Costumes, Pumpkins and the Business Page

Halloween at the counter

It is Halloween, and in a great many businesses today somebody at the front counter is wearing cat ears, a cape or a robot suit made from a cardboard box.

Somebody else will take a photograph, and by this evening it may be on the business page, between the product posts and the holiday hours.

That is often a good thing. A photograph of the people who answer the phone tells customers more about a business than another picture of the stock.

It also raises three questions that are easy to skip in the moment: whether everyone in it agreed, what else the camera caught, and whether every costume will be read the way it was meant.

Why the people posts work

Since January, Facebook's News Feed has favoured posts that start conversations between people over polished posts from brands.

A photograph of staff in costume tends to do exactly that. Regulars recognise the person who serves them and say so underneath, which is the kind of exchange the News Feed now rewards.

On Instagram, the same photographs suit Stories, which disappear after a day unless you keep them.

None of it depends on a clever caption. It depends on the people in the picture being glad to be there.

Before anyone presses post

• Ask each person separately, before the photograph goes anywhere.
• Say where it will appear: the page, Instagram, the website, or all three.
• Accept a no without asking for a reason.
• Check the background for customers, screens, paperwork and names.
• Leave children out unless a parent has said yes.
• Tag nobody without asking first.

The third makes the first meaningful. When a no needs a reason, people who would rather stay offline say yes to avoid explaining themselves, and that is not really agreement.

Asking properly

Ask in private, not in front of the group with the phone already raised. Nobody wants to be the one person who spoils a team photograph.

Say what will happen to it: which accounts, whether it will go on the website, and that it will stay up after today unless they ask for it to come down.

A photograph of a recognisable person is personal information, and using it to promote a business is a use people reasonably expect to be asked about.

Agreement for Halloween is not agreement for every future post. When somebody later asks for a photograph to come down, take it down that day, without a debate.

What else is in the frame

Costume photographs are taken in a hurry, and the background gets the least attention.

Look for customers who wandered into the shot, a screen showing an order or the day's appointments, a whiteboard of names and phone numbers, or a delivery slip on the counter.

Children in costume are the obvious risk today. A child in the doorway is somebody else's child, and that parent has agreed to nothing.

Crop it, retake it or leave it out. The background is the part that causes trouble once a photograph has been shared.

Costumes that could offend

Most costumes are simply fun: animals, robots, characters from films, a pun on the business's own trade.

A few are not, and posting one makes it the business's statement.

Costumes based on a real culture, religion or nationality, on a real disaster or crime, or on a disability or illness can hurt people who never asked to be part of the joke.

The test is plain. Would somebody from the group the costume depicts feel mocked by it? If anyone involved hesitates over the answer, leave that photograph out.

This is not about policing what staff wear to a party. It is about what the business chooses to publish under its own name, where customers of every background will see it.

A worked example

A costume shop on a busy shopping street has its biggest week of the year in late October, and its staff wear something from the racks every day of it.

Last Halloween the manager took a group photograph at closing and posted it that evening. One weekend employee had not been asked, and two customers' children were visible by the door.

She asked for it to come down the next morning. By then several people had saved or screenshotted it, and those copies outlived the original.

This year the routine changed. Each person was asked privately during the week, a no needed no reason, and the photographs were taken against a plain wall before opening.

The manager put the one question to each costume before posting, and nobody was tagged without saying yes. One staff member chose to stay out of the photographs altogether.

The posts still look like a shop having fun. Nobody in them is there by accident.

Posts without faces

Not every seasonal post needs a person in it. A carved pumpkin on the counter, the window display, or a short clip of the shop being decorated says much the same.

For anyone who prefers not to appear, these are the posts they can help make, which keeps them part of the day without putting them in the picture.

After today

A Halloween photograph stays on the page long after the costumes are back in the cupboard. Next spring it may be among the first things a new customer scrolls past.

When somebody leaves the business, look again at the photographs they appear in. Most will not mind, but some will, and they should not have to ask twice.

Keep a short note of who agreed to what, and where. It takes a minute and settles questions months later.

The counter-case

Some businesses should keep costumes off the page altogether.

A clinic or a funeral home serves people at difficult moments, and a cheerful staff photograph can sit badly beside a client's worst week. A pumpkin at reception is plenty.

A team that does not enjoy dressing up should not be pushed into it for a post. Reluctance shows in a photograph.

But for most businesses a costume photograph is worth posting: asked for, checked, and free of anything that mocks.

Before you post today

1. Ask each person privately, before posting.
2. Say where the photograph will appear.
3. Accept any no without a reason.
4. Check the background for customers and screens.
5. Leave out other people's children.
6. Ask the one question about every costume.
7. Take photographs down the day someone asks.

Step four is the one skipped in a hurry. The people in costume knew they were being photographed; the customer by the door and the order on the screen did not.

Tidying up after a social account that is closing for good is covered in Google+ is closing next year.

Frequently asked questions

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