The one thing you need, to make sure people read your stuff

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Hey, person on the internet, reading my stuff.

The headline obviously worked.

I’m guessing, if you’re someone with a thing to sell, an idea to share or a complaint to be heard, you want people to read your stuff too?

That might be a newsletter, a social media post, a blog or something else.

Anything written with the intention of building an audience and growing your business.

But getting people to stop and read isn’t easy. In the noisy world of social media, you’ve got to do a bit of work to get noticed. So, what does it take?

Well fortunately not too much. It’s all resting on one thing.

You need a hook.

It helps to be a good writer obviously, but a big part of being a successful writer is just knowing how to use a hook.

A bit further down I look at what hooks I use in this blog and what you can use to make your writing a bit more, well, hooky…

In some ways, it doesn’t matter how good or bad the content is, if there’s no hook, ain’t nobody gonna read it.

In fact, …

There’s no point writing anything if you don’t have a hook

If you’re writing for an audience, that is. 

Disclaimer: If you simply get enjoyment from the act of writing or you happen to be writing something that the reader has no choice but to read or else suffer the pain of death… then there are situations where a hook doesn’t matter, but I’m talking about copywriting – writing with a purpose, writing to persuade, writing to communicate ideas and convert customers.

If you don’t have a hook, the likelihood is people aren’t going to read it.

It’s not going to capture their attention and it’s not going to make them want to spend time reading what you’ve written. 

As such, is there really any point in writing it in the first place? That’s a lot of time spent typing away for very little gain.

On top of that, when you’re selling or promoting something, there’s skin in the game.

Every moment you waste, writing something that isn’t going to be read and therefore isn’t going to do anything for your business or organisation, is a moment better spent doing something else. 

I’m not saying you shouldn’t write that post, obviously. I’m just saying you need to make sure people read it.

You also need to make sure that when they read it, they want to come back for more.

If I were rich and famous, a best-selling author or a film director in the calibre of Christopher Nolan I could rely on my exorbitant budget or previous successes to guarantee an audience.

In fact, with all that behind me, it wouldn’t really matter what this was, you’d probably still read it.

Indeed, despite Nolan’s most recent film Tenet being inaccessible to a fault and very confusing, loads of people have still gone to see it (in a pandemic too).

In reality though, if I released something that didn’t meet your expectations, bored you or left you confused; I could quite reasonably expect you to never read any of my writing ever again.

Which is fine. There’s a lot of content to read out there and not much time.

So, you need that hook. There’s a lot of value resting on it.

What is a hook?

The main purpose of this article is to persuade you to understand the importance of having a hook but I guess that’s no use if you don’t know what one is.

What a hook is, is fairly self-explanatory. It’s something which hooks you in. Dur…

Averts your eyes and yanks your head backwards whilst the rest of your body keeps moving only for it to spring back into place when you decide to keep reading, like some kind of cartoon cat.

Hooks are common in literature and music.

They’re the part of the book that incentivise you to keep reading and to turn the page. They’re the part of the song, that makes it memorable and brings you back for repeat listens.

In copywriting, hooks look like lots of different things.

The headline is your main hook, but you also need hooks throughout. Ideally every couple of paragraphs.

Attention spans are short. When was the last time you read to the end of an article or blog post?

I’m guessing it doesn’t happen often. That’s because we always have this thing in the back of our head telling us there’s something else we could be reading, watching or doing.

So how do you keep them reading?

The reader needs to be given reasons to keep reading throughout your writing. Reasons to read the next line, the next paragraph.

This could be an unanswered question. Like the one above. 

If a question has been posed, it’s likely people will want to look for the answer.

But these need to be used sparingly. If every other paragraph ends with a question, rhetorical or not, the reader’s going to get bored.

If you’re asking too many questions and not giving any answers then you may even look like a fraud.

Questions that aren’t asking something which people are asking in real life are also fairly pointless. With some questions, people don’t care what the answer is. To figure out the right questions you’ve got to know your audience.

Using controversial statements to shock and intrigue

Another good reason to read on are lines which provoke or intrigue. A sentence or statement that warrants further inspection.

Something that’s just plain odd or potentially even offensive.

Now, if you’re trying to build a trustworthy brand, filling your writing full of controversial statements is hardly recommended. However, dropping one or two here or there is bound to get people clicking and reading on.

You don’t even have to follow through with whatever potentially controversial or incendiary thing it is you’re professing to write about.

A popular hook that is used in blog posts and YouTube videos alike is the controversial or shocking statement that then turns out to be a slight exaggeration or is only true in very particular conditions.

If it’s done well, the reader or viewer will forgive you and laugh off the exaggeration. They’ll understand that it was a clever way of getting you to click on something that’s actually quite interesting but that you may have ignored otherwise.

You’ve got to be careful with this though.

If you don’t back up your reason for using this statement in your piece, you’ll be accused of clickbait and soon lose respect and readers.

If all else fails, you can try and make them laugh.

An effective way of getting people to read on is the use of humour. Set up a joke and deliver the punch line. It’ll make it much more enjoyable to read.

Keeping your reader hooked is also about what you don’t put in.

Keeping ‘em hooked often comes in the edit.

I went back and edited this article after I wrote it and cut out bits that weren’t helping it flow. That links to another thing I wrote, about how every word counts.

For example, I originally had a much bigger bit about Tenet (new Christopher Nolan film, saviour of cinemas, mind boggling blockbuster).

I talked more about how it’s confusing and inaccessible and how despite that, I’d still go back and see it. Because it’s Christopher Nolan.

He’s built a level of trust in me as a viewer that means it doesn’t really matter what’s in it, I’ll still give it the time of day. I then contrasted that with how the average content creator doesn’t have that power. If we want people to stick around, we’ve got to give them reasons to.

It was a good bit. I liked it. But it was too early in the article, was only sort of linked to the crux of what I was trying to say, and I just knew I’d lose people before the article had really got going.

So, I gave it the chop. As painful as it was, I had to put myself in the mind of a potential reader and realise they probably weren’t going to buy it.

So, hooks aren’t just headlines, they run throughout the piece. 

Having said that, all headlines must be hooks…

How to make sure your headline is a hook 

There are some great, go to headline ideas that are used in many blog posts and articles. A big one is the ‘How to…’

We all want to improve at things and this is a pretty clear marker that the post is going to be educational. 

But it’s only effective if you’re telling people ‘how to’ do something they actually want to do. Or being completely ironic, as I did in this post. 

I could have gone with a ‘How to’ for this post. I almost did.

I’m writing to a business and marketing audience who hopefully want to market their stuff better so hopefully they’d want to learn how to do that more effectively.

The problem is there’s plenty of articles out there with similar if not identical headlines. That’s one reason why many articles won’t get read. Because they’re just too samey. 

Because of that I’ve done 2 things to make my headline more of a hook.

I changed from a ‘How to’ headline to focus in on ‘one thing’. 

This adds a healthy dose of intrigue as it plants the seed that there is one simple instruction people need to follow to achieve the pledge in the headline.

Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that and this is actually a relatively chunky article but the fact is you have to read the article to find out what that ‘one thing’ is. In reality what lies in wait is multiple tips and tricks revolving around that central theme.

The other thing I’ve done is use the word ‘stuff’ (and probably repeated it too much throughout this article but whatever, bro) to differentiate it from other posts which use more specific terminology.

Sure, it might not rank quite as well on Google, but it’s more likely to stand out to my immediate social media audience and if people are reading it, it’ll get there eventually.

Using the word ‘stuff’ hardly counts as being different and quirky but it paints the tone of the post from the off as friendly and down to earth, rather than aloof and… stuffy.

Some other good headline ideas

If you’re struggling for other go-to headline ideas that are likely to get you some readers, here’s a few.

Numbers – 6 ways to make actual, real money.

This kind can be overdone but there’s no denying it’s effectiveness. It suggests you’re going to learn something. You know from the outset how many steps are involved or how many items are on the agenda. And it’s all delivered in an easily digestible list.

Set up. Solution. – You’ve spilled some milk. Here’s how to clean it up.

Pretty simple concept and gives a clear solution to a common problem. Likely to do well on Google and if particularly successful may even be featured as an FAQ in the search results.

How I did X – How I climbed Mount Everest in just my slippers.

A bit different to the usual How To in that you’re setting it up as a personal experience. If you make it particularly enticing, people are going to want to know more because they’re nosey. But it’s got to be interesting.

The what now?! – The story of the yellow water bombing baboon. 

Sometimes the best headlines are those which just make you go what? The genuinely intriguing headline.

Anyone can get readers

So, if you want people to read your stuff, be that a post on LinkedIn or a blog post on your website, make sure you’ve got a hook.

Getting people to stop and read your stuff is a privilege. Only the absolute leaders of their field and titans of their craft can hope to get readers or viewers simply for being who they are, but even they will use hooks every time. 

The good news is you can still get readers. Give them a reason to spend some time with you and keep giving them reasons. Or otherwise they’ll go somewhere else.