The question of the year in the cannabis industry revolves around digital advertising and whether or not social media platforms will begin to allow paid advertising for cannabis dispensaries and other marijuana brands.
The short answer is no, the mass majority of social platforms will not allow you to directly pay for ad space regarding cannabis products and brands. However, Twitter recently announced that it will be the only platform to now start allowing cannabis and CBD brands to advertise via their platform for any type of product that is marijuana-based. This is not a joke. This is ground-breaking for the industry as a whole, and we can only hope others are soon to follow.
Twitter Allows Cannabis Advertising as of January 2023
Elon Musk announced on February 1st that Twitter is now allowing the paid advertising platform it manages to allow cannabis and marijuana brands to openly spend budget and start pushing out ads on their platform.
With an average cost per click rate of around $1.21 according to advertising experts, Twitter is poised to become one of the largest ad platforms with the breaking news it delivered surrounding cannabis.
Meaning, as a dispensary or marijuana company – you can create an ad, put a daily budget behind it, and for every $100 you spend you will have close to 82 customers click your ad and look at your company. Once you evaluate your traffic and start converting those viewers into consumers, you will start to be able to forecast your advertising budgets to appeal to your daily and monthly sales/revenue goals.
Cannabis Social Media
When it comes to marketing your cannabis dispensary on social media channels, you need to be very careful about what’s in your images and videos. Having an actor or model holding an item or using an item is typically grounds for a suspension. However, having things specifically placed in the background without them mentioning it directly will help you accomplish your goals without being restricted by the shadow-ban bots that live in social platforms.
Facebook is notorious for allowing cannabis lifestyle and other groups to post images about what they’ve been smoking or ingesting, but if they actually have it in their hands – then FB shuts down the content completely.
You need to perform what’s known as “Guerrilla Marketing” in order to achieve your goals on social media.
Regular Cannabis Posts
You want to keep a high-frequency of constant posting to your channels, as this will attract more and more viewers over a longer period of time. What’s more, is when someone new comes into contact with your business online – typically they will go check out all of your social media in the hopes of gaining some inside information about your cannabis products, sales, discounts, and what your community of followers looks like.
Community Interaction
It’s always important to focus on the people who are actually interacting with your brand. Most companies fail in this category because they get hungry for more and more followers, rather than capitalizing on the ones they do have already.
Simply giving out discounts to your followers, or mentioning their names in certain stories can go a long way when it comes to their interaction and engagement with your brand. Don’t be shy when it comes to the camera or your comment section, address people as if they are right in front of you at your dispensary. The more you treat your online crowd like human beings, the better your results will be without question.
Staying Active on All Platforms
A common misconception is that cannabis brands and dispensaries only appeal to one certain type of social media platform. This is far from the truth. If you are posting an image on Instagram, then be sure to post it to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Google My Biz page, and other sources as well. The more you content can circulate, the more eyeballs that it appeals to.
There are many different service that allow you to schedule your posts for the future and can help to generate the content onto all of your channels, rather than you having to just go list them yourself. A marijuana dispensary in Humboldt County, California has accomplished this by using SocialScape (an auto-post service).
Roll It Up, Smoke It Up, Inhale
Don’t get caught up in the day-to-day buzz of social media, and trends. The biggest companies in the world have their social media strategies planned out 12 months in advance. They execute these plans, and do not waver with the crowd or latest trends. They set the trends, and that’s important for you to know as a cannabis dispensary. You can create your own destiny in social media, as long as you follow all of the simple rules above!
