Social post craft

The hook decides everything

Most posts are lost in the first line, before any of the substance is reached. The opening has one job: make continuing feel more attractive than scrolling.

Openings that work:

• A specific claim with a number — concrete beats clever.
• A stated tension — two things the reader believes that cannot both be true.
• A named mistake — especially one the reader is probably making.
• An outcome, before the method — the result first, the how afterward.

Openings that do not: a question the reader can answer "no" to, a definition, throat-clearing about why the topic matters, and anything beginning "In today's world."

Write the hook last, after you know what the post actually says. Written first, it commits you to a post you have not thought through.