Last-minute halloween costumes, good SEM writing and not pissing off social networks.

A project we completed recently at Reinvent! got me thinking about the importance of good content as well as the nature of social media and it's short term vs long term effectiveness.

The project was the creation of a number of Squidoo lenses for a Halloween costume e-tailer. They wanted to complement their traditional SEO and SEM initiatives with content that was a little more engaging and broader in its appeal. We created eight Squidoo lenses - a master lens with seven lenses that were focused on themes. The themes and the subsequent modules in each lens were based on keyword research as well as Costumes Inc's expertise in the area. The lenses are:

The lenses were all written to tell a story - to fire the imagination of people looking for Halloween costumes. It was really interesting to listen and learn from our client - they've been in the business a long time and really have a handle on the different types of people who shop for costumes.

We also got to take a little bit of liberty with the content. It's not the same writing for Halloween costumes as, say, for an oil and gas company. These lenses were really fun to write and stretched our imaginations. We had three different copy writers on them (we turned these around in 5 days) but managed to get the same type of tone for the audience (the lenses about kids costumes were a little more tame than those for adult or movie costumes). Some examples:

Mean Streets Costumes

The Tagliarelli Family are out to get you but Roberta's dragging you to the speakeasy for the third night in a row. It's like the broad doesn't understand your work. Or maybe she just can't wait to show off the cool threads of your Gangster costume to the other molls. Better tuck a tommy gun under your jacket, just in case you need to mix it up.

Tony's acting all shifty again. Why doesn't he ever want to go to the speakeasy? Maybe it's time to ditch that gangster and hook up with one of those cute Tagliarellis. Better put the finishing touches on my sexy Gangster's Moll costume before hitting the town. Where's my cigarette holder?

Spartan and Persian Costumes from the movie 300

When you're battling an invading army of a million Persians, you don't want restrictive clothing. Same goes for Halloween ... when you're fighting your way through the throng, you don't want a lot of belts and buckles getting in the way. This Deluxe Spartan Costume from the movie 300 is loose, doesn't chafe and puts fear in the heart of your enemies - Batman wouldn't dare to take the last candied apple!

Also worth a read: Old-Time Vampire Chastises the Younger Generation and Darth Vader Costumes, for you and your pet!

So, you can see we had a lot of fun ... and were able to bring some additional fun to the story and to the experience of shopping. When we were finalizing project details, Costumes Inc. showed us some examples of some "keyword rich" writing that they had been done for them in the past. The examples were stuffed full of keywords, but were generally uninteresting and practically unreadable by humans.

This is one the pressures that e-retailers face and why I think every e-retailer needs either a blog or some sort of other mechanism for telling a story - search engine algorithms are quite sophisticated - and stuffing your copy full of keywords isn't the answer. Burgeoning SEM writers need to understand this too. While understanding how humans search is important (keyword research), understanding how humans read and subsequently shop is important as well.

Don't Piss off Your Community

An additional component to this project was promotion. And this is where a marketer has to tread lightly, particularly vis a vis marketing to social networks. This was the first short-term step in a longer-term online strategy. And the question I struggled with is how to harness the power of social networks for short-term awareness (and frankly conversion) gains without damaging any long-term credibility of the client.

We started with social networks that were link-based (like del.icio.us and stumbleupon) and where people participated in them to learn about new content. And we carefully placed a few posts in relevant social networks that we were already part of (for example, a discussion thread in a parenting forum on fun group costumes for kids). This is a controversial practice, I think, but the benefit was that either myself or other members of Team Reinvent! were already part of these networks. So we were trusted and not perceived as spammers. This is important for any marketer who hopes to create WOM - participate in social networks, even before you have something to sell.

So, if you're looking for a last-minute Halloween costume, check out Costume Inc's lenses. Or, if you want to share thoughts on using social networks for short-term marketing gains, I'm quite interested in discussing it/sharing ideas. I struggle with balancing the needs of my client with the ecosystems of communities they would like to talk to. And I'm always looking for good ideas on how to bring the two together.

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