With cannabis becoming legalized in more and more states, everyone is talking about the cannabis industry– especially over social media! From where cannabis is legal to where quality dispensaries are, social media is the perfect tool to advertise businesses involved with the cannabis industry. In this article, we’ll describe just how social media is transforming the cannabis industry, and how you might market your dispensary to reach your target customer base.
Table of Contents
Cannabis Social Media
It goes without saying that social media is the most powerful tool available to reach the widest audience possible. Of course, social media is transforming the cannabis industry through the information people share surrounding its legalization, news about the latest state that’s on board with legalization, and where dispensaries might be. Advertising your dispensary on cannabis social media is a no-brainer to reach the greatest number of potential customers!
How to Advertise on Cannabis Social Media
Once you’ve figured out the branding of your dispensary, which includes choosing your logo, brand colors, typography, and overall vibe and brand identity, you can use your branding to advertise on cannabis social media.
As you create social media posts, you’ll need to incorporate good search engine optimization (SEO) practices, which include using keywords and key phrases in your posts and hashtags that are relevant to your dispensary’s location so people can easily find your business. For example, if you run a dispensary in Minneapolis, you’ll want to incorporate your city and state in your hashtags so people can find your profile if they search for that same hashtag. Good SEO practices connect people with posts, so using specific but clear and common hashtags is key to reaching your target audience! Since we’re understanding how social media is transforming the cannabis industry, using relevant hashtags is crucial in finding your customer base. With your branding and SEO practices in mind, let’s apply some marketing theory to create an effective marketing strategy.
The 4 P’s of Marketing
The 4 P’s of marketing is a marketing theory that outlines four essential aspects of a good marketing campaign. The four elements are product, price, place, and promotion, and each is considered when you develop a memorable marketing strategy. Of course, your campaigns will mostly focus on your product or products, which are non-cannabis cannabis-related items, and after conducting market research, you would’ve determined what is a good price to sell your products for, both for your business and in the spending ability of your target customer base.
The next step is to post about your place, or rather your actual dispensary locale! Be sure to post about your location on social media to show off the vibe of your business so that potential customers can know what to expect. Lastly, you can advertise promotions on cannabis social media to gain customer interest. Social media is certainly transforming the cannabis industry, which is why posting often about your product, price, place, and promotion helps get your business familiar with potential customers, as well as keep them updated about the latest in your dispensary!
Weed Social Media
So considering that we’ve gone through what cannabis social media is, what is weed social media, and how is it different? You can think about it as two sides of the same coin, both taking place on various social media platforms. In weed social media, you can apply the same marketing strategies that we’ve discussed so far. Since social media is transforming the cannabis industry, posting about other products that your dispensary offers is a great way to increase interest and business. You could even run promotions including these non-cannabis cannabis-related items for example.
Besides posting content about your products, you can also post fun content like a funny video or a status update. This will give your brand personality over the internet and provide the opportunity to engage with regular and potential customers. Posting funny and engaging content always has the possibility of one of your posts going viral, which would certainly be good for business! Have fun with your posts, since customers are looking for authentic social media posts. Although social media is transforming the cannabis industry, you can still make sure that each Instagram post or tweet still meets your brand’s standards. Nevertheless, customers on weed social media are looking for posts that seem less artificial so they can connect to the brand more. If you alternate between witty posts and product content, you’re sure to reach your target customer base!
Social Media Marketing for Dispensaries
Now that we’ve discussed marketing strategies for your dispensary, let’s dive into social media marketing for dispensaries. Using your branding and SEO effectively will make running your social media platform profiles a breeze. You’ll want to use a couple of social media platforms so that you can maximize your customer reach. Social media marketing for dispensaries will be a breeze if you know how to use each social media platform effectively.
Choosing Your Social Media Platforms
To market your dispensary on cannabis social media, you can perform market research to determine who your target customer base is. Is it Gen Z older than 21? Millennials? Gen Xers? Baby Boomers? Knowing your target demographic(s) will help you decide which social media platforms you want to focus on. Each age demographic uses different social media platforms, however, Facebook and Instagram remain widely used.
You should also become familiar with which type of post does better on each platform. For example, a quick status update or a picture would work great on Facebook, and on your Facebook profile, you can have all of your business’s information such as website, address, and phone number. Think of your Facebook profile as an extension of your website. Target customers who use Facebook have a high chance of finding your Facebook profile, provided that you use good SEO practices as we’ve discussed previously. You can also use Facebook to post quick messages about updates about your business to keep your community up to date regarding promotions, changes to opening hours, or products.
Instagram works similarly in that you can also incorporate some of your business’s information like on Facebook, but Instagram is primarily for posting aesthetic pictures. You can use Instagram to really showcase your dispensary and your products, while also using good SEO practices to connect with potential customers. In return, customers can tag you in a Facebook or Instagram post, which will allow even more people to find out about your dispensary. Besides creating content for your social media profiles, you can also create advertising campaigns on social media platforms.
Advertising Campaigns on Social Media
Both Facebook and Instagram have advertising portals that allow you to create campaigns on each website. While making social media posts is important to directly engage with regular and potential customers, creating advertising campaigns through these social media platforms guarantees that you will reach your target demographics.
Social media is transforming the cannabis industry by creating a space where dispensaries can both post directly about their business and have the ability to create advertising campaigns. You can work with each platform to create an advertising campaign, although it’s useful to have guidance from professional marketers. Take Facebook, for example, you can learn what trends are hot at the moment and create an ad campaign that’ll help find even more potential customers. Regardless of how you choose to split creating content and creating ad campaigns, consistency is key! Whether your potential customers see your content or ads, your dispensary’s strong social media presence will help tremendously in finding your new regular customers.
Marketing Your Dispensary on Social Media
After discussing the 4 P’s of marketing, how you can use social media to market your dispensary, and what kind of advertising possibilities exist, you’re ready to take your dispensary to the next level! With these tools, you can reach your target customer base.
As you implement these marketing strategies, be sure to look at how engagement on your social media profiles increases. Measure likes, follows, comments, and shares, and compare them to your quarterly review. Most likely, you’ll notice an increase in business as you build your social media profiles and following. Social media is the perfect tool to use to build and improve a business, and with these marketing ideas, you’ll be able to reach your target customer base!
FAQ:
- Can you market cannabis on social media?
- What are the 4 p’s of marketing?
- How do you promote a dispensary?
- What social media platforms should my dispensary be on?
- What are the benefits of advertising on social media?
Contact Us Today!