Transcript
[0:20] Hello, everyone. I'm jonathan. I'm crystal. And this is haunt weekly, a weekly podcast. Haunted-attraction 100 tainment community.
Whether an actor on a purchase plane aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you.
And this week, folks were talking about social media.
Yes, I'm actually really excited about this because when we came up with his top becomes the natural sequel to last week's, Which is what kind of talk you work with a photographer. Why do you want to work with a photographer? What you want is pretty shots.
You're gonna put him on social media and for other marketing purposes.


[0:52] And for many, many haunts Social media is the primary marketing outlet these days, right? And we've done, you know, topics of guerilla marketing and other marketing. And we touched on this in those.
But we haven't sat down and down a full up. So just on social media, we've brushed this among those topics. We, like, skimmed multiple times from multiple different angles, but never really dove into, says what we're doing this week.
And if you want to see those other episodes or see or listen to those other episodes, I should say where we skimmed the surface of this topic, you gotta haunt weekly dot com.
Also were haunt weekly on Facebook haunt weekly on Twitter.
You can also find is that youtube dot com slash haunt weekly. That's our YouTube channel.
Episodes go live there pretty much concurrently to when they go live on the site and everywhere else.
You also find us on iTunes, Google play and stitcher. And while you're there, take a moment and check out our Cove in 19 page haunt weekly dot com slash cove in 19. That's C O V I. D. 19. No dashes, no caps, no funny business.


[1:54] It is a collection of links to help during these very unusual times.
It includes both stuff for about opening Hollins and operating a haunt. Deering covered 19 but also stuff that just might be fun to do.
Take a virtual tour. The Muted Museum Take a virtual tour of Eastern State Pen, the catacombs in France.
We've actually been doing online escape games recently, and I want to do an episode about that in the next Siri's because I think that's something we now can talk about that we've done if you're gonna do a few more from different companies.
But I wanted. But that's something I think in the next month we're going to have a full episode on, right.
Eso? Yeah. Check that out. All the links air there. And as always, you can join us. Sundays eight PM Central 9 p.m.
Eastern. Right here on our facebook dot com slash haunt weekly Facebook page as we do. These podcasts live like mad men.


[2:48] Oh, yes, indeed. Well, first thing is, first, we have to announce the winner of the question winner from question a week as we continue this trek to give away all the buttons.
And by the way, those of you who were previous winners that we have three now for four before Now we're counting this one.


[3:07] Sure, but if you are a previous winner, we will be getting in touch shortly.
But get your mailing address and put the mail. Yes, because there were there might be other things other than money.
Yes, we There was some extra things included. Those extra things were being built and worked on. I should say enough or done this into the current winners. And that's what's gonna happen. Yep.
And we're also looking into getting a button maker.
We can make more in the future. Yes, Derek, you have inspired us in ways no one else has. And I don't know that I should thank you or hate you to be honest with you.
Well, I don't know. I'm seeing this whole button collection now, like haunt weekly winter haunt weekly top fan haunt weekly, you know, done it. And I'm just gonna make repo the genetic opera buttons. You know that, right?
Yeah. We can make you a gene bqool Jenko. Bachelor can think if you need a like, for, like, the past year into the button down into this.
The patch on the repo man costume. The circular one. Run. Honestly, that would be awesome.
Okay, Okay. I'm down with us now, So yes, that Brian Foreman is the one. I'm sorry. You're says announced that That's okay.
Yes. Brian gave us the suggestion of doing weekly facebooking contest, which ties into the marketing which tiding well, with last week. So it was just too perfect of a flow. Do not have that be the winner.


[4:26] So yeah, it was too perfect. I agree. But this week's question we're taking a question was asked to us.
Yeah, just tweaking it and changing it and making it hopefully uninterested. One for you all to answer this week's question. The week is this.


[4:43] If money were no object, what prop or costume item or other haunt weekly you by right away? Yeah.
What would you run out and pick up the second you found out? Money was no object.
It hit the lotto. Yeah, just one thing related to your home, what would you buy?
And I actually knew the answer for me before I even you came up with the question. So but even horror came out of the question. I knew the answer.


[5:10] Oh, and it is. I would buy the cfx G's or mask.
No, Um, it's so awesome. I have seen it on people and, like, hot con And so what? I have seen it in action.
It's the perfect master Bernie Baxter. It looks exactly like how I picture Bernie in my head.
Yeah, we use the much cheaper deal.
A mask is still in 80 to $90 mass. We're talking about him Still a good mass.
Don't get me wrong, but the CFX one is just so much better.
And I would love to have that in its $630 to get it shipped to my door. I looked it up. Today they're offering free shipping, uh, through the summer eso that saves you 60 bucks.
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy about that. But still $630 the budget of our haunt weekly.


[5:59] Half and 2/3. Yeah, we're budget.
Yeah. I mean, basically like I remember a few years ago, we had a conversation about getting it, and we decided to build the coupon structure instead because the queue line structure was cheaper even when made out of pressurized.
Would even when we put the hard roof on it, it was cheaper.
I think the whole project came under $600. Right?
And the mask comes in a significantly about closer to 700 without discounts.
So yeah, the CFX geyser mascot. I want that so bad, but no, I don't think I'm gonna have it. Your answer.
Um, so I actually I'm going a different route with this.
So I would like to get actor training for actors.
Just ah, zoom call with probably Gates to get after training for actors. And if any money was no object, that's what I would do.
No, because I know that that's one of our weakest areas.
Yeah, one, then that comes from running only 334 nights a year and not having a lot of time to train because a lot of haunt weekly happens on the job.


[7:07] That's true for any job. But it's especially true for haunt training, because if you've never been on actor before, I'll guaran goddamn tee you.
You've probably never done anything like even if you've been in theater, even if you've done stuff that says Jason, as you can get, you've never done anything like on acting.
You've got a lot of new skills to learn. There we have a cat attacking us, apparently. Yeah.


[7:29] Cat gets the heat.


[7:32] Well, I'm trying to keep gently. Keep him down right now.
So, yes, that is the question we give money were no object. What prop cost him or item related your home. Would you buy?
Excited to see your answers? I see crystals chats working. So this should go much more smoothly. Yes, it is. And I'm able to copy and paste the answers into notes, and it saves you time.
It does. And I don't have to have Ellie, you know, said that. You mean by a text message? Yeah.
Thank you, Ellie, for doing that last weekend.


[8:01] You saved our bacon. Ah, quick housekeeping note. While we're discussing the podcast off, um, this episode is gonna be a first.


[8:10] We will have transcripts for this episode. I am enabling.
We're We are enabling transcripts on this episode. We're paying a very expensive professional transcript ing service to analyze this and get no, actually, having Amazon do it for a buck an hour.
Yeah, but no, we're actually gonna have to go through an automatic translation. So if something's hard to hear or you want to search for something in future episodes, it'll be much easier to do.
The real reason we're doing this to make things more searchable because we talk about a lot of things that aren't in the show notes themselves. Yes, yes.
And even though I try to port the show notes over to the actual online show notes as well as I can, um, there's a lot that doesn't get mentioned in there, So hopefully transcript will help.
Also, um, it might be comedy to see ah, how Amazon miss.
Here's haunt weekly haunting haunted attraction.
I'm just I'm imagining Facebook's transcription services exploding right now, so I mean, the YouTube seven. Amazon's transcription service so that would be the 1st 1 will be on haunt weekly dot com.
I'll be curious to see how it goes. I'm interested in okay. We also have some quick mid weakness. We'll talk more about this next week.
We have a news episode next week, but I didn't feel we could skip it completely right.
Basically, halloween and horror nights, both Orlando and Hollywood are canceled for 2020.


[9:40] And it's unfortunately not a surprise. Ah, long story short the, um,
you know, one of the things we've talked about a couple of times is like between say, January and all in, like, August or so it could be kind of slow for haunted attraction news.
And one of things we get is a drip feed of halloween horror nights announcements. Those have not been coming out this year, so I'm not surprised.
I will say that. Um, they were advertising.
They were hiring for it as of a few weeks ago. We'll talk more about that tomorrow next week.
But long story short a change in Jesus Christ Can Hhn has decided to cancel for 2020. They will not be running either show.
So Yeah, There you go.


[10:28] Also a quick update to our mask episode, which was a few episodes back.
Yes. Um, it's a long story. Short in that episode we mentioned and somewhat recommended the use of face shields.
That seems to be somewhat divisive. Yeah, the research shows it doesn't protect aware, which is not really the point of masks, right?
I wear my mask to protect you. You were your mass. Protect me. That's how it works.


[10:58] Um, but the research doesn't show accidental. That's effective, Ted aware.
But there's a split on effectiveness when it comes to producing transmission.
Some studies say it is effective or is likely effective. Some say it isn't.
And one of the problems is I actually read some of the research today. One of the problems is there's very few actual studies. They're all simulations.
Yeah, well, there was the one article that came out that actually prompted us to put this in. Yeah.
Um, where in Sweden? I think the the bartenders were not protected by wearing just a face shield, and their customers did get sick.
Also wasn't just bartenders. There was a nap right there. So so we can provide. That it may be worth looking into is a supplemental measure, but the face masters still the way to go.
Cloth masks, air. Definitely the way to go still.


[11:56] But like I said, we're watching signs happen in real time Here. This could change. Tomorrow could change next week.
This is how science is. Normally, we don't notice it because we only eat the sausage after it's made right and how the sausage is being made in front of us, so just keep that in mind. This is normal for signs tohave. Study. Contradicts study.
You made analyses that made a made a analyses and then eventually science gets the right answer. That's how science works.


[12:26] It's basically a giant conflict of ideas that culminates in someone being proved mostly right.
You know, we're still in the combat phase of this social media. Let's get to the happy thing.
Good God, I needed that social media. Okay, look, I know 20 twenties, up in the air for a lot of haunts. Pretty much all haunts, I think.
But either way, now is the time to be begin planning a social media strategy and social media is going to be much more important. 2020. It's ever been for haunts.
Yeah, and that's especially if you close.
Yes, some of the things that I've been seeing haunts do have been really interesting.
There have been a few times where you know, I see such and such haunt weekly live, and so I click on it and it's two of their characters chatting back and forth in character, which those are fun.


[13:21] Long and short of it is. I mean, you're not gonna want to spend a lot of money or time announcing enclosure.
This is the easiest, fastest way to get the word out there in the maintain contact through the season and next year.
Yeah, but here's the other thing is, even if you do open social media is going to be more important than that, right?
Because people are inside a lot more.
They were like I was thinking about that. I was wearing these notes. I realized, Oh, my God. Our usual practice of just printing a few 1000 flyers and distribute that that that idea is dead. Yeah.
Holy God, our whole marketing strategist got taken out back and shot old Yeller style.


[14:01] Um, yeah, because we might be able to distribute a few 100 flyers.
You know, if spirits open and a few other locations, we might better get some flak nowhere near as much,
because I know a lot of the businesses we distribute at either are closed or doing curbside and such delivery only, or a take out and the take out in no way helps distribute flyers,
and the other thing about social media right now is a lot of people are going to want to know what you're putting in place to keep them safe and to keep yourself safe.
Indeed. So you want to be able to put that out and share it as it evolves because, as we've already said, this is an evolving,
Yeah, and like Like I said, other forms of advertising being weakened still, radio and outdoor average husband taking huge hits here.
Apparently, they're saying those industries may not be negatively impacted.
But believe me, radio listenership has gone down. People listen to radio primarily in cars, right?
People aren't driving as much and outdoor advertising where you think people see that they see it in cars that's going down to So yeah, um, but despite all the benefits of social media, there's still a lot of haunts that don't really invest in it.


[15:14] Um, and I gotta be honest. This is definitely a do as we say, not as we do, but I guess I was haunt weekly were not that bad, but with our main haunt weekly worth trash with their haunt weekly, and that's and that's on me.
I've been I've made New Year's resolution after New Year's resolution to get better about it, and I felt maybe I will take This is the impetus. Maybe this will do it.


[15:40] I mean, I swear it's easier. It's easier to get me toe break a 1,000,000 other bad habits and that actually get good about posting the Bernie Baxter page.
Yeah, anyways, so the first question is always the same. What platforms should you be on?
Yes, the answer. Wherever the hell your customers are, that's really it.
Exactly. And it's going to be different for different haunts in different regions and different locations.
If you have a haunted house use older, you're gonna have different needs and on the skews younger.
For example, if you have a haunt for rural area than it's gonna be different than urban area, right, because it's something social media.
Social media usage varies from location to location.


[16:25] And long story short of it is that, um, Facebook and Instagram are probably your cores.


[16:35] Um, via Facebook and instagram are your cores and they're going to be your cores, probably for the foreseeable future, along with Twitter.
So I I kind of put Twitter and like a second tier there.
Yeah, because for reasons I don't understand fully, people don't seem to engage with haunts a lot via Twitter.


[16:54] It's not that it's not a place, do it won. The problems is Twitter is not a it's not a local thing.
It's not a local thing. It also, you know, how much can you say,
You know, you can advertise your television spots or, you know, we're having a live event over on this other platform, but then they still have to follow you and follow you on that other platform.
And so then that's where you you know, you get people actually following you, Teoh keep up.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's a so long as there's this lack of geographical targeting and twitter And because Twitter is like a worldwide thing, you tweet to speak to the world.
Yeah, we're Facebook in instagram. You speak to your audience.
Right. But, you know, I think that it's not bad to speak to the world sweet, because.


[17:51] Um, no, I just I don't think it's bad to speak to the world because we've gotten visitors from all Yeah, I'm not sure. My surprise. Yes.
Large haunts definitely give true everywhere.
I mean, I'm not saying don't participate on Twitter, but it may not be your primary tool. Yeah, that's right.
It's not It's not gonna be your driver. Yeah, it's not gonna be.
Most of your most haunts do have a twitter, but the Twitter is fed off of the Facebook.


[18:20] Um, yes, that's true. So long story short, uh, think of Facebook and screaming. Their first twitter is also an essential, um, just because of the geographic targeting issue. Now, the other thing that but the obvious thing is, you have to ask your customers.
You are doing surveys, right? We have talked about doing surveys 100 times before.


[18:41] One of the things you ask from the surveys is what social media platforms are you active on? Ask that every time.


[18:50] On that. We can get a handle on what they're actually using and engaging with, because maybe your audience isn't very Facebook heavy, but they're very instagram heavy. Maybe your audiences twitter heavy.
Or maybe your audiences, like all in on Facebook, just asked a good question. Be which tick all of the social media platforms you have used in the past week.
Yeah, and there are serving forms that could be put directly onto your special media as well. As you know, if you've got an email list people sign out for and one thing I've seen is like, I think the mortuary does it here.
We get a dollar off your ticket. If you share it on Facebook and shared on Twitter.
You contract those shares and know what people are using.
That only does that no help you get the word out. But it also tells you which platforms your customers air on because if, like 90% your social shares or Facebook will, you know, So you contract that to there are other social networks to consider them.


[19:48] First up is tick talk. Yes. And you said you're bailing me out here, so start bailing me out.
Okay, so we have a friend who has a gift for finding out what the latest craze is with the youth, and I don't get it. She is older than all of us.
Yes, but I think it's because of, you know, she gets more exposure now, Teoh, your job and the jobs of poor old it's isn't less explored for advertising, especially for haunt.
But, um, you know, the age demo is perfect for haunts because it's 16 to 30 16 to 24 makes up 41% of all tic tac users 24 to 30 make up most of the rest.
So that's almost all of your customers right there.
It was also the most downloaded app in 2020 January with Jane Which one? 2020.
You made a typo on 18 years ago. It was 2002.
Holy should take talks, but it has 800 million people using it right now.
And but one thing to bear in mind when the reasons I'm a little sketchy on skeptical of it is the local targeting isn't gonna be as good.
You target that you city target their hashtag x. Yeah.


[21:08] Okay, that's good. But at the same time, it's not gonna be as good as Instagram or Facebook, which has geo tagging right and knows exactly where people are.
Yeah, you and that is true. But you could, you know, check for Hashtags for your area.
You can also do hashtags for Haunted and haunted house and things like that.
Those are some of the ones that were actually suggested, um, and take talk. Challenges are very popular right now. That's how most of the engagement comes about.
Everybody's probably seen a paintbrush challenge where something's dropped from one street to the next and, you know, or tossed up and the person completely changes from no makeup to full makeup.
I've seen a few haunted attraction this themselves, Um, so you know, I think that it's got some legs, but I think that it's still so new that there's a lot of experiments that needs to be done.
Yeah, and then the risk here is a If you do it, you might be seen his band with bandwagon jumping.
It's the new cool training thing. We have to be a part of it. That's not necessarily true.
Second problem potentially is. You might be investing time and resource is into something that may not be relevant in just a few months.


[22:24] I mean, because, like you said, this is something that hasn't improved. It has legs for a long time yet, Yeah, over the long haul. So it's just something to think about.
Yeah, it actually started in 2016 but it's just recently named that they blew up really big past couple years. Past couple months.
Yeah, really, Uh, next suggestion will look at for your areas next door.
It is a hyper local social network. It's built on the back of Facebook.


[22:53] Um, it's really interesting because it allows you to communicate with strangers basically, but strangers that actually live close to you.
So we always say, We don't know our neighbors and all that stuff. That's what exports right, at least in its mission statement, tries to cure.
Now the problem is, it doesn't really have the best reputation.
It's had a lot of problems recently with basically races to using it toe talk about black people walking through their neighborhood.
Yeah, and that's not a good thing. Take talking at me not to talk next door has implemented some policies. Try to mitigate that, but it's unclear how effective it's been.
So it's kind of got a dirty, soiled reputation in that area.
But if you were really trying to target hyper locally, it could work out. We have done promotions on next door, not paid ones, but we've used next motion to great effect.
It's worked out very, very well, and we actually have people who track us and follow us on next door.
Yeah, so something think about and do remember with next door, the demo is not gonna be a good excuse.
Homeowners and apartment renters and things like that.
Excuse head of household is gonna push it into the mid twenties into the thirties, so I don't have the exact demos in front of, But it ain't your it ain't gonna be 13 toe 25. Yeah.
I mean, just not knowing Ticked up.


[24:15] And that leaves YouTube, which is not really a social network, but it functions. Is one people subscribe. People follow people comment, Does all the things the social network does.


[24:27] And yet this is actually a bit nothing is what is really interesting. I checked out about two dozen or so major haunted attraction and looked at their social media. Today is going to get a feel for what's going on out there.
Every single one had a Facebook instagram twitter almost without fail. If anyone failed one of those three, I forgot it.
Nearly all had a YouTube Onley. One I checked had a tick dog.
And that was haunted house, which, by the way, hunted overload. It is in need of a website revamp. Those guys are so awesome.
Website doesn't capture their awesome Mr Me.


[25:03] Yeah. The main thing, though, is to always be asking what social networks are are are in place or what your customers air using and fall upon that.
Right? And that's why I think so. Remember about social media is that it changes all the time.
So you want multiple ways to reach her, You're or you're not gonna do the Harlem shake and 2020 hope not.


[25:29] You would. You would be foolish to do that. Right. So my advice is yet follow is listen to your customers, observe what they're doing and follow their lead. It it sounds like trend chasing, and sometimes it can be. But in reality is it's what you have to do.


[25:45] All right, So this brings the broad ideas of social media. What are you trying to achieve? Um, and how do you achieve it?


[25:53] Well, the main thing is, you have to do have to have brand consistency, right?
Your facebook should look like your twitter, which should look at their website. Should look like your instagram, which should look like your fliers. Which TV commercials, everything.
Everything has to tie together. If I visit your Facebook page in your Twitter page and don't immediately recognizes the same company, that's a problem. Yeah.
One of the easiest ways to do that is to read the little logo, because those are pretty much everywhere on all those platforms and consistency in naming.
How do you identify? So yeah, if you call yourself, I want something in one place and something else in another scene. Haunts do that.
Yeah, well, I actually had to do that with no address? Yeah, his on instagram I have a high a Dutch underneath.


[26:46] They still out. But amazingly, haunt weekly was free for for everything. Just a shock.


[26:53] But yeah, basically keeping consistency is important.
Naming logos, colors, profile images everything can If I see you on a and I see you won't be I should connected to immediately.
Yeah, but we talked in depth on the say so.
83 about brain consistency. Yes, we did.


[27:12] Then promotion. Basically, one thing I find frustrating and like, seem like nearly every haunted house did.
This was it Just put their social media links in the footer that hearing up Here's here's a bunch of icons clicking Go, go do things.
Yeah, yeah. I don't like having to find where I can find you.
Yeah, they should be prominently displayed. They should be everywhere, You know, you put your name basically, they should be on your flyers.
They should be mentioned or at least shown briefly on screen in your TV commercials.
They should be promoted everywhere you are, promoted your rules things everywhere literally physical and online.
HB prominent on your website. I shouldn't have to hunt for your instagram account If I want to follow you on Instagram, I shouldn't have to work for it.


[28:06] Um, it's tough. I I agree. It's difficult. You're trying to give away a lot of information, and social media may not be a higher priority is, you know, selling tickets and it shouldn't be.
But it should be like next high up if you think about it, because this is how you make repeat customers. This is how you stay in contact with people. This is how you maintain that relationship.
You know, you don't want someone to come buy a ticket, come once and never come back, and you never see or hear from them again.
You won't repeat customers. You year after year bans the social media turns customers in the fans. Three. What it does. It does.
So add it everywhere. You can get people to connect with you, making a call to action for some of your marketing. Say, follow us here.
Yeah, you know, you can have multiple calls of action on a flyer.
Say buy tickets here, follow us here. You can do that right?


[29:03] It's It's usually considered better to have one call of action. But here's the thing.
If someone's not ready to buy a ticket yet, especially if you're an expensive moment.
They might be ready to follow you on Facebook, and then they'll get those exposures because one of the things you have to remember is most customers take between three and nine touches with a brand before they buy into it.
Social media is a great way to increase the number of touches with minimal effort and minimal cost.
It may not be their initial contact initial on, maybe that TV commercial. Maybe that flyer.
But if they go to social media and you got touches 2345 lined up, you keep in contact with him, and then eventually they will buy.
It's very rare for customers to buy on the first touch. It doesn't happen, but rail the average is much higher.


[29:50] Uh, um, make sure your strategy has a good mix of organic and and paid advertising.
You must. We want to focus on the organic stuff. That's the stuff that people are going to engage with. And Reacher those of actual expressed interest in you.
But paid advertising is much like doing TV commercials and doing flyers or radio spots. It's a way to get in front of new eyeballs.


[30:16] Yeah, like if you're doing a live event during co bid on one of your fans, sees it then they could have ah, viewing party and invite all their friends. And now you've got new life also.


[30:30] The main thing with advertising, though, is to just look at it as a way to get in front of new people and attract, um, with organic, posting your live events and that type of stuff, the stuff that you post and don't pay to be promoted.


[30:45] Um, focus on getting engagement and focus on keeping in contact with your current customers there.
I'm always be mindful of community guidelines. Most industries don't really have to think about this to orbit. Haunted-attraction do haunted house is can easily run afoul of community guidelines.
Facebook, for example, bars photos of dismemberment, visible internal organs, partially decomposed bodies, charter burning people and less in the context of cremation or self immolation.
When that act is in the former political speech or newsworthy victims of cannibalism and throat slitting, just to name a few,
that sounds like a lot of sound like things that happen in haunts and might be in Hong adds if you're trying to be a little edgier than usual, yeah, and also, you know they don't like a lot of water.


[31:32] You gotta keep you know, your pose.
This pose a relatively tame because even if that's not taken down even if it's not, like outright removed you, maybe Shadow Band.
They may just decide that this is something they're not going to show to a lot of people because number five is Remember the algorithm?
Yeah. The almighty algorithm, the algorithm and Facebook has instagram has a Twitter has one.
YouTube has one tic tac we know has one.
Don told us all these social media sites have one long story short. The goal. The algorithm is not to help you.
It's to help the social network. It wants to encourage people to stay on the side or within the app.


[32:18] So a good example. Working this. If you want to share a video on your Facebook page re uploaded to face a blood, it wants to you to let it again on Facebook.
Put in two different places. Why Facebook shows extreme preference to its own videos over links to you. Tube stream preference.
It's insane. It's both more attractive visually, and it comes up much mawr and people's feats much more likely to come up.
So basically, it's how Facebook decides what the show in the weight and the way they do that way Facebook does. That is very interesting and weird.
Basically say you have 1000 people fall just on a random number we're making way for. That's just making for quick maths.
What Facebook will do is it will show the post to a subset of your audience, saying 25 50 people, not large percentage.
If those 25 to 50 people engaged, like comment interact with a post, then it'll show the broader gets good engagement. There he goes broader and broader and broader.
So yeah, what you want to do is encourage engagement to reach your own audience. If you've ever had post on Facebook was like, You spit it out there and nobody sees it.
It probably didn't encourage enough engagement, and Facebook showed no one other than those that it was, most certainly care.


[33:45] And I just want to touch on a couple of things because it's I've noticed with Facebook.
Um, that seem obvious.


[33:55] But maybe in a lot of people are doing. I recently took over social media on my day job, and they weren't doing this.
So every time you get likes, you can click on those and see if people are actually following you already.
And if they're not, you consume them an invite directly through Facebook. Yeah. This is for Facebook.
These are people that have already engaged with your post. Yeah, So it makes sense to put them into the pool because for the reasons we were just talking about if they're in that pool, then you know they're already likely toe. Like your stuff that increases your odds helps your contents.
Contents are continue. No, that's fine. Yeah, and you'll actually see if if they like you or if they just have the invite and they're still invited if they keep liking things and they've still got the invite. I don't want something. Yeah, there some of those.
Maybe they're following and not liking. I don't know. Yeah, it could be anything, but Yeah, but you have to encourage that. Engage. Right, Do everything you can to encourage it.
Contests are great if allowed. Be sure to fall about Facebook rules and local walls. Right?
Um, mean posts. And you've seen those postal base, but they know what the hell out of me. But it's like, you know, heart for Jack Scaling tonight.
A smiley face for I don't know, for other. Not a character. Whatever those things.
You know what? They're stupid as hell. They annoy the piss Sunday, but they get a ton of reacts, reacts our engagement, Yeah.


[35:21] Just warning. There's a little weird poll. Ones with the React says those air a thing. There is popular discussion posts say, Hey, what's your favorite asking questions?
What's your favorite thing about her? On my think it would actually be interesting.
Teoh do those main post like talking about but with your different hold actors.
Which one's the scariest? Which one do you want to see this year?
You know? Or if you do like we do and have characters in previous years. Yeah, you do that. I'd be interesting. No.
Yeah, but and also a fella's fields. Be sure to ask for engagement. Don't forget that. You can just simply say a smash that, like, button, you know, see it on YouTube all the time.
But it also could work on Facebook and instagram to heart.
Please heart this. You know, things like that on Instagram. I barely know Instagram at all.
The main point is to get people talking, get people engaging.
Yeah. So how do you create these interesting and engaging posts?


[36:19] Um, e think you go back to last week's episode for a start?
Yeah, that's part of it. Yeah, basically, take or have a lot of images and videos taken is a writer of this next sentence chaps me.
But visual content does significantly better on social media, video, video and story content. Better still, visual social media is ultimately a visual medium.
Yeah, yeah, videos get more engagement. And also live events and story events get mawr engagement than just posting a video to your Facebook.


[36:57] So even if you do text posts, this included an image.
I hate to say it, but look at how hhn did their cancellation announcement. We shared it on our page.
They did it as an image that increase shares that increased increased reactions that got it out there.
The more people got it to us within minutes of going line, I think we were like within 10 minutes of it going up, I ran across the hall and said, You know, a changes can't sell posted on haunt weekly.
And you know, we were the first time we're still the late to the game.
We were super fast, but still late to the gang, you know? Yeah, it is what it iss.
So you see the previous episode that about working with photographer to get good photos and short videos that you can use,
now to make these post make these images and videos good for social media, There's an easy way and the hard way the hard way is to get all the relevant sizes for the images you need for Facebook.
Twitter, instagram. Whatever else you're using, set them up in your favorite image editor, going to photo shop, set up templates and things like that.
Reform at all those images one by one, maybe using some kind of algorithm or something. But reform Adam And then only I don't forget to make header images, profile, image, his and the supplemental stuff you need.
It sucks. I've done it that way. It's it's miserable. It takes forever. It's not worth it.


[38:20] The easy way. The easy way is the either use can VA, which is a service we've harp on multiple times, right?
Or a service called Boat in our buffer of specifically, buffer has an app called Pablo, which will make custom images for instagram Facebook, Twitter, etcetera.
Um, they both make it silly. Easy to reformat images for a variety of social platforms while maintaining visual consistency. Your images will look the same, feel the same, have the same text overlaps.
Same design between, um um can vote to my mind is much more flexible.
You can do a lot more design, work with it, right? Have a lot more templates, and can VA has the ability to do Jeffs gifts? Whichever one you want to call it, I don't care.
I'm not going. I'm not dying on that horse.
But has the Hezb e built into the Jeffs?
So long story short, you could do short video content.
There is well now, even from static images. They'll do add animations to it so you can get a short video. Like I've been doing that with the haunt weekly Life thing or Thumbnail has been a short 2 to 3 seconds If Yes, make it a little more.


[39:32] Yes. Umm, The other thing is I actually use instagram and Facebook and one of the things I really like about Instagram. So if those were the only two platforms you are on, if you post it to Instagram, you've been automatically share it to your Facebook.
Yeah, it doesn't work the other way, though. No, it doesn't work the other way.
But if you put on Instagram, you could share it. Facebook. Now your tags won't always come over with you.
So if you're using tabs or anything like that or um, you know, linking to other people, you'll need to make sure and that's part of that.
You know, not everybody has the same name in one place is other and so you want to check those, but it makes it much easier.
To the point, um, for generic and non time content. Definitely. Consider for posting.
It's very easy to set up like two or three months worth of posts and advancing to do it in a lazy afternoon very easily.
It takes so much less time and they're in buffer, which we mentioned in the first act.
Honestly, I would use both. Personally, we can vote for the design and buffer for the management.
Yeah, that's what I do because buffers, management tools or second or not, in my experience, Pablo, their free image creator thing.
It's cool, but it's also somewhat limited.


[40:48] And I think you know you can do better canvas for image creation, especially if you want to do jobs.
Um, but buffers management, social media is just beyond par beyond the pale. It's great, it's awesome.
And, yeah, you can set up 2 to 3 months worth of post if you post once a week like you say, due Friday Post.
Just get a calendar in front of you, get the images and get buffering.
Yeah, well, especially if you've just done this photo shoot, you know, got all these new photos you want to share out but I'm on a schedule Share amount now.
Obviously, you're gonna want to keep in mind what's going on.
So that way, if something happens that you have to address more urgently, you can take something out of the and one thing out.
Doing a buffer is, for example, if Thursday something happened and I had to do a social media post, I could take the post. That would've been Friday and move it to the end of the cute. It's not time sensitive.
Just take it to the end of the queue and it just tacked onto the end. It's great.
I love that. So, yeah, my my thought there is, um yeah, he's both canda and buffer to my mind.
And how maney, um, posts per week. Do you think most taunts should do at least one per week on that? Include in the off season?


[42:02] Um, ideally, when you're open, you should be posting at least every day. You're open. Probably. Daniel. Every day.
Yeah, just Hey, we're going live in our tonight.
There's our little outside or something. Yeah, also, definitely. If you can do live events, these have become really big during cove it.
But they've always been prefers. Facebook, especially shows Facebook and YouTube both show extreme preference of live events.
If someone goes live on my Facebook or my YouTube, I get alerts about it instantly.
Even if I only barely view or engage the chance. Yeah. Now you get a small preview what they're actually doing to you.


[42:43] So, yeah, I think of things you can do live. I mean, they could be like you mentioned the two characters talking and maybe having a comedy routine and put character.
It could be doing a Q and A with the haunted house. Could be fun watching people watch us build this prop or something.
Whatever it be, anything it could be. You know, some of your monsters learned a dance together?
Yeah, you know, do a dance craze, but there's tons of life things that you can do take advantage of it, make it work, maybe consider a podcast content.


[43:14] And I've got to say taking haunt weekly live like this has been an incredible move.
Yes, because you got to see the stats on Facebook. Facebook puts us publicly.
I was thinking, OK, well, that many people see it.
And the Facebook version, we're gonna be deducted from our downloads.
So well, basically, break up neutrals. What? I thought no downloads actually skyrocketed due to the new attention.
We're probably doing about 2 to 3 x the download slash views if you combine them that we were before we started doing this. In just the past few months, we've grown probably 2 to 3 x, which is incredible.
And that's the power of live events. And, you know, that happened because we did. The haunt weekly. Saw how high engagement wasn't damn way. Could do the podcast live. Don't try that. Okay? We'll get a shot.
And then we gave a shot, and now we're consistently trying to improve it. We're bringing new lights. Like I said, we got things we're trying to pick, maybe microphones set up, but long story, sure. Yeah.
It was a huge success for us. It's been amazing.
You guys have been very, very supportive of us. Yes, we love the engagement.
Yeah, it looks like the comments are still working, But just check, Professor, I'll continue cause the next one's definitely core territory for May.
Um, advertising on social media and dear God were running on time.
That's all right. Advertising on social trying. Make this quick, cause I think it's the last thing. Really.


[44:43] Um, advertising social media basically start advertising in the weeks before opening, but be careful not to start too early. Memories are short.
You probably want to start like 1 to 2 weeks before opening three of the most. I wouldn't go a full month.
Just cause memories are short. That's throwing money away. I know. With Bernie Baxter, we're only open 239 to the end of October. So we start our Facebook campaign typically all October 14th or so. Um.


[45:13] With social media you should be funneling, adds toward ticketing, spit in particular on line ticketing. If you were not doing online ticketing, you are wasting money with social media advertising. You were literally throwing money away.
Yeah, because, yeah, they entered because basically, all that on social media conduce at that point is get people to like your page, which is good. Like I said, that's that's the second thing right.
That's right below it. It's very important. It's very good.
But still, you'd rather than be buying a ticket, right?


[45:44] And as the problem. It's the situation where, if you're not doing online ticketing, there's no way to transfer the person who sees your own line Facebook at or YouTube ad or whatever, too, on your way to make the money right.
All you can do is make them aware and build awareness, which is good, but it's limited. You're leaving money on the table. You're not getting the full value for the dollar. Online ticketing is key.
Targeting is going to the most crucial thing with any social media campaign. The first focus has to be geography.
We talked about how far you should market your haunt weekly I'll seems to be about what most people agree with.


[46:20] Eso focused tightly on bat second his age.
The hot audience is typically between 13 and say, 26 or so. We're looking at a young, usually young males, but increasingly, more women are more when they're coming too. Right?
Um, you can't legally target younger. It might be tempting to try to target kids, especially if you have a family oriented haunt weekly illegal to do.
Yes. So So target the parents. In that case, you think they're the ones paying the money anyway? I mean, you think the eight year olds come handing over to his debit card to go in the haunted house your nuts?
Um, depending upon worrier working out, you may be targeting 18 to 39 demo.
Or is Chris Jericho calls himself the key demo.
Most important, Denno The one he is the demo got off like five people understood that reference. I'm sure anything point being you may have turned 18 to 39 demo, which I'm exiting in two weeks. Oh, my God.


[47:24] Um, but you know the age of your customer focus on that. Those are the people you target.
And once again. You're doing surveys, right? You know these customers You know who they are.
You know how old they are. You know what social media they use If you don't know these things, that's on you, Mr or Mrs has on you?
Yeah, Mr. And or Mrs Technically.


[47:48] When you get ready to launch a campaign, check the advertising islands carefully.
Facebook and Instagram have unique rules to what could be in ads that are not in the community guidelines.
They're separate from community standards, and they're generally much more restrictive.


[48:04] Remember that ads are almost always reviewed before acceptance, which means some human somewhere is going to eyeball your at,
where a Facebook post that maybe pushes boundaries might never get a review from someone at the Facebook or INSTAGRAM. Um, your ad will.
So just remember that. So read the terms carefully, like one of the weird ones I ran into this.
Yeah, What you want to avoid is losing time because the approval process typically takes 1 to 2 days.
And since you're operating on a fairly tight schedule, you don't want to lose those 1 to 2 days by having your and rejected.
And actually had that happen with Bernie Baxter. They rejected one of our ads one of the first years we were given Facebook ads.
Um, because we violated a rule of having too much of the ad be text.
I think, you know, I don't remember the exact percentages were, but it was too much, um, tax, not enough image, which is kind of difficult for us because our whole aesthetic is this old, tiny wanted poster looking thing that's very text heavy.
It's like it's artsy text. Shut up.
You know, assholes all right.


[49:15] Also, before you launch, be sure you have some way to track the ad.
The results of the ads on your side Facebook will let you know who likes your page and interacts with your post based.
Believe me, they will let you know that you don't have to worry about being told that.
But, um, make sure if you're spending people to your site, the online ticket sales, you have a way to track who arrives there, where they come from and how much they spent.
So you know your r o I for you know, if you're having a problem Abandoned cards, you know things by the results of the ads are those clicks counting his Facebook will tell you when people click through and make, but they can't tell you what those clicks.
What happened? Those flicks after they arrived, right?
And if they get lumped in with every other visitor on your site.


[50:03] Yeah, you have no way of knowing. You know, people came, you know, sales went up, but was it because of what you did with yet? Right.
And there are some things you know. Make sure that you go into all of the settings in Facebook because for business pages, because they will let you target specific keywords.
Yes. So people who like holding houses can, you know, can get reached that sort of thing.


[50:35] But it also makes sure that your set up don't they also have a way to link directly to an online store.
So if you have that, you can do that, um, and schedule meetings.
So if somebody has a question or doing actor recruitment might do an ad for actor recruitment. Exactly. Ads for after recruitment, you can even set up.
You could set up a schedule, were beating and one of the limitations the all my store functionality, and that she ran into this once.
It's only compatible certain storefronts, So it'll work without things like Weebly and maybe Wicks and some of those.
But it doesn't really work with, like, fear ticket, like the big storefronts haunted attraction zehr using to my knowledge it doesn't work. I haven't tested it, so I've never had to sell tickets. It's when the luxuries I have.
Um, but long story short, Yeah.
Make sure that your storefront is compatible with it, if you're doing is And if that's the case storefront. Also take care of the tracking that whole thing about. You have to make sure tracking is on your side. That's done.
Yeah, well, And then whenever you create your facebook events because you should be doing that, you should, um for every night you're open, you should have any pets.
Um, make sure that you put the link for the tickets on that form that you fill out whenever you create it.


[51:57] All right, And the final thing? Well, next to final thing at least, is to monitor the ad as it runs.
Check that tracking that you have. Check what Facebook's telling you. Is it getting the views you expected?
Are those views resulting in clicks or those clicks buying things were taking the desired action? Is it working?
Because ad campaigns this online are not static? It is. Well, here we go prop up and just watch it happen.
Well, then, the brakes, kid. No, it's a dynamic thing.
We'll get the feedback. Look at what you're seeing. Give it a little time. Give it a few days because sometimes the first couple days were walking with a new campaign is just the way it is. Facebook or Instagram? Whoever's got Ahonen?
No, but, uh, long story short.
Learn what's going on where Mother Deficiencies are in a damp.
I actually made a pretty serious mistakes when the Bernie Baxter campaigns that I adapted from, because one of problems we had when the first years I did it was I was targeting very heavily the immediate area,
and Facebook took a little bit more extreme than I think I intended and didn't really reach people across the river.
So we were getting very limited views on the campaign.


[53:09] In fact, we weren't going to spend our budget basically right, so I had to adapt and then expand the radius. Little.
Yes, that meant some irrelevant people were put in, but it also met many, many mawr.
Relevant people were included, right? So things like that you have to think about and make those adjustments on the fly. And you can do that with an ad campaign.
You might have to get re approval in some cases, but if you make a minor adjustment that you re approvals usually very fast, Um, and also they will continue running the previous campaign until the new one gets gets picked up.


[53:46] So I think that's about all. Basically, do all that lather, rinse, repeat and that social media for hunters.


[53:53] All right. We'll return to the week in question that we got a few more minutes left. I'm dying to hear some of these responses.
And by the way, snowball, Do you have an opinion? A cat has been hyper aggressive today. What, Lovins? Yes.
Trying to get at the microphones? Yeah.


[54:11] Doing a very admirable job. Yes. So Ellie said, Ah, homebuilding for us.
Know that? Nice Chris Que said Ah, vinyl wrapped.
First set up with a sound system, lighting for parades and marketing Who? I like that one. That's a good thing in there like that.
Tim Fowler said the new beast craft pumping dude, which I'm gonna have to look up that went over to the beasts craft.
And they're doing a 20% off sale right now.
Um, Nate said if money was no object and that snaking him, um would have a shitload of ghost ride process. So I'll also have those.
Yeah, I actually hopped on fright props to see if there was anything that jumped out at me that I wanted when I when I came up with this question and yeah, there's a lot of things, but my problem is I'm not a prop guy.
I like my actors. Like my two by four technology. Right.
But I would love some really high end masks.
Yeah, well, one of the the ones that comes out of the bushes? No, that's on the jack.
Yeah, the pneumatic ram. Yeah, that would be cool for the front yard.
Yeah, I think it would also be scary. Yeah, way. Keep the front yard tame.
Let some great answers. By the way, if you have an answer to this question once again to repeat, if money were no object, what haunt weekly you run out and buy immediately?
What are you getting stacked?


[55:38] Not danceable.


[55:41] No, I will. It's the cat show. Can't help. It is. But what problems you run out. What item would you run out by, like right away?
Let us know. You can tell us that haunt weekly dot com You fire the contact form Their haunt weekly on Twitter d m's are open.
Also, that you can reply will post this podcast on Twitter. You reply.
You can also find us that haunt weekly on Facebook leva comments. And that's a message also acceptable.
You can leave a comment at youtube dot com slash haunt weekly.
And though you can't comment or do really get back to us, there were also on iTunes, Google Place that you're all the place you get your podcasts Spotify so on its own board.


[56:18] Well, I think that's it. We packed this episode very full. Yes, we did so on that note. Everyone.
Thank you very very much for joining us for this past hour until next time.
I'm jonathan. I'm crystal. Is this haunt weekly episode number 243. Time my social media for hunters.
Next week's to 44. It means it's time to do the news.


[56:42] We'll see you then and maybe we'll be sober for I can't promise that without how depressing is likely going to be. See you then.