4 Steps To Writing Viral Hooks

1) Competitor-based hook replication

The fastest way is to identify direct competitors and reuse their hooks as a base.

This accelerates iteration when the goal is to test proven angles quickly.

Just take a look at how Latera managed to copy Roamy, but in Spanish instead, and still went viral:

Roamy: ” i could LITERALLY KISS the flight attendant that showed me this”

9.5M views (Nov 2025)

Latera: “Podría LITERALMENTE casarme con la azafata que me mostró esto”

(“I could literally marry the flight attendant who showed me this.”)

2) Mining niche influencer content for recurring problems

Study non-brand influencer accounts in the same vertical that post heavily in the niche.

Focus on what they talk about, how audiences react, and what appears in the comments.

This will reveal clusters of recurring user problems that can be turned into hooks you can use for your app.

To validate them, check whether it repeats across accounts.

Here’s an example from StudyTok. One recurring frustration in the niche is fake productivity.

A creator turned that tension into a hook that pulled 2M views, and Tomo AIlater adapted the same format for the app:

Recycling also matters.

Hooks that went viral months earlier can still perform when reused later. Don’t be afraid to reintroduce an old banger.

3) Writing hooks from user pain points, then adapting to audience language

Hooks can also be built directly from user pain points and then searched for matching inspiration or tested immediately.

Adapting to the language of the target audience is critical.

My approach is to go on TikTok for 30 minutes a day, searching within a vertical and saving hooks.

Basically, creating a curated gallery of inspiration.

Let’s use the TLDL case study as an example:

They took a hook from a recurring student pain point, validating it by looking at comment sections.

“when you’re too tired to study but you can’t sleep ’cause you need to study” hit 18.6M views and got 3,668 relatable comments.

Proven viral format -> pain point hook -> caption app promo.

4) Use open prompts to generate new hook variations

When you run out of angles, open-feedback posts can do the work for you.

Questions that ask for honest opinions, stories, or experiences often generate comment sections full of phrasing, tensions, and problem statements you can turn into new hooks.

A strong example comes from the college-advice niche:

One creator asked for wild freshman-year stories and the post reached 545.9K views with 1,718 comments.

“I’m bored comment ur most INSANE freshman year story. Not just ‘we got caught by the RAs’ like actually unhinged.”

A whole library of genuine stories from the audience, generated from one AI picture and one hook.