Built from 14,000+ analyzed TikTok and Instagram videos. Useful whether you use The Content Labs or not.
A data study of 2,485 graded TikTok and Instagram videos: A-tier hooks ran 10.14x the account's typical views, B and C hooks barely broke 1.7x, and D/F hooks lost to the account's own average.
Aug 20, 2026
A data study of 2,485 graded TikTok and Instagram videos: A-tier hooks ran 10.14x the account's typical views, B and C hooks barely broke 1.7x, and D/F hooks lost to the account's own average.
A data study of 14,424 TikTok and Instagram videos across 355 accounts. Hooks of 9-12 words outperform every other length, and ultra-short hooks are the most overrated advice in short-form.
A data study of 14,424 TikTok and Instagram videos: hooks with numbers averaged 7.77x the account's typical views versus 7.42x without. A 5% difference. And money numbers actually performed worst.
A data study of 14,424 TikTok and Instagram videos: hooks phrased as questions averaged 10.08x the account's typical views versus 7.04x for statements. Here's when questions work and when they don't.
A data study of 14,424 TikTok and Instagram videos: hooks aimed at the viewer (you, your) averaged 9.62x the account's typical views. Hooks about the creator (I, my, me) averaged 6.18x.
We analyzed every TikTok, Reel, and Short our creators posted in Q1 2026. Instagram beat TikTok on engagement, longer videos crushed shorter ones, and Greenscreen ate the format wars. Full data, no fluff.
We pulled every TikTok and Reel posted in the last 30 days and tagged the hook on each one. Here's what's actually pulling engagement heading into May 2026, what's cooling off, and the formulas climbing fastest.
We compared 500 profane scripts to 3,265 clean scripts. Profane videos hit 1M views less than half as often. The biggest clean video got 69.8M views. The biggest profane video maxed at 5.5M. The cussing ceiling, in numbers.
We analyzed comment-to-view ratios across 10,761 short-form videos. Comment rate goes DOWN as views go up. Politics videos provoke 3x the discussion of Health videos despite Health getting more reach. The hooks and niches that get talked about are not the ones that get watched.
We read every word of 3,633 transcripts and split them by view tier. Mega-viral scripts use longer sentences, ask 60% more questions, and swear half as much as long-tail content. Plus a first-word leaderboard: the openers most likely to break 100K (and the ones that bury you).
We bucketed 10,226 short-form videos into 16 topic niches and ranked them by % of videos crossing 100K views. Food, Health, and Sports dominate. Real Estate, Productivity, and Tech are the hardest niches to break out in. Full topic leaderboard with example videos.
We sliced 10,042 short-form videos into three view tiers and compared what changes as videos scale from the long tail into the viral tier. Investigator hooks scale steadily. Trust/utility content collapses. Talking Head loses share at the top. Full data study.
Connect TikTok and Instagram. The Content Labs runs the same audits you've been reading about across every video on your account, then writes a 30-day calendar with hooks and scripts built from what's actually winning in your niche.
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