Glossary
Hook
The opening line or two of a post, the part a reader sees before deciding whether to keep reading.
Also called: opening line, opener
The hook is the opening of a post, the part that is visible before a feed truncates the rest behind a “more” link or before a reader scrolls past. On every network the reader decides from those first words whether the post is for them.
A hook does its job when the right reader wants the next line and the post then delivers what the opening promised. It fails in two opposite ways. A vague opening (“Some thoughts on leadership”) gives nobody a reason to stop. An inflated one (“This changed everything”) gets the click and loses the reader’s trust in the second paragraph, which costs more over a year of posting than it gains in one post.
In practice the strongest hooks are usually the most specific sentence in the draft moved to the top: a number from your own work, a decision you made, a thing that went wrong. See what makes a good hook for examples.