Following, Friends, and Subscriptions are graphs you built. Home, For You, Reels, Shorts, TikTok's FYP are graphs the ranker built. The file is shown to people who did not ask for you. Hook rate is the opening grade on that surface. A swipe-away is the rejection. Mute autoplay is how the player usually starts. The first second has to work as a still-plus-type poster that happens to move.
Home Timeline impressions are a different object: X's count of a post shown in Home, and the subset of those that can pay. Do not paste that meter onto Instagram or TikTok. Each app's Analytics still mixes surfaces — profile, Search, following, recommended — into totals that look like reach. When the question is 'did the ranker show this,' name the home feed separately.
Creative that was made for a following audience (a greeting, a callback, a part-four without a recap) fails here by construction. Cold-open the claim. Burn the line. Assume the viewer has never seen the account. A pack of openings is how you test that assumption without reshooting the body.
In practice
- Watch the cut as a stranger on mute at phone size. That is the home-feed audience.
- When a report says impressions, ask which surface. Home is not profile and not Search.
- Do not open on a callback to last week's post. The ranker is showing this file to people who missed last week.
The mistake to avoid
Reading a following-tab win as a home-feed win. People who already chose you are not the ranker's test.
Where you will run into it
- Add a Hook to Your Video — The first second decides if anyone keeps watching.
- AI Reel Maker — Hook, beats, captions, posted.
Related terms
Home Timeline impressions
Home Timeline impressions are X (Twitter) counts of a post shown in the Home feed — not profile, Search, or replies — and the ones that can pay.
Swipe-away
A swipe-away is a short-form skip: the viewer leaves before the clip holds. After YouTube's first-frame rule it can still write a public view.
Hook rate
Hook rate meaning: the share of people shown a video who are still watching a few seconds in. It grades the opening, not the body.
Retention curve
Retention curve meaning: how many starters are still watching at each second. Watch time is the area under that curve.
Creative fatigue
Creative fatigue meaning: performance decay because the audience has seen the same piece too often, not because the piece changed.
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