Halloween 2012: A splattering of frightfully effective Facebook posts

As one of Red Rocket Media’s (numerable) self-proclaimed geeks, I come across many dubious, salacious or otherwise questionable pieces of social media content on my Facebook news feed every day.

While most of the time I stumble across this great content purely by coincidence; just passing the time having lunch, or over a cigarette, the kind of stuff that appeared on my feed yesterday was different; different because yesterday was HALLOWEEN.

Yesterday it seemed like any publication – and I mean any – could get away with posting something cute, something scary, or posting something subtly self-promotional with a twist on the Halloween theme.

With similar seasonal events on the horizon, here’s a small round-up of some of the best holiday-inspired content to hit the world’s biggest social network this Halloween.

Resident Evil Movie

With an avid fan base already, built up from a five-movie franchise based on zombies and all other things undead, it would have been unusual should the ‘Resident Evil’ marketing team not have posted anything mildly titillating or otherwise utterly grotesque on All Hallows’ Eve.

But, with a new feature film just a couple of months out of the cinema, a new Resident Evil video game to shift – and plenty of teens presumably without a Halloween outfit to wear – the Resident Evil team came up with this ingenious, well-received bit of content featuring Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich:

 

Why is this effective?

Well, not only did this photo-come-how-to guide generate 644 Shares, over 17,000 Likes and 300 Comments, it also managed to get a crafty “Coming Soon to Blu-Ray and DVD” plug in there. Consequently, thousands more people are aware of Resident Evil: Retribution’s impending release. It also means plenty of teenagers – and adults – got some last minute costume suggestions for Halloween; also bolstering the presence of the series on the street and at many a house party across the globe.

Radio 1

The BBC Radio 1 team put out a string of Halloween-themed posts yesterday, but ironically, some of those concerning their biggest guests failed to resonate with the crowd.

It seemed that few people cared “who is the mystery pumpkin man?!” when McFly turned up at the studio late yesterday afternoon (198 Likes, 31 Comments, 2 Shares). Even fewer cared about Annie Mac’s midnight guests ‘Polica’ dressed up in the studio at midnight (164 Likes, 9 Comments, 1 Share).

However, throw an adorable picture of a pug wearing a knitted jumper to the crowd, or a cute kitten wearing little devil wings, and you’re on to a winner:

Why is this relevant?

Radio 1 already has a huge audience (nearly 1.2 million Likes), so you could argue that spreading a bit of social-lovin’ doesn’t mean much. However, if this example shows us just one thing – it’s that cute things have mass appeal. Ultimately this suggests that any brand can yield some great social activity by sharing something completely unrelated to its core business.

Halloween at Work

Even here at Red Rocket Media we got involved in the Halloween action, alongside our sister brand Vertical Leap:

Why would you care what we’re up to?

Any business can show a bit of personality or a sense of humour if they put their minds to it. Posting the occasional photo of the team; showing what’s going on in-house, is a great way of creating a more personable and tangible company. It’s good to see the faces of the people who make the products you buy, or sell you the services you invest in… And if nothing else, content like this provides a great opportunity for you to have a rare clown around.

Summary

What you can take away from these examples is that posting timely, thematically-based content on your social channels can capture the imaginations of your audience. While, yes, perhaps some of these ideas are a little clichéd – pumpkins featured a LOT in my feeds yesterday – this is all fun and topical content that helps to entertain your audience beyond the kinds of things that they normally expect from you.

Ultimately, sometimes the best uses of social media are the ones which are the most fun. If you respect this, then your audience is more likely to be ‘in on the joke’ and have a little fun with you, hopefully sharing your brand to others in the process.

So… how did you manage to spook your way through Halloween?