The Hook Guide: Why People Scroll Past Your Bookstagram (and How to Fix It)
Steak my hook system
Let me guess. You post consistently. Your photos look nice. You write a thoughtful caption, tag the right tropes, use the trending audio. And the post still does that sad little thing where it gets seen by your same 200 people and then quietly dies.
I promise you it’s not your photos. It’s not your aesthetic.
It’s two things almost nobody teaches properly: your hooks and your pillars. One gets people to stop. The other gives them a reason to stay. And when you get both right, the same account, the same photos, the same you, starts behaving completely differently.
This is the long version of everything I know about hooks, I’ll post another article about content pillars too soon. Grab a drink, let’s gooo. <3
P.S. my Patreon fam got this one first, and now it’s living here on Substack, if you want the guides while they’re fresh (plus weekly canva templates, post ideas, and lightroom presets), come join us over there. it genuinely keeps me creating and means the whole world to me
Part One: Hooks
A hook is the first thing someone reads or sees, and its only job is to make them not scroll past you. Now on Instagram it doesn’t matter how many followers you’ve got, if they scroll past your carousel/reel, it signals to the algorithm that it has no value, and then it stops pushing it to new people, even to the rest of your followers. I hate it too !!!!!!!
On bookstagram a hook lives in three places:
- The first line of your caption
- The text on the cover of your carousel
- The text on screen in the first second of your reel
And here’s the part that took me too long to understand: a hook is not a topic. “my may wrap up” is a topic. “the book everyone loved that I wanted to throw across the room” is a hook. Same post. Completely different energy. One announces. One pulls.
Why Hooks Matter More on Bookstagram Than Almost Anywhere
Because reach now comes from non-followers. The explore page, the reels feed, the “suggested for you.” those people have zero loyalty to you. They don’t care that you’re lovely. You have about one second to earn the next three.
And the signal Instagram cares about most is saves, then comments, then likes (likes are basically participation trophies at this point). A save means someone wanted to keep you. A comment means they felt something. A hook is what creates the feeling that makes them do either.
The Principles (The Rules I Actually Follow)
