The opening frame is the whole battle
Your first frame competes with a thumb already in motion. Start on movement, a face mid-sentence, or a visual that raises a question.
Never open on a logo, a slow fade, or a generic greeting.
Say the payoff before you earn it
Traditional structure builds to a conclusion. Short-form works better when you state the promise immediately and then justify it.
If the viewer knows within two seconds what they will get by staying, they stay.
Cut on the sentence, not the silence
Remove every breath, filler word and dead frame. Pacing is the difference between a clip that feels tight and one that feels long, even at identical length.
Captions are not optional
Most viewers watch without sound. Burned-in captions, styled consistently, are the single biggest completion-rate lever after the hook.
Build a template and stop reinventing
Lock your caption style, title cards, transitions and end frame once. Consistency makes your content recognisable in the feed and makes the edit three times faster.