How to write the opening line of a TikTok for your app

On TikTok, Reels and Shorts the viewer decides in a moment whether to keep watching. The opening line has one job: make them think 'that's me' or 'wait, what?' before their thumb moves. Everything else in the post - the story, the turn, your app - only gets seen if the first line works.

A confession: 'I used to spend Sunday night planning meals I never cooked.' A specific moment: 'When it's seven in the evening and the fridge is full but there's nothing to eat.' A point of view: 'POV: you finally stopped paying for three apps that do the same thing.' A question: 'Why does every budget fall apart in the second week?' A small contrarian claim: 'Habit trackers made my habits worse.'

What they share: each is about the viewer's life, each is specific enough to picture, and each opens a question the rest of the post answers.

Your app's name or a feature in the first line. A category instead of a moment ('Struggling with productivity?'). A line too long to read before it disappears. And a promise the post does not keep - viewers who feel tricked leave and do not come back to the account.

The app belongs at the turn, once the viewer already cares about the problem: the last slides of a slideshow, the cut in a demo video, or the caption of a wall of text. By then it reads as the answer to something they just felt, not as an advert.

Write a handful of opening lines for every post and read them out loud. Cut any that would only make sense to someone who already knows your app. Of the rest, keep the most specific one - the one where a viewer could picture the exact moment.

Keep a running list of the opening lines you have posted next to what each post got. After a few weeks the shapes that work for your audience will be obvious, and they are often not the ones you would have guessed.

Find posts in your category, or about the problem your app solves, that already did well, and write down their opening lines. Study the shape - confession, moment, question - and never copy the words. A shape that worked for someone else is a better starting point than a blank page.

A notes app and a few honest minutes are enough to do this well. Topped writes the words for you: our team hand-picks real posts that already worked, and when a For You draft is built on one, Topped writes your version of its opening line about your app's users, in a person's voice, and the card shows the post it came from and the number it got. You can rewrite any line before you approve it, and the Scoreboard shows what each post got. There is a free plan with no card.