25 LinkedIn hook formulas that stop the scroll (with examples and templates)

A hook is the first two lines of your post, roughly 140 characters, and it is the only part everyone sees. LinkedIn truncates the rest behind "…see more". If the hook does not earn that tap, the post does not exist.

Below are 25 hook patterns we see working week after week across founder, operator and consultant accounts. Each comes with a worked example and a template you can fill in. A caution before you start: pick the pattern that fits your story, not the one that sounds cleverest. A confession hook followed by a generic lesson reads as bait, and readers punish bait.

Number-led hooks

Numbers are the fastest credibility signal on LinkedIn. They are specific, checkable and unusual, most posts have none.

• 1. The precise result. Example: "We cut onboarding from 14 days to 3. One change did 80% of it." Template: "We [verb] [metric] from [before] to [after]. [One thing] did most of it."
• 2. The uncomfortable stat. Example: "62% of our trials never opened the product a second time." Template: "[X%] of our [users/customers/hires] [surprising behaviour]."
• 3. The countdown. Example: "3 mistakes I made hiring my first developer. The third cost us a quarter." Template: "[N] mistakes I made [doing X]. The [last] one cost [consequence]."
• 4. The price. Example: "Raising our price from $9 to $24 was the most stressful email I have ever sent." Template: "Changing [thing] from [A] to [B] was the [emotion] [moment] of [period]."
• 5. The time box. Example: "Ten minutes a week is enough to post daily. Here is the system." Template: "[Small amount of time] is enough to [big outcome]. Here is how."

When to use: any time you have a real number. If you are tempted to round it to something impressive, don't. "62%" is more believable than "most".

Confession hooks

Confessions work because they are rare. Everyone on LinkedIn is winning; the person admitting a mistake is the one worth reading.

• 6. The public mistake. Example: "I shipped a feature nobody asked for. Twice." Template: "I [mistake]. [Twice / for a year / in front of the whole company]."
• 7. The late realisation. Example: "It took me four years to understand what our customers were actually buying." Template: "It took me [time] to understand [thing that seems obvious now]."
• 8. The thing you were wrong about. Example: "I used to think growth was a marketing problem." Template: "I used to think [belief]. [Then what happened]."
• 9. The number you hid. Example: "Our churn was 9% a month. I did not put it in the investor update." Template: "[Bad metric]. I [what you did instead of facing it]."

When to use: when the post actually contains the fix or the lesson. A confession without a turn is just a diary entry.

Contrarian hooks

A defended contrarian position is the most comment-generating hook type on the platform, as long as you can back it up in the body.

• 10. The reversal. Example: "Popularity is a terrible buying signal." Template: "[Widely accepted good thing] is a terrible [thing people use it for]."
• 11. The 'stop doing this'. Example: "Stop A/B testing your homepage. You don't have the traffic." Template: "Stop [common practice]. [The reason it does not apply to most people]."
• 12. The unpopular defence. Example: "Cold email still works. You are just doing it lazily." Template: "[Thing people say is dead] still works. You are just [doing it badly]."
• 13. The 'nobody says this'. Example: "Nobody tells first-time founders this: your first 10 hires will decide your culture more than you will." Template: "Nobody tells [audience] this: [uncomfortable truth]."

When to use: when you hold the opinion for real and have evidence. Manufactured controversy gets spotted within a day.

Story hooks

Stories earn dwell time, the reader stays to find out what happened, and dwell time is one of the strongest distribution signals.

• 14. The scene. Example: "Tuesday, 11 pm. Our biggest customer just sent a one-line email: 'We need to talk.'" Template: "[Day, time]. [One-sentence scene with a person and a tension]."
• 15. The turning point. Example: "One small decision in March changed how we sell." Template: "One [small] decision in [month] changed [big thing]."
• 16. The before/after. Example: "Six months ago our calendar was empty. Today it is booked through November." Template: "[Time] ago, [before]. Today, [after]."
• 17. The dialogue. Example: "'Why would anyone pay for this?'. My co-founder, 2023." Template: "'[Quote]'. [who], [when]."

When to use: anything you actually lived. Keep the scene to one sentence; the details go in the body.

Curiosity hooks

Curiosity hooks open a gap and promise to close it. They fail when the body does not deliver, so use them only when you have a real answer.

• 18. The question you can't ignore. Example: "If you stopped using it for two weeks, what would actually break?" Template: "If you [stopped/started X], what would actually [happen]?"
• 19. The missing step. Example: "Most advice about hiring skips the step that actually matters." Template: "Most advice about [topic] skips the [step/part] that actually matters."
• 20. The paradox. Example: "The more we measured, the less we changed." Template: "The more we [X], the less we [Y]."
• 21. The 'three things' tease. Example: "Three sentences about pricing I wish someone had told me earlier ↓" Template: "[N] sentences about [topic] I wish someone had told me earlier."

Authority hooks

Authority hooks earn the click by showing scale or duration, the reader assumes you have seen patterns they have not.

• 22. The receipts. Example: "I have reviewed 300 sales decks this year. 280 make the same mistake." Template: "I have [reviewed/run/built] [N] [things]. [Most] [share one pattern]."
• 23. The years. Example: "Twelve years of running support taught me one rule about angry customers." Template: "[N years] of [doing X] taught me one rule about [Y]."
• 24. The inside view. Example: "Here is what a churn conversation actually sounds like." Template: "Here is what [thing people never see] actually [looks/sounds] like."

Utility hooks

• 25. The template. Example: "The four-line Friday update that replaced our status meetings." Template: "The [short artefact] that replaced [painful thing]."

Utility hooks are the most saveable of all: the reader wants the artefact. Make sure the body delivers it verbatim.

How to choose the right hook

• Match the hook to the substance. Real number → number hook. Real opinion → contrarian hook. Real event → scene. Do not dress a lesson as a confession.
• Write the hook last. Draft the post, find the most surprising line, promote it to the top.
• Test it in isolation. Read only the first two lines. Would you tap "see more"? If you hesitate, so will everyone else.
• Keep it under 140 characters so it is not truncated on mobile.
• Generate several, rank them. Professional writers draft five to ten hooks per post and keep one. It takes two minutes and is the highest-leverage two minutes in the process.

Hooks that backfire

• The bait-and-switch. "I got fired" followed by "…from my own limiting beliefs". Readers feel tricked and stop trusting the account.
• The announcement. "Excited to share…" is the most-skipped opener on the platform.
• The vague question. "What do you think about leadership?" gives the reader nothing to hold.
• The emoji wall. Three rocket emojis do not create curiosity; they create a category ("promo") and the category gets scrolled.
• The unclosed gap. Curiosity hooks with no answer in the body train your readers to ignore you.

A note on volume

Twenty posts a month means twenty hooks, and the hook is the part most people run out of energy for by week two. That is why ShipMyPosts drafts several ranked hooks for every post from your own material, scores them on scroll-stop and credibility, and lets you pick the one you would actually say, then handles the rest of the month. If you would rather do it by hand, keep this list open and force yourself to write five before choosing one.

After the hook: making the body keep the promise

A hook is a promise; the body is the delivery. The fastest way to lose the trust a good hook buys is a body that wanders. Three rules keep the two aligned:

• Answer the hook in the first three lines after it. If the hook says "one change did 80% of it", the change is named immediately, the story of how you found it comes after, not before.
• One idea. The hook promised one thing; do not deliver three. The rest are separate posts (and separate hooks).
• Close the loop. End with a line that callbacks the hook, a question, or the takeaway. The structure is laid out in how to write LinkedIn posts that get reach.

Hooks and the first hour

The hook decides whether the reader expands the post, and expansion is one of the earliest signals LinkedIn reads when deciding whether to widen distribution. A stronger hook therefore does not just earn more reads, it earns a better test in the first hour, which earns more reach. That is why it is worth spending two minutes on five variants. How the test works, and what else you can do in that hour, is in the algorithm explained through the first 60 minutes.

The hook is not an introduction. It is the best line of your post, promoted.