The battle for attention is brutal. Your content is competing with viral videos, breaking news, and mindless doomscrolling. And if your hook doesn’t stop the scroll instantly, your post—no matter how valuable—gets lost in the noise.
During his BAM Pro Bowl II presentation yesterday, Sharran Srivatsaa showed how changing the first three seconds of one of his videos resulted in 10 times the views.
For any content creator asking, “What makes a video go viral?” a strong hook is ground zero. It’s where your post’s potential for virality and impact begins.
Sharran didn’t stop there, either. He went on to share seven powerful types of hooks every real estate content creator should be using right now—along with why they work.
Let’s dive in!
Why is Your Hook So Critical?
As Sharran puts it, the hook is the “primary building block of going viral.” No, it isn’t going to guarantee the rest of your post is worth sharing. But if you can’t grab your audience’s attention in the first few seconds, it won’t matter if the rest of your video is gold.
Most people have already scrolled past—and are paying attention to a video with a stronger hook. And that video might actually be a total waste of their time.
Your post could contain life-changing information for your audience. But without a strong hook, your post may as well be stuck in draft purgatory.
Think of popular creators like Mr. Beast. Sharran used him as an example, playing a clip from a video by Steven Bartlett, host of The Diary of a CEO. The on-screen text for the clip reads, “How did Mr. Beast become so successful?”
In Bartlett’s words, “One of the reasons why someone like Mr. Beast is so successful is because they really, really respect your attention.”
In the first few seconds of any Mr. Beast video, he doesn’t waste your time with a greeting or any kind of introduction to his channel. Instead, he “shouts a promise in your face.”
In the video Bartlett uses as an example, Mr. Beast starts off immediately with “The last person to leave that triangle gets a million dollars! And we’re gonna film them for the next five days. And if anyone leaves the circle, they win a private jet.”
Sounds a bit over the top, right? But it plays to how the human brain works. Bartlett explains:
“Every single piece of content you make, now until forever, should realize that in the first five seconds, people are going to make a decision whether to pay attention [to your video] or to pay attention to something else.”
The good news? You don’t need millions of dollars to get your target audience addicted to your content. Sometimes, all you have to do is change the first few seconds.
Same Video, Different Hook, 10x the Views
Still wondering how much of a difference a strong hook can make?
Sharran shared an example of a video he and his team created a few years ago that currently has a total 2,911 views. They took that same video and changed the first three seconds of it.
Three. Seconds.
The result? “We got ten times the views.” Right now, views for that post are over 25K.
Ready for more? Read on for seven hooks Sharran shared in his Pro Bowl II presentation.
7 Hooks to Hold Your Audience’s Attention (for a Few More Seconds)
#1: The “Dog Whistle” Hook
A dog whistle makes a sound at a particular frequency dogs (but not humans) can hear. So, a dog whistle hook speaks to the kind of person you want to target with your content—that particular consumer avatar and no one else.
Sharran shared an example by Tre Serrano, whose video opens with “If you know anybody who lives in the Belle Oaks neighborhood right by (Hwy) 46 and Blanco (Road), this message is for you.”
The basic formula for this hook, then, is “If you ____, then this message is for you.”
He didn’t have to explicitly say “and only for you” because anyone who didn’t fit that description has already scrolled past. As Sharran says, that’s the “best part”: people who aren’t interested in the information you’re providing won’t watch your video.
A hook like this shows you respect your ideal viewer’s time, while also sparing those who won’t benefit from sticking around to watch the whole video.
#2: The High Emotion Anticipation Hook
With this type of hook, you want to get the viewer thinking, “Whoa! I want to hear what comes next!” In the example Sharran provided, the first words out of the speaker’s mouth were tense with frustration.
His words: “I told you three times already today!”
So, right away, we’re wondering, “Wait! What did he say three times? And who’s in trouble? And what’s gonna happen next?”
That scene transitions to a different one with a hook of its own: “Why are you so tough on people?” That’s the question delivered with perfect calm by someone interviewing the coach, who matches the interviewer’s calm in his response:
“I don’t know if that’s fair that I’m really tough on people. We create a standard for how we want to do things. And everybody’s gotta buy into that standard or you really can’t have any team chemistry.”
So, while the video doesn’t answer the question, “Who’s in trouble?” or “What’s gonna happen next?” it does provide insight into the coach’s frustrated tone at the beginning. And viewers are likely to comment on the coach’s response, whether they agree with him or not.
It also tugs at the viewer’s attention by creating a bit of drama with a disagreement. The coach takes issue with the phrasing of the interviewer’s question. And we want to know why.
#3: Inner Voice Hook
The goal with the inner voice hook, as Sharran puts it, is to “enter the conversation in the viewer’s mind.”
He provides two examples: a video of his own and one by Neel Dhingra.
Sharran’s post starts off with a dog whistle hook (“If you’ve ever thought about selling your home and listing it for sale…”) before speaking to a potent fear in the minds of many potential sellers.
He doesn’t take long to introduce a tactic often used by “the average agent”: quote a listing price well over what the competition is probably offering—just to get the seller to list with them.
“And what happens is you as the consumer are like, ‘Wait a minute! He can get me $13M? I’m gonna hire him because he believes in my listing.’ Well, all they really want to do there is buy the listing. They give you the high price knowing that if they get the listing then they can actually negotiate you down after.”
Sharran makes it clear he’s sharing this information to educate consumers on tactics an average agent might use to get their business
“As a consumer, you should just be aware of this process because you don’t always want to go with the person that quotes the highest potential price for your listing. You want to hire the process that will get you an offer that you want at the price that you want with the terms that you want.”
Neel Dhingra’s video starts by tapping into a big concern for potential homebuyers:
“If you want to buy a home, but you’re worried about high rates and payments, check this out. There’s a new program that’s available for certain communities within all the markets across the country.”
He shows an example with a map of Los Angeles (which could also be seen as a visual hook) highlighting areas eligible for the new program:
“The homes in these yellow areas are eligible for below-market rates, which gives you a lower monthly payment. So, let me give you an example…”
Any potential homebuyer worried about high rates and high monthly mortgage payments are hooked at this point, hoping to learn more about whether any of the homes they’ve been looking at would qualify for the program.
4 Rapid-Fire Hooks with Examples
Sharran also shared a string of “rapid-fire hooks” with at least one example for each type:
- Personal experience hook: “This is my actual productivity routine that’s cheaper than Starbucks.” (by Alex Hormozi)
- Question hook tied to a well-known name: “Why is Sam Sulek doing half reps?”
- Storytelling hook: “A year ago, I was reading my Bible from front to back and praying every single night ‘cause I was so down bad and I couldn’t quit my lustful habits.”
- Warning hook: “You should always, always, always think twice before taking someone’s advice.”
In each of the above examples, the speaker is using the hook to hold onto the viewer’s attention, at least for another few seconds. That’s what the hook is for, after all. It should make your audience want to know what comes next—or whether your post will keep the promise you made in your hook.
Then it’s up to you to make sure the rest of your post is worth sticking around for—and worth sharing.
Like every strong hook, this is just a teaser for Sharran’s Pro Bowl presentation, to say nothing of the four other speakers who, together with Sharran, made this virtual event our best yet (and that’s saying something!)
BAMx members can catch the full event replay in the BAMx Skool community.
