5 fang-tastic Halloween ideas for spookily good social media campaigns in 2022

Orange you excited for Halloween? 🎃

It’s a wickedly fun time of year. For ghouls, ghosts, zombies, skeletons, monsters, vampires, and witches. 

For their parents. And for businesses. 

With good reason. Last year, American consumers were expected to spend a record $10.14 billion on Halloween sales. Chances are that figure will be surpassed this year.

But here’s a scary thought. Imagine missing out on a pumpkin-sized spike in your profits. Your Halloween marketing campaign falling flat without so much as a bump in the night, let alone a bump in your sales.

Fear not. We’ve got you covered. 

We can’t help you cast any spells — or can we? (first witch’s cackle of the season) — but we do have a spook-tacular selection of Halloween ideas for spellbinding social media campaigns. 

A cauldron full of tips and tricks to bewitch your followers and give ’em pumpkin to talk about. (If you’re groaning already, bear with me. There are some humerus skeleton puns on their way.) 

So, ready to get ahead of the carve and (pumpkin) spice things up this Halloween? 

Well, fasten your sheet belts because you’re in for a hauntingly good ride! 👻

1. Ghouls just want to have fun

Think of Halloween and there are 3 words that should immediately spring to mind for your social media campaign.

Trick or treat?

No. User-generated content. 

OK, strictly speaking, that’s two words. But boo’s counting? 

There’s nothing more enchanting than getting your audience involved in your social media campaigns and using their content to drive engagement with your brand. 

And there are lots of fun Halloween themes you can use to inspire your followers. Here are a few of our favorites:

• Ask your audience to share their funniest Halloween joke or the story of a scary haunted house experience.
• Launch a fancy-dress or pumpkin-carving photo contest. Even better, ask your followers to share photos of their pets in costumes. Who doesn’t love a wizarding Westie? 
• Challenge your audience to create Halloween costumes using your products, as Dunkin’ did to great success with its #DunkinDressUpContest.
• Or encourage them to post a photo featuring your product and something Halloween-themed, like M&M’s did with its #MMSkeletonWarContest.

Brew up some magic with Halloween hashtags

Remember to come up with a catchy hashtag for your followers to use in their tweets and posts. 

According to Sprout Social, the best hashtags to create for your brand are:

• On the shorter side
• Easy to remember 
• Consistent with your brand
• Exclusive to your brand
• Focused on one message 
• Unique and not generic

Follow these basic tips and you’re sure to cast a spell far and wide. (Second witch’s cackle of the season.)

2. Treat your customers

You probably don’t want to trick your followers but Halloween is certainly a good time to treat them.

Think about your brand’s marketing goals and create discounts and offers that align with those. 

That could be offering a first-time discount to attract new customers. A cashback reward to encourage brand loyalty among existing customers. Or a mix of the two. 

Create promos around Halloween and post them with spooky images and fun captions — like Kmart did here.

These can work even if your brand is in an industry without an obvious connection to Halloween. 

Need a hand crafting eyepopping images or spookalicious coupons? VistaCreate has some devilish designs you can use to delight your audience.

Use this template

Use this template

Use this template

Use this template

3. Get into the spirit of things

Halloween isn’t just a fun time for your customers and their kids. It’s a great time to showcase a fun side of your business. After all, if you’ve got it, haunt it. 👻

Get out the spiderwebs, pumpkins, silhouette bats, and black and orange balloons. 

Share behind-the-scenes videos of you transforming your space. Or post before-and-after pictures, like Target did with this hilarious meme.

Here are some other ideas for showing a lighter side of your business during this darkly fun holiday: 

• Share photos of your employees in Halloween costumes or videos of them showing off their talents with Halloween-themed karaoke or Monster Mash moves.
• Host a Halloween party or reward customers for visiting your store in Halloween costumes — as Burger King famously did while trolling McDonald’s with its ‘Scary Clown Night’ campaign. 
• Or why not create videos or Instagram Stories of Halloween characters shopping your products or using your services? 

For instance, if you’re a gym owner, you could post a spoof video of a trainer giving monsters a tour and induction session. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see Dracula counting reps or Frankenstein puffing on a treadmill?

4. Spook up your socials 

Whether or not you decide to decorate your office or store, you definitely want to decorate your social media profiles.

Add a dash of Halloween by changing your color scheme or by decking out your cover photos, logo, and website banners with ghouls, ghosts, skulls, skeletons, spiderwebs, pumpkins, and potions.

Why not create a series of spooky image posts?

Pick a theme (vampires, zombies, Halloween candy, etc) and make your audience laugh (or at least enjoy a moan and groan) by sharing some Halloween jokes in the captions. 

Aim to post a new joke every day and you’ll soon be the Pun-kin King of Halloween, pumpkin’ out Halloween puns like it’s nobody’s business! 🎃

And why not give your products a Halloween makeover? You can repurpose existing brand images and product shots by adding some Halloween-themed, creepy graphics.

Use this template

Use this template

Use this template

Use this template

5. Tell a scary story 

There’s a reason why Stephen King’s books regularly top the best-seller charts. And it’s not just because he’s one of the world’s most gifted writers. 

People LOVE scary stories. 

So why not get the goosebumps going by creating your own scary stories? These don’t have to be long or complicated. A short video, TikTok, or Instagram Reel that builds suspense is bound to get your audience talking.

Or why not get your audience creating? 

Inspire them to come up with their own stories by creating an image or Instagram Story that sets the scene and gets them started. 

User-generated content and story time? Sounds like a monster of a mashup! 👾

Bats all, folks

With these tips, tricks, and treats, your brand is all set to have a spook-tacular Halloween campaign — I can feel it in my bones! 💀

Which just leaves me to witch you a Happy Halloween! (Third witch’s cackle of the season.)

See more Halloween themes here 😉