The best hook I ever wrote

Yo! Welcome to the next episode of The Content Strategy Reeder where over 9,000 marketers, sellers, and creators get better at content strategy and creation in 5 minutes or less.

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Quick note: I decided to share a replay episode today because I got the same questions THREE times this week: How do I make my content stand out??

It seems to be on everyone’s mind today. And since the advice below is timeless — and is perhaps more relevant now than when I wrote it — I’m sharing it again. I hope you enjoy!

I was in Vegas a few months ago for Clari's annual sales kick off.

While at lunch, I sparked a conversation with a sales rep who had been working on her LinkedIn content for a while, but getting frustrated because she's seeing limited results. After some back and forth, she asked me a question that really stood out:

How do I get people to care about my content?

I didn't want to give her the cliche "You just need to know your audience better." Because she clearly already did based on our conversation.

What she's really struggling with is how to get people to notice her content. Because after reviewing some of her posts I could clearly see that her ideas and experience are great. But they ways she's presenting that information isn't very enticing.

And that can be fixed by mastering certain writing techniques.

So today I'm going to share the best hook copy I ever wrote, plus WHY it worked so you can create more compelling content using your ideas.

But before we dive in, I want to be clear. This is not the BS advice for "how to use ChatGPT to write 10 the best attention-grabbing hooks in the universe in 5 seconds."

Nah.

You're going to learn the techniques I used to pierce through the noise and earn attention. None of this over-exaggeration "internet guru" advice. These are writing skills that will translate to any channel and (almost) any scenario.

Ready? Let's ride 🌊

Here's the original post

A little context: I used to research and write Gong Labs, a very popular sales blog.

I published it on LinkedIn first, instead of the corporate website (that came later), so I had to write post copy, aka the "hook" to get folks to stop scrolling and click the link to read the full post.

Not easy.

So I would spend A LOT of time writing the hook because I knew it could make or break the article's success.

See if you can pick out which words/phrases specifically make it compelling.

→ 100k+ views
→ 1,276 reactions
→ 276 comments

Of course the content in the article was a driving factor for it being shared and going viral, BUT I'm convinced that it's the hook copy that motivated to read it in the first place to start that snowball.

Now let's dive into why I wrote it that way (and why it worked).

Here's a full break down

Couple more things:

• I was intentionally very bold in my claims because my research had uncovered something incredibly insightful, actionable, and relevant. That's not always the case though, so always keep your social contract: don't over promise then under deliver (or risk losing credibility). That's called click bait.
  

• Because I spent so much time writing this hook copy, and because I was confident in it, I also used this exact copy when sending to the email list too - which also performed really well. Two birds one scone.
  

• My last advice: fall in love with this type of writing. You don't have to be this bold if that isn't your style, but learning how to convert attention to action are extremely valuable in your content journey.

Aight, that's it for today y'all. Pick one of these techniques and apply it to your writing this week. Can be LinkedIn, email, or any place you wanna get noticed.

Not only will your results improve, but it's fun.

Holler at you next Saturday,
Devin

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