GLOSSARY · CONTENT CRAFT
Hook
A hook is the opening line or two of a LinkedIn post, the part a reader sees before the "see more" fold in the feed. Its job is to earn the click that expands the post and to set an accurate expectation of what follows. A hook can be a specific claim, a question the reader already has, a surprising number with a source, or the first line of a story. Because the feed truncates posts after roughly the first three lines on most devices, the hook carries most of the decision about whether a post gets read at all.
How it works in practice
LinkedIn shows the first few lines of a post and hides the rest behind a "see more" link. On mobile the visible portion is shorter than on desktop, so writers plan for the shorter case. Everything after the fold only matters if the hook works. A good hook is specific and honest. It names the situation the reader is in, states the position the post will take, or starts a story at the moment of tension. It does not promise more than the post delivers; a reader who expands a post and finds the hook was bait stops expanding that author's posts. Common forms include the flat claim ("Most founder content fails because it is written for peers, not buyers"), the counted list ("Three things our lost deals had in common"), the question the reader is actually asking, and the in-media-res story opener.
Weak hooks tend to be throat-clearing ("I've been thinking a lot lately about..."), vague ("Some thoughts on leadership"), or formulaic in ways readers now recognise and skip, such as "Unpopular opinion:" followed by a popular opinion. Treat the hook and the last line as a pair: the hook opens a question and the closing line answers it. Draft the body first, then write the hook, because the hook should describe what the post actually says.
Example
Body: a post about why a founder stopped posting daily. Hook: "We posted every day for six months. Pipeline did not move. Here is what we changed." Short, specific, and the post delivers on it.
Common mistake
Writing the hook before the post and never revising it, so the first line promises one thing and the body delivers another. Readers notice the gap and stop trusting the author's openers.