Free Social Media Hook Tester
Paste your opening line. Get an instant 0 to 100 score across curiosity, specificity, brevity, and emotion, plus three rewrites in proven copywriting frameworks. Math runs in your browser; nothing leaves your device.
By Tayyab, Founder
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Paste a hook to get started
We score on four dimensions (curiosity, specificity, brevity, emotion) and rewrite your hook in three proven copywriting frameworks.
How to use the score
The composite is a weighted average across four dimensions, and the weighting is published rather than described: curiosity 30%, specificity 30%, emotion 25%, brevity 15%. Those numbers are read from the scorer as this page renders, so the explanation cannot drift from the behaviour. They came from a fit against the best and worst performing hooks in our own library of 96. Brevity is weighted lowest deliberately: it behaves as a gate rather than a lever, so violating it badly tanks everything while meeting it adds almost nothing, and a short weak hook does not score well just for being short. The verdict cut-offs are excellent at 80, strong at 65, okay at 45.
When the score is below 65, fix the lowest-scoring dimension first. Most hooks fail on curiosity (no gap) or specificity (vague placeholders like "things", "people", "tools"). The reason text under each dimension tells you exactly what's missing.
Once you have a strong hook, browse the Hook Library for 96 patterns across 11 categories you can imitate, or read the AI Content Marketing Playbook for the full framework selection guide.
Why this is a heuristic scorer, not an LLM
Free tools are only useful if they stay free. Heuristic scoring runs in your browser at zero cost; an LLM call would force a signup wall (which kills the SEO and link-building value of the tool). Inside Content Drifter, the AI hook rewriter is LLM-powered, trained on your Brand Kit and your past posts. The free tool is the trailer; the dashboard is the movie.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a good social media hook?
A strong hook does four things at once: opens a curiosity gap (the reader has a reason to scroll), is specific (named entities, numbers, concrete anchors, not "things" or "people"), stays short (30 to 90 characters is the sweet spot for the IG / X preview line), and carries emotional charge (a reader feels something, surprise, vindication, hope). The hook tester scores each dimension separately so you can see exactly which one is dragging the composite down.
How is the hook score calculated?
The composite is a weighted average: curiosity 30% + specificity 30% + emotion 25% + brevity 15%. Each dimension uses pattern-matching heuristics (curiosity-gap phrases, numerical specificity, length sweet spot, emotional vocabulary) calibrated against our internal hooks-library top-100 vs bottom-100 dataset. The math runs in your browser; nothing is sent to a server.
What score should I aim for before I post?
65 or above (Strong) is the publish threshold for most posts. 80+ (Excellent) is the bar for a Pillar post or a paid promotion. Below 45 (Weak) is a signal to start over from a different angle, usually the curiosity dimension is the missing ingredient. The recommendation line tells you which dimension is the easiest lift for your specific hook.
Does the tool work for any platform?
Yes, the underlying signals (curiosity, specificity, emotion) are platform-agnostic. The brevity dimension is calibrated for the universal sweet spot (30 to 90 chars) which fits the IG / X / Threads preview line. For LinkedIn (which has a 220-char preview cutoff), a slightly longer hook can still score well as long as the other dimensions are strong. The framework rewrites work everywhere; they're structural, not platform-specific.