Halloween provides an excellent gimmick to get more attention for your business marketing. While some people may advise that gimmicks are only temporary upticks in any marketing strategy, when it comes to social media that’s all it takes to get in front of more people. Particularly with Facebook, many of the social media platforms base what they show users on what the users are interacting with. If you create some fun content for Halloween and the month of October you can really improve your business marketing Q-4 and beyond. But it’s not just all abut social media. We have some other fun ideas too.
Website and Logo
With a couple of fun changes, you can redo your logo for fall and/or Halloween. Think about Google’s doodles and how that company changes the logo nearly every day based on something important historically or for a particular holiday.
You don’t need the budget of Google to be able to accomplish this. You could just add the silhouette of a black cat to the top of your logo or change some of the colors on your website to orange and black. Add some cobwebs. Have a little fun with content by adding words like spooky, scary, or howling good time.
If you have bios and staff pictures on your site, consider changing those to reflect a Halloween theme. You can do this by temporarily renaming people, adding Halloween-themed filters to their images, and/or changing their bios slightly to reflect a love for black cats or candy corn. These spooky ways will help you stand out and get the attention of your audience. They’ll also spend more time on your site.
Halloween-themed Social Media Posts
Halloween is a great topic for social media posts. It’s easy to get people interacting with your content. Try these post ideas:
- Favorite horror movie. Post yours and asked about theirs.
- Create a list of horror movies and tell people they get one point for every one they’ve seen. Have them tally up their points. Ask your audience to post their scores.
- Invite your audience to post their favorite Halloween costumes.
- Ask them “ candy corn” or “ candy pumpkins.”
- Invite them to share images of their carved pumpkin.
- Host a pumpkin carving contest at your business and post the entries. Crowdsource a winner.
- Post some fun puns, jokes, or other written Halloween inspired antics. If you don’t know any, Google some.
- Create image quote posts from spooky movies. Invite people to change one word to go from scary to funny.
- Offer a special flash discount for the Halloween season such as a “Midnight Hour” flash sale.
- Change words in your posts to reflect the Halloween spirit such as “ hope you have a great fright day” instead of Friday.
- Post cartoons about Halloween. Just be careful of usage rights and give attribution where warranted.
- Be a resource for Halloween things. For instance, if your business is mainly local, consider posting all of the local Trick or Treat times or events in the neighborhood that would interest families of trick-or-treaters.
- Offer a discount for anyone who shares a picture of their Halloween costume, Halloween loot, or any other topic you have asked about.
- Share a scary story over video. If you decide to livestream it, you can ask people for suggestions as you progress in the story. You can do this as a Choose-your-own-Adventure-style Halloween experience.
- Dress up in costume and visit some of your best customers or business partners. Drop off a little something sweet for them. Get it on video so everyone can enjoy their excitement. If you’re worried about hurting someone’s feelings or someone feeling left out, decide who you will visit with a random drawing of names.
- Create a video of your team dancing to Thriller.
- Create a fun hashtag to use during the Halloween season.
- Post funny Halloween-inspired products or services. For instance, a pumpkin spice oil change.
Also, don’t forget you can change your cover photos and profile pictures to encapsulate Halloween fun as well.
Halloween-inspired Favicon
Look at the icon on your open tab on your computer screen. See the icon? That’s called a favicon. Use a Halloween-inspired favicon to amuse your audience. Just keep in mind they are quite small. So you can’t simply use a smaller rendition of your logo. Keep it to something basic like a pumpkin, a witch’s hat, or a black cat.
You don’t want people taking a long time trying to figure out what the object is. Again, you don’t have to get cutesy. Whatever your current favicon is you could simply change it to an orange and black version for a Halloween effect.
Halloween Blog Posts
Post your blog post on your website and on social media. Encourage your staff to share your posts on their social media profiles. Possible Halloween blog post topics include:
- Helpful hints about Halloween and your business. For instance, if you are a dentist you might want to create a blog post about proper brushing, candy that’s really bad for your teeth, or places you can give extra candy. Look for ways to tie your business into the Halloween season and blog about it.
- A favorite family recipe. But rename it for the Halloween season. For instance, a recipe for “Italian meatballs” may become “Italian eyeballs.” But ensure people realize this is a joke and not a literal recipe for eyeballs.
- Review a fall-themed attraction. Pair up with that business in a mutually-beneficial way.
- How to ace Halloween decorations.
- How to host a Halloween party on a budget.
- Cheap Halloween costumes that will make people smile, scream, run away, etc.
- The history behind Halloween and dressing up.
- How your product or service ties into Halloween.
- How Halloween affects your industry. For instance, does Halloween affect financial markets?
- A roundup of your favorite Halloween happenings.
Remember, a Halloween-themed blog post doesn’t have to be about your business. For it to be effective, you want to ensure that it appeals to your ideal demographic. If your ideal demographic is young parents, safe Halloween happenings are a great concern for them. if on the other hand, your ideal demographic is teenagers, you may want to write about the coolest haunted houses in the country.
When it comes to content Google won’t rank you on how closely your blog topic is about your product or service that you sell. But it will rank you on how much interaction you get as well as the “time on page” that people spend with your content. That’s why it’s not necessary to write about your product or service in every blog post as long as every blog post entertains, informs, or educates your ideal demographic.
Dress Up
Okay, this isn’t exactly an online marketing idea but it can become one. If you have customers who come into your business, you could dress up in costume. Go live with their reaction to your costumes or interview them about their own likes and dislikes about Halloween. You can also give them the option of a trick or treat. This could result in some very funny situations.
Halloween Product or Service
Create a Halloween product or service for your business and advertise it all over social media. For instance, a few years back, Starbucks created a zombie frappuccino. Look for ways to incorporate the season into your offerings.
If you don’t want to create a new product or service, you can always rename an existing one with a Halloween-inspired title.
And since social media and producing content is just a part of the marketing strategy, we want to make sure you have some Halloween swag as well. Halloween swag is a fresh way to entice your audience and stay top-of-mind for them. Plus, it makes a perfect giveaway for people who don’t like or want candy.
Check out our Halloween Promo and give us a call today.
Time is of the essence. It’s almost October.
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