Tricks and treats to make a great social media post this Halloween

When it comes to social strategy, creating content on trending topics or important times of year is one of the best ways to upgrade your social media posts. With Halloween just around the corner, you may be wondering just how you can tap into the event in a way that is relevant for your brand.

Well, fear no spooky Facebook ghouls nor rampaging Instagram zombies, because here are two tricks and three treats for frightening and delighting your followers on Halloween!

Tricks

Create a “Horror” Experience

It’s almost prophetic that a brand called Target would hit its mark on Halloween. Using an interactive, 360-degree video series hosted on YouTube, last year Target invited the world into a Virtual-Reality haunted house.

As players explored the house, they could choose to move from room to room, or, if they liked the look of something, check out the catalogue to purchase that item.

By directly involving viewers in their brand’s story, and offering them the option to opt out and shop at any time, Target created a VR experience that was not only engaging and forward-thinking, but that could push a sales objective as well.

Plan Viral Pranks

The pranking genre is now one of the most popular on YouTube.

Aside from April Fool’s Day in Spring, the biggest pranking day of the year falls on Halloween. After all, it’s much easier to scare someone when it’s dark outside and you’re dressed as a ghost.

This is something brands have been leveraging on social media for a couple of years now. To celebrate their Halloween Whopper this year, Hungry Jack’s put together a short viral video where a prankster’s friend is “attacked by a monster” in a seemingly abandoned fast food drive-thru.

Tesco, a UK supermarket chain, installed a similar prank in one of their stores last year.

In short, if your brand is one with a cheekier personality, then scaring someone half to death on camera is a great way to get audience engagement on your social platforms.

But not every brand can be a prankster. In fact, Halloween is just as much about making others smile as it is about frightening them for comic relief. That’s where the treats come in.

Treats

Give Halloween Recommendations

Not every Halloween social post has to involve elaborate tricks or PR prep time. A much simpler, yet still engaging, option is to provide followers with a brand-relevant Halloween recommendation. Whether it’s this 3-minute Pizza Hut video on what are the best and worst treats on the big night (spoiler: pizzas are the best) or this Star Wars Twitter Image on how to build a costume for one of their characters.

Though these aren’t complex posts, they still generate excitement, both for the evening’s festivities and for the brands in question, and give value to the audience.

#Regram Your Customers’ Promotional Items

Very few things make followers feel closer to a brand than when it responds to their comments on social media, and with many brands often selling seasonal items, this is a great opportunity to cross-promote with your own followers.

When Starbucks customers started posting photos of their Halloween-themed Franken Frappucinos and Frappulas on Instagram, the brand started “Re-gramming” their posts. This both promoted their own product and built a closer relationship with their followers.

Halloweenify Your Products

But what if your product has nothing to do with Halloween? Well, neither did a brand of breakfast pastries in America, but that didn’t stop Pop-Tarts from dressing up their pastries in Donald Trump, Harley Quinn and Left Shark costumes last year.

Not only was the result oddly cute, it made the products feel almost like they were people who also had to decide what they were going to wear on the big night. It’s humorous, it creates timely engagement and it give your brand a chance to show its unique personality.

And since there’s so many different ways you could “Halloweenify” your products, the only limit is your imagination.

So, the choice is yours: Trick or Treat?