10 Mistakes Dispensary Owners Make With Social Media - Part 3

Part 3 in our three part series highlighting some of the common mistakes dispensary owners make with social media.

Jul 11, 2024

This week we’ve reached the last part in our series focused on common mistakes cannabis dispensary owners make with social media and I’m excited to cover the final four in our top ten!

The chances are you know a dispensary or other cannabis related business making these mistakes right now but hopefully this will arm you with the knowledge to save yourself and the dispensary owner in your network from making these costly mistakes.

🚩 Using #cannabis or #marijuana related hashtags on Meta platforms.

This mistake is almost a rite of passage for any cannabis business but is a mistake you will likely only make once as losing your account can be a real momentum killer.

Social media platforms in 2024 are a lot like going to a hydro store back in 2006. Remember those days? Where you used to have to ask about the best soil for growing “tomatoes”?

We basically do that on social media, but with emoji’s: 🌱🪴🌿🍃💨🥦

The use of hashtags was originally invented as a discoverability tool and a way to group similar tweets back in 2009 but was quickly adopted into Facebook and all of the other social platforms since then.

There have been plenty of viral campaigns and posts that have reached the masses through effective trend surfing and using strategic or branded hashtags but cannabis and marijuana related hashtags are “no man’s land” and if you are using them in your posts, it’s only a matter of time before you get picked off by the morality patrol.

In fact, the crackdown on even using the words “marijuana” or “cannabis” in text (even without the hashtag), captions or audio has become pretty brutal over the last few years. With the ever evolving capabilities of A.I., it’s getting a lot harder to get content by the censors.

I was helping to manage the MCBA instagram a few years ago when we got shut down for posting about a job fair that the City of Los Angeles was holding in conjunction with some of the other California regulatory agencies — and we didn’t even use a cannabis related hashtag but just had “cannabis” somewhere on the flyer we posted. Even after weeks and months of trying to appeal, we lost 40k followers and had to start over. It wasn’t fun.

So even though using hashtags is a growth hack for most social accounts, it is not a great way for cannabis companies to grow their accounts — in fact, it’s a great way to get popped.

Instead, I would suggest using other hashtags that could be relevant for your business but not cannabis in nature. If you’re a cannabis related accounting firm you might use the hashtags like #smallbusinessowner or #taxes — this will help your cannabis related content stand out against the other other content being grouped with these hashtags.

The other thing that I like to do is use local hashtags based on whatever city, state or region you’re in. If you’re a dispensary in Portland, it’s going to be more useful for you to use hashtags like #Portland, #PDX, #PNWLife, or #Portlandia to get discovered by new people than any cannabis related hashtags that could potentially get you shut down.

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🚩 Underutilizing IG stories.

Naturally, we’re all trained to think about Instagram as being “feed-first” but what do you find above the feed when you open your app?

That’s right. The Instagram story.

By now, most people at least watch other people’s stories on a regular basis. It was a feature that was originally launched on Snapchat and then quickly adopted by IG.

The point of the story is that it disappears after 24 hours so the things you post there aren’t meant to last forever. Most people use it to show a behind the scenes view of a day in their lives and business should absolutely be doing that as well.

What I always stress to folks is that the story feature is the most underutilized piece of algorithmic real estate you can get on Instagram.

The fact that every time you post something new to your story, it pushes your story out to your followers at the top of their feed is gold if used effectively.

You only see three stories (besides your own) at the top when you first open the feed and they are typically three accounts that you interact with often who are also active on stories.

I’ve even seen some accounts that post one branded post on their feed so that people see who they are but then do almost all of their posting to their IG story so that they lessen the potential of having their posts reported by trolls and stay at the top of their followers feeds.

Even if your dispensary lacks the staff to regularly post to your IG feed, you can deputize your most digitally savvy budtender to post a few times throughout their shift on the story without even having to show their face.

Show some cool shots of packaged products or some smiling photos of consenting customers. It can even be as simple as a video of the lights being turned on or the scale being calibrated in the morning — but remember not to use cannabis related hashtags!

Another reason Stories is a great way to grow your account is because Instagram prioritizes content that drives users to send DM’s and when someone replies to your Instagram story, it’s considered a DM.

In an interview that Adam Mosseri the Head of Instagram did last year he talked about how the biggest growth on the platform has been in stories and DM’s over the last five years.

I actually think that this single quote gives the best insight into how Instagram prioritizes content in their algorithm and is worth noting if you’re trying to figure out how to be successful on IG:

Basically what people don’t realize: they think about Instagram as a feed of square photos (sometimes in chronological order)and if you look at how people share, all of the growth has been in Stories and DM’s over the last five years or so. To the degree that there is any growth in feed, it’s all in video. It’s not in photos in a lot of ways, at least in terms of what people consume.” - Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram

Mosseri even lists the ranking of each product inside of Instagram based on what gets the most engagement from users and this is the order:

DM’s
Stories
Feed

So despite all the time social media managers and marketing departments spend planning out posts to the feed, you would be better served making sure your IG story is popping on a regular basis and that they are engaging enough (funny, upsetting, cathartic) that your followers will respond back with a message or pass along your story to a friend.

Don’t take my word for it. Watch the interview above and get into the mind of the guy running Instagram.

🚩 Ignoring the TikTokification of social media.

So many people are still catching up to the idea that they are actively making this mistake but it is one of the main reasons nearly every business is having trouble growing on social media in 2024.

You simply cannot do social media the same way you did in 2018 and expect to be successful.

For those who have been living under a rock, TikTok has quickly become one of the most popular social media platforms in the U.S. and has begun to shift how we create and consume content and its influence is driving how competing platforms are building out their algorithms.

In general, TikTok has brought on the era of short-form video in a way that even Vine (remember them!?) didn’t quite do before it.

Now every major platform has their short-form video product baked into the cake. Instagram was the first copy cat when they rolled out Reels, which has now been adopted on the main Facebook (Meta) platform as well. You also see YouTube pushing their Shorts on their mobile app pretty heavily these days.

That doesn’t mean that *only* video content will do well on these social media platforms but it’s short-form video (more specifically — engaging short-form video content) that is driving the most organic growth in the feed.

Another other massive shift that TikTok has figured out that others have begun to adopt is basing their platform on what your interests are rather than who your friends are. Going back to the days of Myspace, the content that would appear in your feed would be almost 100% content that was posted by your friends.

If you open your Instagram feed right now you’ll see posts from accounts that you follow at the top of your feed but if you keep scrolling, you’ll soon be seeing posts from accounts that you don’t follow but that are putting out content that you’ll likely be interested in.

The algorithms aren’t always 100% in serving up the content you want but Instagram and their counterparts are incentivized to serve up content that you are interested in and that will keep you scrolling. So rather than only serving you up content directly from the accounts you follow, you get a tailor made feed based on your individual interests, which keeps you on the platform longer and makes them more money.

At first these recommendations in the IG feed may have felt forced and uninvited but it’s clear that TikTok has finally cemented the stickiness of what Gary Vaynerchuk refers to as the “interest graph” vs. the “social graph” and those who haven’t figured it out yet, are having a hard time keeping up.

🚩 Not responding to every comment/engagement with your page.

This is one of the easiest growth hacks for any social media account and whenever I help a client grow a page, this is one of the first places I start.

Every algorithm is geared to serve up content that has the most engagement so when someone takes the time to engage with your content by leaving a comment or sending you a DM, make sure you take the time to actually respond!

*Every* engagement on the platform counts — including yours.

So don’t leave your audience hanging.

You don’t even have to leave a comment every time. Just “reacting” to comment by liking it or clicking the heart button next to it will let the algorithm know that you are interacting and will send a notification to the original commenter that you actually saw their comment and took even a moment out of your day to respond.

If a commenter is asking a question, try to answer it. If they are giving you feedback (good or bad), make sure you thank them for it.

Another way that you can increase the engagement on your page is to make sure you are staying on top of your DM’s.

As I mentioned in the last section, Instagram prioritizes DM’s because that’s where they see the most growth. So if someone is DM’ing your IG page, make sure you are responding to them as quickly as possible and trying to keep the conversation going beyond one DM.

On Facebook, your page actually displays how long it takes for you to typically respond to messages and will give you a responsiveness ranking based on your response rate as well as your response time.

According to The Marketing Squad, Facebook will deem your Business Page as “Very Responsive” when your response rate is at 90% or higher and your response time is within 15 minutes, so make sure your team is tuned in.

Last year, 84% of Hubspot survey respondents said they predict that DM’s will become customers most preferred customer service channel and that same survey showed that one in five Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X’ers have contacted a brand through social media DM’s in the last three months.

As a dispensary owner or cannabis industry marketer, it’s really important that you don’t forget the social part of social media. The more responsive you are to your followers, the more likely you are to build a genuine community of like minded folks who are ready to support your brand.

Wrap Up:

As we wrap up this week’s newsletter, I hope these insights into common social media pitfalls have given you some valuable strategies to avoid them. Navigating the digital marketing landscape in the cannabis industry can be tricky, but learning from these mistakes can set your dispensary up for greater success.

Remember, social media is a constantly changing game. Staying informed and adaptable is key to winning. Whether it's avoiding restricted hashtags, making the most of Instagram Stories, keeping up with TikTok trends, or actively engaging with your audience, each step you take to optimize your social media presence gets you closer to your goals.

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