31 Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips You Need To Drive Awesome Results

Halloween social media marketing tricks drive measurable results!

Even better, you can scare off your organization’s social media naysayers.

So skip the Halloween treats!

Why?
Because, while tasty, the sugar high doesn’t grow anything but your waistline.

Instead use these 31 Halloween social media marketing tips to improve your business results. To avoid the witches, ghosts, vampires and zombies can lead your marketing astray.

31 Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips

Like any experienced Halloween trick-or-treater, map out your options to get the best haul.

Focus on getting the best social media marketing treats, instead of tricks !

For social media marketers, this translates to measurable business results in terms that your CEO and CFO understand.

1. Document your social media marketing goals and strategy

To drive measurable business results from your social media marketing, start with SMART goals (Translation: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound).

Key social media marketing goals include:

• Increase brand awareness.
• Expand your audience on specific platforms including owned media 
• Engage with your brand’s  audience, customers and community. Also participate on relevant conversations across social media platforms.
• Build relationships with influencers and your marketing peers.
• Generate qualified leads and profitable revenue.

To achieve success, research proves your goals must documented and shared.

So document and distribute your social media marketing strategy and goals across your organization!

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips:

• Don’t let the headless horseman gallop off with your social media. Integrate your documented social media marketing strategy into your overall omni-channel marketing plans.
• Keep your employees and followers safe from vampires who may feed on their innocence. Offer employees clear social media guidelines so they know what to say when they represent your firm in contrast to their personal profiles. Also, provide guidance for visitors and followers.
• Be prepared for holiday bonfires that get out of control. To avoid hard-to-handle social media PR flare-ups, develop a crisis management plan.  And keep it up-to-date.

2. Establish your social media presence across platforms aligned with your brand

Don’t be a social media ghost! Or you’ll spooks  visitors.

Instead, claim your brand’s social media identities. Then complete and update your social media profiles. Even if you refer visitors to other social media or owned media platforms!

To engage on social media:
Tailor and optimize your profile based on each social media platform’s specific guidelines. This includes using customized presentations. Also, regularly check that your brand’s information is  complete and up-to-date.

Where possible push each platform’s boundaries without breaking the platform’s guidelines. For example, check out how Twitter expert Madalyn Sklar maximizes the platform’s profile.

Madalyn Sklar shows you how to get the most out of  your brand’s Twitter Profile

And here’s how Microsoft dressed up their Twitter profile. Note how they added a pumpkin.

Microsoft dressed up its Twitter Profile for Halloween 2020

Even Ambition dressed its LinkedIn Business Page for Halloween 2020.

You can even use Halloween social media marketing tips on LinkedIn like Ambition.

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips:

• Dress your social media avatars to show your Halloween spirit. Align your  avatar with your brand when making holiday changes.
• Decorate your social media presence. Cross-promote your other social media and owned presence. Add links to your social media profiles to help visitors to find you on social and owned media.
• Skip the social media vanishing act. Show on a regular basis not just when the spirit moves you. Consistent engagement and timing builds visitor consumption habits.
• Offer a treasure map on your social media profiles and owned media. Include your website address, email contact, physical address and/or phone number  to make your business findable.

3. Know Your Audience (aka: KYA) on social media and elsewhere!

Get to know your audience by actually talking to them!

Since your audience includes people who:

• Buy from you (including customers, purchase influencers and end-users),
• (Earn) Income from you (including employees, suppliers, distributors, contract workers, agencies and stockholders), and
• Others who may have different interests from you (like journalists, government and your local community).

So make sure your social media followers don’t consist of spooks and ghosts!

Why?
Because social media marketing success depends on developing relationships with REAL people. So they become a community over time.

Need help?
Try Sparktoro’s SparkScore, a tool to measure the true influence of your Twitter followers. And it calculates the proportion of fake follwers. It gives you a roadmap to improve the engagement and power of your account. 

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tip:

• Get to know the real people behind their social media costumes. To learn what drives your followers engage with and survey them. Find out which social media networks they use, their posting schedule, and the type of content they like.

4. Be Human on social media

Social media underscores The Cluetrain Manifesto’s revelation that the web consists of people talking in human voices. Specifically, it states“Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.” 

Remember:
People TRUST other people! BUT not always brands and businesses! (Edelman Trust Barometer)

For example:
Facebook expert Amy Porterfield uses friendly language and photos to attract her social media community.

Amy Porterfield shows people her face on her Facebook business page.

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips:

• Keep werewolves from eating the heart of your social media. Instead show the people behind your social media presence. Skip the sanitized marketing-speak.
• Help employees to strut their Halloween best. Offer to help improve their social media presence. So your business looks better!
• Acknowledge and follow people who mention you on social media platforms to build your following. Unlike following top influencers, these social media participants are interested in what you’re saying. Why not reciprocate?

5. Connect and engage with your audience on social media channels

Use social media platforms to expand your marketing reach and to engage with participants, followers, prospects and customers.

BUT
Avoid spreading scarce marketing resources too thin. Instead selectively choose a few relevant platforms.

To support these goals, build private and/or public groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. When in doubt, choose to go more targeted. While the number of participants may be lower, you’ll foster deeper and more relevant relationships.

Also participate in social media communities such as Reddit or Growth Hackers. Start by being a member and supporting others so you earn the right to get help when you need it.

For example:
Look at how Venngage’s Nadya Khoja used Growth Hackers.

Content Distribution Case Study – Nayda Khoja

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips:

• Don’t be a social media lurker. Or you miss the real benefit of social media: To build your tribe.
  

  Social media engagement rates reveal: 90% of people lurk (or do nothing), 9% of people take a small action such as like or share, and 1% of people create content.

• Expand social media participation beyond the top networks. For example, answer questions on Quora or in targeted groups on Facebook or LinkedIn. Your social media goal is to become a go-to resource and/or influencer.
• Let people know you visited. Instead of Halloween chalk marks and broken eggs, mention people, answer questions, and/or participate in community activities. For example attend Facebook Live events and Twitter chats in real time.
• Spotlight social media shares, Click-to-Tweets and PinIts in your owned content. Since not everyone’s a wizard like Harry Potter, help readers to share your content on their favorite social media platforms.

6. Create and share social media content tailored by platform and format

Offer a mix of social media content across platforms. Include social media shares, native content and longer form content. Also change content into other formats like images, video, audio/voice and/or presentations.

Where possible use stories related to your brand, company and/or people.

WHY?

Because stories make facts memorable. They provide context to help your audience to remember. For example, ghost stories engage readers and offer emotional engagement. (BTW, favorite Halloween writers Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe lived in New York City!)

Skip the marketing sell and promotion. As Marcus Sheridan says it best, “They Ask, You Answer.” 

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips:

• Avoid social media fly-bys with or without your broomstick. This is especially true for secondary platforms like Reddit.
• Tailor content to meet the needs and format of each social media platform. Continue to repurpose content and keep it contextually relevant and visible.
• Photograph the zombies. Because vampires don’t show up in  photographs! Include photos of behind-the-scenes, customers, employees, quotes (or other text), and/or infographics. Also, ask for permission to use photographs and videos  from customers and followers, especially if they’re under 13!
• Use video to extend reach and to increase engagement on social media. Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina explains how to create yours and proves business results.
  

  Andy Crestodina proves that social media video yields measurable results.

• Curate content treats from influencers and your community. Share other people’s content on your social media profiles. But keep it aligned with your brand! Also test newer and/or smaller platforms.

7. Host holiday social media festivities to support and build your community

Social media enables you to participate in and host events and/or groups that help grow your community.  

For example:
The New York Public Library (aka:NYPL) hosted a virtual Halloween Party on social media. It included Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Or, use additional holiday interest to promote new business functionality.

For example:
Snapchat teamed up with Tim Hortons to showcase its 3D full body track technology for AR. (Hat tip: Matt McGowan).

Snapchat Uses Halloween To Rollout New AR Technology

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips:

• Welcome trick or treaters to owned and/or social media home. Invite guest bloggers to create new content on a regular basis. But develop a set of guest blog post guidelines first!
• Host social media festivities. Create social media first events and related content. For example, Madalyn Sklar used to move her Twitter Chats to Facebook Live. As a result, Sklar’s audience crosses platforms with her. Use this tactic to build your social media followings across platforms.

https://www.facebook.com/manageflitter/videos/486624248506037

• Encourage Halloween visitors to carve jack-o-lanterns. Invite the public, social media followers, and your customers to show their creativity. Then they’ll share their work on social media. For example, Blue Orange Games ran their Halloween Giveaway on Facebook and Instagram. (Hat tip: Veronica Jarski).
• Don’t feed the trolls, regardless of how they dress. Trolls just argue and/or complain. So ignore them or show them to the door because paying attention to them encourages more bad behavior.

8. Expand  content marketing distribution to social media

To show measurable social media results use a mix of platforms to distribute your content marketing. 

Key to Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips Success:

Keep promoting your content on social media over time!

At a minimum, offer regular content servings on your primary networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. Use tools like Buffer, CoSchedule, AgoraPulse and Hootsuite to batch and streamline your scheduled sharing.

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips:

• Don’t fly in on your broomstick to only leave promotional comments. Otherwise, social media participants will view you as a spineless shill. Instead join the social media conversation and engage regularly.
• Use content wizardry to create posts for other blogs and sites. Without being a bloodsucking vampire, raise your social media visibility by offering others quality servings of your content.
• Share your best content by taking advantage of content syndication. Republish content on long-form platforms like LinkedIn Pulse and Medium. For example, Ryan Holiday gets strong results by updating and republishing older posts on Medium.
  

  For example, Ryan Holiday attracted additional attention by republishing article on Medium.

9. Guide social media visitors to take action

To get measurable results for your social media marketing. Include trackable metrics in your social media postings and advertising.

Further where possible, keep your audience engaged on your social media presence.

For example, Melonie Dodaro includes her LinkedIn and YouTube videos on her LinkedIn Profile. Also, she has a subtle call-to-action for her book, LinkedIn Unlocked! 

Melonie Dodaro uses her LinkedIn Profile to get visitors to act

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips:

• Use a targeted call-to-action to cast a spell on your social media followers.
• Offer treats for your visitors. Where appropriate, use marketing offers to entice them to take the next step in your purchase process.
• Take advantage of the moonlight to spotlight influencers and community. Put customers’ names up in lights to make them feel important. Take a page from the pros at Spin Sucks and continually test new options to engage your audience. For example, they did an AMA with Jay Acunzo.
  

  Example of how to spotlight influencers and community members via Spin Sucks (on blog and Slack)

10. Monitor both the environment and your business results

Unlike other media, social media allows not only one-to-one and one-to-many communications but also allows many-to-many.

Therefore watch what your followers, audience and competitors say, share and do across key social media networks. Remember that your competitor’s social media problem can easily become yours!

To get measurable social media marketing results, plan and embed your metrics in advance. Here’s a template worksheet to help you.

Actionable Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips:

• Check the neighborhood for signs of spooks and vampires. Use social media monitoring tools to track what’s said about your products, brands, company, senior executives and competitors. When you find something that needs a response, act quickly. Remember there’s no protection against vampires when you invite them into your house!
• Check your Trick or Treat Loot for rotten apples. Continue to measure your social media activity over time.

Halloween Social Media Marketing Tips Conclusion

While Halloween only lasts one night, let its spirit fuel your social media presence over time.

Use this fun holiday to motivate teams across your organization to get your business’s social media marketing on track to succeed.

While you’re active on social media, use the opportunity to listen to and engage with your customers and the public more generally to build and deepen your community. To help you, use social media monitoring tools.

And don’t forget to have a scary good time!

Trick or treat,
Heidi Cohen

Heidi Cohen is the President of Riverside Marketing Strategies.
You can find Heidi on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.