This Halloween weekend I took advantage of some sweet deals in my local area. Marden’s was having a monster sale on ski equipment and my tattoo shop was also giving away $31 Halloween tattoos. How did I find out about these deals you ask? Social Media sites of course. As a social media consultant, I’m always signing up for newsletters, fan pages and following twitter accounts of brands and stores that I enjoy. Both of these business only used their social networking presences to let people know about these deals.

Marden’s has done a fantastic job of using their Twitter feed and Facebook fan page to let customers know about new inventory and special deals in their stores throughout the state. Marden’s has even done a couple of Treasure Hunt contest using Twitter and Facebook to give their customers clues as to where the treasure was.

On Friday, Marden’s posted a status update that said, “Ski Stock Goes Up For Sale tomorrow. Pics are available on the Portland Store page.” Clicking on the photos, brought you to several photos of amazing ski equipment, skis, boots, outerwear. I have a skier in my family and just knew that this was going to be a huge sale. We arrived at 9:02 (2 mins after opening) to find a swarm of people hovering around the skis. Hovering is the wrong word actually..it was like a mob scene. Shoppers were grabbing skis and loading their carts up with boots, poles, gloves, thermalwear, all at 60-70% retail price.  I asked several people in the mob how they found out about it and most said Facebook or from a friend.

Death or Glory took a different approach and used their MySpace profile to let people know about the $31 Halloween tattoo sale. First Death or Glory sent out a Bulletin telling all of their 910 friends of the killer sale. They then uploaded the flash sheets of Halloween tattoos that were going to be eligible for the $31 special.

I arrived at the tattoo shop around 11:00 am and the tattoo guns were already a-buzzing. Jamie, the shop owner, said that when he arrived at the shop around 9:00 that morning, there was already someone waiting to be tattooed. By the time I got there he had already done 3 tattoos and was anticipating many more.

Why were these two specials successful:

1. Those who knew about the deals felt like they had special insider knowledge. This is exactly what customers want to feel like they are part of an exclusive club.

2. It cost them nothing. When I asked the owner of Death or Glory if he had used traditional advertising to let people know about the Halloween special, he said he didn’t believe in spending money on radio or print because he has had great success in just using MySpace and word of mouth.

Hope you were able to get out and enjoy the Halloween weekend and hopefully got some sweet deals of your own.