your fucking mind which is out now, and includes a mega juice guide (with a narrated audio version too) and an in depth workbook.
PS. For the super keen amongst you… run the title of the guide through everything I’ve just talked to you about in this post. You’ll notice I didn’t just go with something dry like ‘An Instagram Guide for Yoga Teachers’. I made it specific - how to survive Instagram as a yoga teacher without losing your fucking mind - because that’s the actual feeling behind Instagram that so many of us have. It tells you who it’s for, names the frustration we’re experiencing, and immediately gives you a sense of my tone and style. It’s clear, human, and a little bit more eye catching. That’s a hook.