What is the 3-second hook rule?

On any feed, you have roughly 3 seconds before a viewer decides: stay or scroll. The algorithm watches that decision — 3-second hold rate is one of the strongest signals deciding whether your video gets pushed to more people. Lose the first 3 seconds and the platform never shows the rest.

What holds people, in order of power:

1. An open loop. Pose a question or tension the viewer needs resolved. "I almost deleted this footage" — now they need to know why. The payoff comes later; the loop does the holding.

2. Mid-action opening. Start inside the most interesting moment, not before it. No logos, no "hey guys," no context — context is what the next 20 seconds are for.

3. Contradiction. "Everything you've heard about lighting is backwards." Disagreement is glue.

4. Visual surprise. An unexpected image or a hard cut on motion buys you the time to land one of the above.

Audit yourself: open your analytics retention graph. If the cliff is at 2-4 seconds, your hook is the problem. If you survive to 0:10 then bleed, your hook wrote a check the video doesn't cash — that's a structure problem, and it's a different fix.