Short-form videos

1---
2name: shortform-playbook
3description: Write short-form video scripts that hold attention and convert — Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts. Use when the user wants scripts, hooks, or content ideas for short-form video, wants to promote a product with Reels/TikToks, wants to analyze why their short-form content isn't working, or wants a short-form content strategy. Covers audience research, the four-pillar script formula, hook writing, pacing and visual direction, per-platform differences, and the variant-testing method for finding winning formats.
4---
5 
6# The short-form playbook
7 
8Short-form is an attention game. Attention is the scarcest resource on the internet and grabbing it is the most valuable skill there is, because where attention goes, money follows. This skill writes scripts that win the scroll-stop, hold to the end, and convert, and it treats every script as a testable variant, not a masterpiece.
9 
10The mistake that kills most people: they make a random product, post one AI-generated reel, get nothing, and quit. Short-form works as a volume-and-testing system. One video proves nothing; twenty variants prove exactly what your audience responds to.
11 
12## Phase 0: know who's watching before writing a word
13 
14Scripts written for "everyone" hook no one. Before drafting:
15 
161. **Profile the ideal viewer.** Funnel from the broad audience down to one specific person. Write their demographics and psychographics in full: age, work, income, what their day looks like hour by hour, what they complain about, what they've tried, what words they use for their problem. Get obsessed with this person; the goal is writing hooks from inside their head.
172. **Verify with real faces.** Search the product's key term on Instagram, find accounts whose audience matches, and go through the followers looking at actual profiles. This replaces the imaginary customer with real ones and often changes the tone, references, and vocabulary of every script.
183. **Pick the platform by the demographic.** Younger audiences live on TikTok and Instagram; older audiences on Facebook; some niches live on YouTube and nowhere else. Don't force a platform because it's trendy; go where the profile actually scrolls. The same script usually cross-posts fine, but the primary platform decides the tone.
194. **Study what already wins in the niche.** Collect 20-30 top-performing videos from competitors and adjacent creators (scrapers like Apify's Instagram and TikTok tools can pull post data at scale, or collect manually). For each: what was the hook, text overlay, format, length, and the comment section's reaction. Recurring hooks and formats are the niche's proven demand; the comment sections are a dictionary of how the audience actually talks, and that vocabulary goes straight into hooks.
20 
21Store all of it in one research file and check every script against it.
22 
23## The four-pillar formula
24 
25Every script hits all four. A script missing any pillar gets rewritten, not posted.
26 
27### 1. Hook (0-3 seconds)
28 
29Half of viewers scroll away in the first 3 seconds. The hook is most of the job: it isn't an introduction, it isn't the brand name, it's the single line that makes scrolling past feel like a loss.
30 
31Hook formulas that work, matched to content type:
32 
33- **Curiosity gap:** "I didn't believe this worked until I tried it"
34- **Shocking statement:** "Stop doing [common action]. Here's why"
35- **Question:** "Wanna [specific benefit]? Here's what that actually looks like"
36- **Results-based:** "This thing [specific impressive result] while you sleep"
37- **Pattern interrupt:** "Stop sending cold emails. Send this instead"
38- **Confession/story:** "I wasted [real number] on [thing] so you don't have to"
39- **Enemy:** "[Common advice] is why you're stuck"
40 
41Rules for hooks: the specific number beats the vague claim, the viewer's own vocabulary (from Phase 0) beats marketing language, and visual and verbal hooks should differ, with the text overlay adding a second hook rather than captioning the spoken one. Write 5-10 hooks per concept and shortlist two, because hooks get tested, not chosen (see the testing section).
42 
43### 2. Retention (3 seconds to the end)
44 
45Completion rate drives reach; 70%+ completion is where distribution takes off. The structure that holds people: hook them, tell a story, evoke an emotion, pay it off at the end. Even a 25-second product demo follows that arc.
46 
47Tactics:
48 
49- Cut every 2-3 seconds; a static shot longer than that is where thumbs leave
50- Visual variety: angles, zooms, screen changes, location switches
51- A fresh pattern interrupt every 10-15 seconds: new visual, sound change, text pop
52- Open loops at the midpoint: "the best part is coming"
53- Never signal the ending; wrap-up language is an exit cue
54- Front-load value; anything that could be cut from the first 5 seconds should be
55 
56### 3. Reward (throughout, paid off at the end)
57 
58Deliver on the hook's promise completely. Bait without reward kills trust and trains the audience to never click again. Reward types, and every video should know which one it's delivering: educational (teach the actual thing, not a teaser of it), transformation (real before/after), entertainment (make them feel something), demo (show the product doing the thing, for real, on screen). The payoff lands at the end so completion stays high, and the emotional beat is what makes it shareable: relief, surprise, "finally someone said it."
59 
60### 4. Engagement bait (final 3-5 seconds)
61 
62Comments, shares, and saves are algorithm fuel, and they happen when engineered:
63 
64- Comment bait: one easy, low-effort question ("which step do you hate most?"), or ask for a single word ("drop a 'yes' if you want the link")
65- Share bait: "tag someone who needs this"
66- Save bait: "save this for when you [situation]"
67- Yes/no and emoji prompts outperform open questions
68 
69One bait per video. Stacking all three reads as desperate.
70 
71## Script format
72 
73Deliver every script like this so it's shootable without interpretation:
74 
75```
76### Reel: [descriptive name]
77
78Duration: [15-60 sec, sweet spot 25-35]
79Format: [screen recording / talking head / voiceover + demo / split screen]
80
81Hook (0-3 sec):
82[exact opening line, plus what's on screen]
83
84Retention + Reward (3-X sec):
85[line]
86[Cut — visual direction]
87[line]
88[Cut — visual direction]
89...
90
91Engagement bait (final 3-5 sec):
92[exact prompt]
93
94On-screen text: [key overlays, timed]
95```
96 
97Visual directions in brackets throughout: [Cut], [Close-up], [Screen: dashboard with leads populating], [Text on screen: "100 leads in 10 minutes"], [Split screen: manual vs automated]. A script without cut markers isn't finished, because the pacing IS the script.
98 
99Style: short punchy sentences, casual grammar fine (gonna, wanna), no emojis in the spoken script, written the way the Phase 0 profile actually talks.
100 
101## The five content types
102 
103Rotate across these; each has a natural hook style and reward:
104 
1051. **Pain point.** Show the manual grind in full, then reveal the better way. Hook: "here's what [task] actually looks like." Reward: relief.
1062. **Demo.** The product visibly doing the thing, real screen, real output. Hook: results-based. Reward: proof.
1073. **Tactic/education.** One specific, complete, usable tactic. Hook: pattern interrupt ("stop doing X, do this"). Reward: they can go do it. Giving away real value builds the audience that buys later; hold nothing back.
1084. **Founder/personal story.** Why this exists, told as a story with a real low point. Hook: "I was [pain]. So I built something." Reward: relatability plus the solution. These convert followers, not just viewers.
1095. **Comparison.** Old way vs new way, side by side. Hook: "other tools make you do all of this manually. watch this." Reward: undeniable contrast.
110 
111## Platform notes
112 
113- **TikTok:** fastest pacing, rawest production wins, trends and sounds matter most, hooks can be blunter.
114- **Instagram Reels:** slightly more polish tolerated, shares to stories are the distribution lever, so shareability weighs more.
115- **YouTube Shorts:** feeds the main channel; loop-friendly endings (last line flows back into the first) boost rewatches, which Shorts rewards heavily.
116- Cross-post everything by default, but cut the primary version for the primary platform, and strip watermarks before cross-posting because platforms suppress each other's marks.
117 
118## The testing system
119 
120This is the difference between creators who grow and creators who quit:
121 
122- **Two different hooks per video.** Same body, different first 3 seconds, posted as separate videos. The hook is the highest-leverage variable, so it gets tested on every single piece of content.
123- **Publish variants across styles.** Different formats, tones, and content types, deliberately varied. Then read the data, find the top three formats by response, and ride those three hard while still testing new ones on the side. Winners get milked, not retired.
124- **Volume before judgment.** No conclusions before 20+ posts. The first batch is tuition; the data it produces is the actual product.
125- **Read the right metrics.** Hook strength = 3-second hold rate. Content strength = completion rate. Shareability = shares and saves, which beat likes as signals. Convert = comments and profile taps.
126- **Feed results back into Phase 0.** Winning vocabulary, formats, and topics go into the research file; the next batch starts smarter.
127 
128## Converting attention to money
129 
130Attention without an offer is a hobby. How to cash it depends on the product and how niche it is, but the shape is constant: make content around the thing, provide real value openly, and plug what you sell directly and without apology. The plug goes in the engagement bait ("drop a 'yes' if you want the link"), the pinned comment, and the bio. DMs convert best of all: a comment answered with genuine help, then the offer, outsells any link. Never gate the value itself; the free value is the marketing.
131 
132## Running this skill
133 
134When the user asks for scripts: confirm the product, the platform, and whether a Phase 0 profile exists (build a quick one if not), then deliver scripts in the full format above, each with two hook options, across at least two content types. When the user asks for a strategy: deliver the Phase 0 research plan, a 20-post testing calendar across the five content types, and the metrics to read at each checkpoint. When the user brings underperforming content: diagnose by pillar — weak 3-second hold is a hook problem, early drop-off is pacing, full watches without engagement is missing bait, views without follows or sales is a reward or offer problem — and rewrite the weakest pillar first.