61: The 7 Hook Types That Create Buy-In (Not Just Clicks) for Solopreneurs

Staring at a blank caption, wondering what the hell to write? Yeah, I've been there too. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm breaking down why your hooks might be falling flat—and it's not because you need some magical copywriting formula. The truth? People are exhausted by content that bosses them around. What's actually working right now are hooks that feel personal, relatable, and human. I'm sharing the seven hook formulas behind my highest-performing podcast promos (we're talking 100+ comments), plus how to match your hook to your content goal so you stop trying to make every post do the same thing. If you've been overthinking your headlines, freezing up on subject lines, or feeling like your content just isn't landing—this episode is your permission slip to make it simpler.

Check out the full show notes for this episode HERE.

Things I cover inside this episode:

• The four content goals (connect, convert, teach, thought leadership) and why your hook needs to match the job of the post
• Why "personal" hooks are crushing it right now—and how to use yourself as the doorway, not the pedestal
• The seven hook formulas I use for my best-performing content: confession hooks, emotional overreaction hooks, sharp opinion hooks, and more
• How to create tension and buy-in (not just clicks) with your opening lines
• The before-and-after framework that makes people feel movement immediately—even before they read your post
• Why teaching posts can relax on the emotional drama and when clear, direct headlines work better

Resources & Links mentioned in the episode:

• The Messaging Edit waitlist—my program for solopreneurs who need help saying what they actually mean in a way that sounds like them and lands with their ideal clients

Connect with me:
🫶🏼 Follow me on Instagram for daily insights
🫶🏼 Join my 321 Create Newsletter for weekly content tips 
🫶🏼 Check out The Content Coven Membership

Be sure to hit "Subscribe" or "Follow" so you never miss an episode! 

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

good hooks do not just get attention. They create buy-in, and the buy-in is deeper than a click, right? a click says, I'm curious, and buy-in says, oh. This is for me and that is what we want. Welcome back to the Creative Bodega. Today I wanna talk about hooks. Oh, hooks, copy, headlines, opening words, the first few words people see when they decide whether they're in or they're continuing to scroll. Right. And I think that people are making hooks way more complicated than they need to be, and that includes me because I have said it a million times. Words are very difficult for me, let me design pretty graphics in Canva all day long. But then when it comes to creating a headline or a subject line, or the name of a podcast title, I freeze and I overthink. Because the internet loves to act like there is some very magical formula for writing the perfect headline. Like if you just use the right curiosity gap and the right power word and the right amount of. Drama. Suddenly your content's gonna pop off and your audience is gonna become like obsessed with you. But that's just not really what's happening. What's actually happening is that some hooks make people feel pulled in, and some hooks feel like content, right? Like manufactured content. Like, okay, cool, another person's gonna tell me what I'm doing wrong. And the difference is not always that one is technically written better. A lot of times the difference is does this hook make me feel like I belong here, or does it make me feel like I'm being talked at? And that is the conversation today because good hooks do not just get attention. They create buy-in, and the buy-in is deeper than a click, right? A a click says, I'm curious, and buy-in says, oh. This is for me and that is what we want. And I have had to work so hard on words you guys, because they do not come naturally to me. And whenever I talk about this in my community, people are like, oh, but like your hooks are so good. And I'm like, um, do you know how many times I went back and forth with like, what to say there? And a lot of times I leave it up to my audience. I give my audience and my stories, email subject. Lines that I'm considering, I give them three. They vote. I give people in my audience, uh, podcast titles three, and I let them vote. I've even let them vote on headlines for carousels. I'm not kidding, because I get down to two or three and then I'm like, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Like somebody just figured this out for me. And what's cool is there really is typically one winner, which I love. And then I'm like, great, y'all voted and this is the one I went with. Thank you so much. But before we get into personal hooks and why, and they are working so well, I need to zoom out for a second. Your hook needs to match the goal of the post. And in my world, there are four main content goals, and these are not pillars. I literally just had an ad come across my Instagram where this, of course, woman who's whatever, an Instagram expert or content expert is like, you're doing it all wrong and you shouldn't be posting about content pillars, and you're never gonna grow your business. You know, you shouldn't be posting inspiration. Teaching, whatever. And she starts and I'm like, those are not content pillars. Those are like the goals of the post, right? Like your content pillars are the buckets of subjects that you talk about consistently that you would be known for inspiring teaching, thought leadership, all of that. Those are the goals of the Post. So in my world, there are four content goals, connect, convert, teach, and thought leadership. I always remember this'cause it's CCTT, connect, convert, teach, thought Leadership. Those are the main goals of my posts. And I'm rotating through those every week. I am not going to show up and teach five days of the week. I'm also not gonna show up and try and convert and sell people five days of the week. And I'm also not trying to connect in every post. I think a very healthy, well-rounded feed includes all four of those. Again, connect, convert, teach thought leadership, and they're not content pillars, they're goals. And once you know the goal of your post, I think writing the hook gets a whole lot easier because you stop trying to make. Okay. Every post do the same exact thing. A teaching post does not need the same hook style as a conversion post, and a thought leadership post should not sound like a Canva tutorial and a connection post should not sound like a checklist. You know what I mean? And this is where people get off track. They write one kind of headline over and over again, no matter what the goal is of the post. And then they wonder why everything starts to feel stale. Or flat, or they're not getting the engagement that they want because the job is different. And if I'm teaching something visual, like a Canva trick or a design fix or like a branding tip, I do not need to create a giant emotional moment and the headline, right? If the payoff is already very clear. So for example, five Canva templates, all solopreneurs need. That post crushed it for me. It was so clear I didn't have to think that hard. I just wanted to let them know what was, you know that it was clear, useful, and direct, and I used keywords in there, right? Canva is the platform, and solopreneurs are who I'm talking about, and they're gonna ask themselves, Ooh. The, uh, these are the five that every solopreneur needs. Do I have them and they're gonna wanna scroll to figure that out, right? But if I'm trying to connect, convert, or share a stronger point of view, that is where the headline needs to do more heavy lifting. So for me, teaching posts where the goal is to teach feel much easier, it's more of the thought leadership or connection. Headlines that require my brain to do a bit more work. So this is my spicy opinion. People are tired of being bossed around by content. They are tired of the stop doing this, or if you're doing this, you're doing it wrong or you need to do this. Or if you're still making this mistake, the advice is typically good, but the energy can feel really exhausting. Like, you know, more than me, we get it. I'm doing everything wrong. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't like that type of vibe. As a consumer, I don't know about you, but. what is doing really well right now are hooks that feel more personal, more in progress, or in process, more human, more like I'm right there with you, right? Not, I'm the expert. I'm so far above you. I know more than you follow me. You know what I mean? It's, people wanna feel like they're figuring out something right alongside of you. You're not that far away from where they are. Therefore, it's not gonna take that long for them to catch up to where you are. You know what I mean? They do not want to constantly feel like they're being scolded by somebody who apparently has all the answers and a flawless strategy, right? That energy is losing steam big time. And that's why personal hooks are working, not because it's suddenly all about you, but because personal hooks when done really well, create proximity. They make you feel more approachable. More relatable and way more trustworthy. As an expert, they say, come sit with me for a second. Like I just, I wanna teach you something, right? That, that took me a while to learn, or that I just realized a few weeks ago. And that type of energy is gold and that is what is working. now I do wanna be careful here because I don't want this episode to turn into great. Every post needs to start with a dramatic confession. No. That, that's not the lesson. And, and the lessons also like not make everything about you, right? The lesson is use yourself as the doorway, not the pedestal. That is the line because personal hooks work when your audience can still find themselves inside of them. They stop working when they become too vague, too insidery, too, like look at me or too detached from what the other person actually cares about. So yes, the hook can be about your story, your moment, your frustration, your realization. Your opinion, but it still has to create access for the reader. They need to be able to think, oh my God, same. Or, wait, I have totally felt that too. Or, okay, now I need to know more about this, or, damn, I never thought about it like that. Right, and that is what makes the messaging in your headlines so magnetic and clear and relatable. So I was looking at some of my best performing headlines for my podcast promotions. So every Monday I publish a carousel that promotes my podcast. And the ones that got I, I literally record inside of my podcast tracker. I put a link to the Instagram. I put the published date, I put the episode number, I put the final title. I put the call to action that I'm referencing. I put the pillar and then I save all these dates when I shared it with my editor, when I requested it to be back, when I approved it, when I uploaded it in Buzzsprout, when I wrote the blog, when I created the many chat, and then I put listens, and I don't record that for probably a month at least. Afterwards, I link the Instagram promo. Which is the carousel that is posted on social media. And then I put how many Instagram comments there were and I just take the number. I'm not crazy. I'm not gonna go and sit there and like subtract my many chat responses from your comments. I just take the overall number of comments. That is enough for me to know what is working well, right? So I rounded up. In preparation of this episode, my top 10 best performing, and by best performing, I mean it got the most comments that people wanted to hear more about whatever I was talking about. Okay. They wanted to listen to the podcast episode and here's what the best ones were, the best, highest performing, most comments. I almost burned my business down to the ground. But I started a podcast instead. I've had so many posts perform so poorly for an account of my size, I've debated hiding my likes from you. I shit you not. I was more riddled with anxiety about starting an email list than I was about giving birth to my first child. I don't wanna post here anymore. I lost my shit on one of my kids a few weeks ago to the point that I hurt my throat and the minute he walked out the door, I felt horrible. I don't post on Instagram for fun and neither should you. I unfollowed all the Instagram experts a few weeks ago, and what happened has me shook. she thought her real series idea was so stupid. Three weeks later, she gained 147,000 followers and made$32,000. Now those are personal. They're very personal. The only one that wasn't personal for me was the last one, and that was where I had, a guest, a coven member on the podcast.'cause she went insanely viral with a real series and her results were incredible and they still are incredible, but the rest are very personable. But they work. Not because they're polished with like a sterile copywriter, you know, kind of vibe to them, right? They sound spoken. They sound like something, a human being like I would actually say. And they all have something in common. You know what that is? Tension. They don't start with the lesson. They start with the tension or the friction, whether it's fear, shame, resistance, like a mess, an opinion, a shift, like a wait, what moment, and that is what makes people lean in. They are tension filled and curiosity driving. And yeah, they are personal, but they're not closed off. the reason I don't wanna post here anymore works is because that is not just my thought. It's a thought that a lot of people have privately as well, and a lot of my ideal clients have, And the reason I debated hiding my likes from you works is'cause so many people are secretly embarrassed by their performance or lack of performance, and they think they're the only ones. And here I am saying, dude, I've got 124,000 followers, and I, I, there's some posts where I get 12 likes and I've debated hiding that from you because it's shameful for me. It's embarrassing. But you know what? And it goes on to say like basically F that. Like, I'm not gonna do that. I think it's important that you see that there are accounts so much bigger than yours that are also struggling. And I'm one of them. You're not alone. That's a very important sort of core lesson that goes through a lot of my content. You're not alone. Right. And then the reason like that I was riddled with anxiety about starting an email list. To the point that I felt more nervous doing that than giving birth works because it captures a very real avoidance and fear in a dramatic, memorable way. So again, they work because they are personal and relatable, and they're tension filled. They're not just personal. Right. So, and this is where I wanna make this super useful, you know, that I always want you guys to walk away from listening to these episodes. Like, ah, I'm gonna steal that immediately, right? Because if you're listening and you're thinking, okay, cool, but like, what kind of hook do I actually write em? I'm right there with you. And that's why I studied. I studied what did well for me. I have so many other hooks that I didn't, I'm not talking about here today, because they didn't do well. They did not perform well. I did not get comments, but these are the top ones that did. And I literally put them into Chachi BT and I said, let's analyze this. What are the commonalities? Right? And I started to notice. With the help of chat that my stronger hooks tend to fall into a few buckets, and these are so stealable for you. So get your pen and paper, you're going to want to write these down. Number one, the confession hook. This is where you admit something. People do not usually say out loud things like, I don't wanna post here anymore, or I've debated hiding my likes from you. Right, or a another field. Maybe you're a virtual assistant or an OBM, and you say something like, I have absolutely judged a client's backend and then remembered mine looked the same six months ago. Right. Why does this work? It breaks that polished business owner act, right? That's just not working today. And it makes people go, oh, thank God, right? Like, she's the same as me. You know, somebody said it out loud. So the confession hook is number one. Number two, the emotional overreaction hook. This is where you compare a business situation to a very real human experience in a way that's dramatic but true. Right? I was more riddled with anxiety about starting an email list or I, I could have said starting a newsletter. Honestly, now that I read this, I'm like, actually, I probably should. So let's just say that I was more riddled with anxiety about starting a weekly newsletter than I was about giving birth to my first child. Okay. It is so dramatic. It is an emotional overreaction. It's supposed to make people kind of chuckle, right? It, it's a joke. I was definitely more nervous about having a baby, let's be honest. But, uh, starting a weekly newsletter was kind of up there. If you're like a money coach, maybe it's something like I treated raising my prices like I was being asked to fake my own death. It's ridiculous. It's completely over the top. It's super dramatic. Very human and great for capturing a business fear in a way that doesn't sound sterile. Right. It works'cause it's memorable and emotional and it captures the feeling in a way that a bland sentence never ever, ever, ever could. Number three, the sharp opinion hook. This is where you take a stand People can react to. Like, I don't post on Instagram for fun, and neither should you. Okay. Or maybe you're a relationship coach and you say something like, you don't need better communication, you need less resentment. Ugh, that stings. You know what I mean? So it's a stronger take. It's a little provocative and it instantly tells you this person has a point of view. And why this works is it creates very useful friction. It sounds like a person with a point of view and not just another tip. Okay. Number four, the unexpected pivot hook. This is where something was going badly and then something surprising happened next. Like I almost burned my business to the ground, but I started a podcast instead. I laugh'cause it's ridiculous. maybe you're a copywriter and you say, I kept trying to sound more professional. My content got better when I started cursing in my copy instead, or something like that. This one works because the sentence flips the expectation. It's a before and after built right into a headline, and there's movement immediately. Okay. Number five, the proof through story hook. This is where you lead with a mini case study or a transformation, like she thought her real series idea was stupid. Three weeks later, she gained 147 thousand followers and made$32,000. Right? Maybe you're a web designer and you say something like, she almost scrapped her whole website. We changed the homepage headline first, and her inquiries picked up immediately, or that week or two days later. You know, something like that. This works'cause it tells a story, but the result also feels very believable and grounded and amazing, right? It's a story, doubt and a result, and it gives people a reason to care. Number six, the anti expert hook. This is where you reject the obvious industry narrative. I love stuff like this. I said something like, I unfollowed all the Instagram experts a few weeks ago, and what happened? Has me shook, huh? What is she talking about? Right? If you're a sleep consultant or a parenting expert, maybe you say something like, some of the best sleep advice I give parents sounds way less impressive. Than what they saw on Instagram. This has that anti polished, anti overcomplicated energy that feels really fresh to people. It works because it tells people like, this won't be the same recycled advice you hear 40 times a day. This is different, right? Swipe to figure out what I'm talking about. And last bit, not least. Number seven is the plain spoken list hook. This is your least emotional bucket, but it still works when the value is obvious and useful. And this is where I would use this in a more teaching moment. So again. And this honestly is my highest commented on podcast Carousel. I I, it's actually crazy, but it was five Canva templates All solopreneurs need to have, or if you're a photographer, three photo prompts to use when your ideal client says, I'm awkward in front of the camera. Why does this work? It is clear, useful, specific, and immediately actionable. especially for teaching content, right? You don't always need some emotional arc, right? So if you've been sitting there staring at a blank caption and wondering what kind of hook to write, start with one of these buckets. Literally use mine. And just alter it for your content. I think it's a really great place to begin. So if there's one thing I'm forever obsessed with, it is a before and after. I love it in visuals. I love it in branding, I love it in storytelling, and I really love it in a hook because before and after gives the audience movement immediately. It shows contrast, it shows change, and it shows something happened. And people are wired for that. Before this, after this, I used to think this, now I think this. This wasn't working. Then this changed. She thought this was stupid. Now she's up 147 followers, like 147,000 followers, not 147, which is still amazing by the way. That shape works because the transformations built into the sentence. You can feel the shift even before you consume the post. So a lot of weak hooks are weak because they're static. There's no movement. There's no contrast. There's no tension. There's no shift. The information is just. Sitting there and information by itself is typically not enough, right? So if you're stuck, ask yourself what is the before and after here? Even if it's subtle, maybe it's emotional, strategic, a belief shift, a result, but there's usually one thing there if you're looking for it. So let's get practical. This kind of hook applies most to three post goal types, the connect. The convert and the thought leadership for connect posts, the hook should help someone feel seen. That's the whole point. You want them to be like, yep, that's me. Or wait, I've never thought of it that way, or I've never said that out loud. But yeah, like that's me. That's where the more vulnerable confession, like I'm right there with you, style, can work really well. And for convert posts where you want people to convert, you still want connection, but you also need movement. So a conversion hook should create buy-in that naturally leads to the next step and offer a listen to the podcast episode, a lead magnet, that kind of thing. And you're not trying to get them to read. You're trying to get them to care enough to act. And then for the thought leadership posts, you need perspective. You need a point of view, a stronger stance, a very fresh angle or a sentence that sounds like it came from someone who actually thinks for themselves. Right? And that's why the line, I don't post on Instagram for fun and neither should you works. It's not trying to be neutral. It's me taking a stance. And now for the teaching posts, I want you to relax a little bit because not every educational post needs to be emotionally loaded, and that is a huge break for me. I think that clear direct headlines are gonna work better in that case. So this is me saying for the post where the goal is, buy-in closeness perspective and trust the hook is gonna matter differently. So for boiling this down into something practical, here's what I would tell you to do first, know the goal of your post. Is it connect, convert, teach, or thought leadership? Second, ask what your audience needs to feel. Do they need to feel seen, curious, clear, challenged or understood? Third, lead with tension, not in a polished way. Start closer to the real thought. the messy part, the resistance, the shift, right? Fourth, if you're using a personal angle, make sure that they can still find themselves in it. Okay, that is the test. Fifth, pick a hook bucket if you need somewhere to start. Confession, emotional overreaction, a sharp opinion, unexpected pivot. All the ones I listed, I listed seven of them and sixth trade. Vague. For specific. Give me an actual moment, a detail, a reaction, a number, a phrase, a fear or an opinion, and then read it out loud. You guys, for the love of God, read it out loud. And if it sounds weird, and Internety and robot-like. If it's trying to be like bigger and more profound than it needs to be, it needs work. Okay? Make it sound like you, if you take nothing else from this, a good hook does not just stop the scroll. It makes the right people feel invited in. People don't just want content, okay? They want connection. They want your perspective, and they wanna feel like the person on the other side of that account is an actual human being with a pulse and with a point of view. And when your hook does that, that's when the content hits different. Okay. Woo. This is longer than I wanted it to be, but you know what? I think all of this is really important, and if this episode made you realize that your content is decent, but your messaging still needs. Some work. The messaging edit would be an amazing next step for you. I will drop the wait list link for the messaging edit. That will happen early in the fall because this is the work saying what you actually mean in a way that sounds like you and lands with people you want to attract. Like Hello Chef's Kiss. Is there anything more beautiful than that? Thank you for hanging out with me today. I will catch you on the next episode.