This Halloween do you think social media will bring you tricks or treats? For some marketers, every day is Halloween when it comes to social media marketing. These marketers expect the bogeyman to be hiding behind every piece of consumer-generated content and assume their customers and the public only use Facebook and Twitter witchcraft to create bloodcurdling tricks. Yet the reality is that most of the social media conversation about your firm isn’t scary.
For your Halloween treat from TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog, here are the top five tricks in my social media goodie bag you can easily integrate into your marketing efforts.
1. Shock Them with Killer Headlines
Grab the attention of your business’ witches and wizards to lure them into your social media content. Otherwise they’ll take off on their broomstick. A magic headline casts a spell over your visitors and entices them to read on. According to Copyblogger’s Brian Clark only one out of five visitors will read your content. It’s a pretty scary statistic considering most of your time is spent creating the body of your content, not the headline. Since quality counts, a strong headline can tempt more readers in. Additionally it’ll come as no shock that the more powerful your title, the more it encourages social sharing.
2. Thrill Them with Spine-Chilling Content
Your content doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance if it doesn’t deliver value to your readers. Even worse, it won’t support your sales process because people don’t like to troll through shadowy content. This means content that’s a rehash of other information or recycled marketing promotions. Don’t be frightened but 60% of consumers research online before they buy. So show some wizardry and create quality information your prospects desire and need. Want to enhance your content marketing’s magical powers? Make it mobile friendly since 55% of smartphone owners use their device while shopping according to research by Chadwick Martin Bailey. If nothing else it’ll give your competitors a fright since the shoppers may be checking your information in their store!
3. Scare up Some Treats
Bewitch your customers and social media followers with a special deal. Forget the over-hyped Groupon and similar group coupon offers. These promotions can be very scary for small business since Rice University found that one-third of these offers were unprofitable. Instead create a targeted offer to entice social media followers to engage with your firm. Exact Target research found that roughly one out of four respondents followed a company (pdf) on Facebook to take advantage of a one-time offer. Beware– you need to keep these prospects engaged once you’ve lured them in or they’ll just disappear with their discount never to be heard from again.
4. Spook Them Into Doing What You Want
Incorporate a call-to-action into your social media. This old direct marketing trick is easy to overlook in social media yet it can reap significant returns. The secret is to make it contextually relevant to what you want your social media followers to do next and the specific environment or platform in which it appears. Remember persuading prospects to purchase isn’t magic. Think baby steps that help move prospects towards your ultimate goal. Use appropriate colors and graphics to make your call-to-action stand out. While you’re creating your call-to-action, don’t forget to develop a targeted promotion code so you can track your results.
5. Offer Halloween Visitors Candy
Decorate your content with social media icons to encourage social sharing. It’s Halloween—who doesn’t want to share their haul so they don’t get sick? But don’t scare your visitors by making them think, or work too much or they’re off. You want to cast a spell over your visitors so they’ll spread the word about you to their social media friends.
Even though it’s Halloween, don’t creep your customers and the public out with a lot of me, me, me marketing-speak. Instead, pay-it-forward by offering some social media treats that yield real marketing benefits for your organization.
Do you have any special social media tricks to share?
