What 600 Reels Say About Hooks: The Full Breakdown
See the four things that kept coming up across 600 reels, with every number behind them, then write your next hook with one prompt.
Back to all free guidesSo in the reel I showed the four things that kept coming up when I had Claude Code break down 600 reels. This is the full breakdown with every number behind them, plus a prompt at the end that writes news hooks for your own topic. Claude Code did all the watching and counting, which is pretty sweet.
How I did it, in a minute
- Two creators, 600 reels. I pulled the last 300 reels from each of two creators I study, with their views as they stood on 5 October 2026. I'll call them Creator A and Creator B.
- Claude Code measured every reel. It logged when the first word lands, how many hard cuts there are a minute and how many views each one got. A hard cut is any sudden change of picture, like a new angle or a jump to a graphic.
- Then it read every hook. Each opening went into one of 11 hook types, like news or story, and it noted the headline on screen.
- Views, timings and cut rates are medians. That's the middle reel of the group, so one huge reel can't drag the whole group up on its own.
1. They start talking straight away
- The median speech start is 0.08 seconds. That's eight hundredths of a second after the first frame, so there's literally no intro.
- 599 of the 600 start talking within half a second. Only one reel in the whole lot takes longer than that.
- Both creators do it. Creator A's median is 0.09 seconds and Creator B's is 0.05.
So before you post, trim the front of your clip until the first word sits right on the first frame. Basically anything before the hook is a reason to scroll.
2. News hooks win
A news hook opens on something that just came out, like a launch or a price change.
- News got the most views of any hook type. A median of about 111,000 views across 127 reels.
- Story hooks came last. A median of about 18,500 across 19 reels, so news got about six times the views.
- News beat both creators' own medians. Creator A's news hooks got about 150,000 views against about 138,000 for all their reels, and Creator B's got about 24,700 against about 21,000.
- News beat story inside one feed too. Creator B is the one who used both, and their news hooks got about 24,700 views against about 18,500 for their story hooks.
So if something's just dropped in your industry, talk about it while it's still fresh.
3. Put a number on screen
- 41% of the on-screen headlines had a number. That's 156 of the 378 reels with a headline, counting digits and words like five.
- Headlines with a number did better. A median of about 32,600 views against about 29,100 for the ones without.
To be honest it's the easiest win going. You've usually got the number already, a price or a percentage, and it just needs to go on screen. Keep the headline short as well, the median one is seven words.
4. Cut more than you think
- Creator A cuts about 21 times a minute. That's the median across all 300 of their reels, so roughly one cut every three seconds.
- Creator B cuts about 4 times a minute. Their median is 3.8, so about one cut every 16 seconds.
- Creator B's best reels cut three times as often as their worst. Their top 10% by views, 30 reels, cut 6.75 times a minute. Their bottom half, 150 reels, cut 2.25 times a minute.
- Creator A cuts fast in good and bad reels alike. About 22 a minute in their top 10% and about 20 in their bottom half.
So aim for at least 7 cuts a minute, which is where Creator B's best reels sit. If that feels like too many, you're probably about right.
The full hook table
All 600 reels, every hook type, ranked by median views.
| Hook type | What it opens with | Reels | Median views, about |
|---|---|---|---|
| News | Something that just came out | 127 | 111,200 |
| Contrarian | The opposite of what most people think | 96 | 90,400 |
| Bold claim | A big, confident statement | 132 | 85,100 |
| How-to | A promise to show you how | 27 | 79,300 |
| Listicle | A numbered list | 63 | 55,500 |
| Pain point | A problem the viewer already has | 76 | 55,100 |
| Demo | The thing working, straight away | 4 | 34,800 |
| Curiosity gap | An answer held back until later | 30 | 30,000 |
| Question | A question to the viewer | 12 | 27,000 |
| Social proof | Results or big names | 14 | 21,300 |
| Story | Something that happened to the creator | 19 | 18,500 |
Bold claim was the most used hook, with 132 reels, and news still beat it on views.
Use it on your next reel
Paste this into Claude and fill in the last three lines. It writes news hooks with a number in them for your own topic.
Write 10 hooks for a short talking-head video on my topic below. Every hook is a news hook, so it opens on the thing that just came out, in the very first sentence, with no intro or greeting.
For each hook, give me:
1. The spoken line, 15 words or fewer, that I say from the first frame.
2. The on-screen headline, 7 words or fewer, with a number in it.
Use real numbers from what just came out, like a price, a date, a percentage or a count. If I haven't given you one, ask me for it before you write anything, and never make one up.
Write the way I'd talk to a friend, in plain British English, with no hype words and no dashes. Then pick your best 3 and tell me why in one line each.
Topic:
What just came out:
Who it's for:Then run your edit past these four before you post.
1. The first word lands on the first frame.
2. If something's just dropped, the hook is about it.
3. The headline has a number and 7 words or fewer.
4. At least 7 cuts a minute, about one every 9 seconds.So get the first word on the first frame of your next reel and build from there.