For CBD, hemp, and cannabis companies and brands, social media can be a confusing area of legality. Unfortunately, however, it’s a necessary evil because traditional media like TV or newspapers are not an option for any CBD company, regardless of budget.
Added to this there is incredible amounts of scrutiny from the government towards CBD advertising on Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
But since global CBD sales are set to reach into the billions during the next decade it’s vital that your company gets a handle on what’s happening online. It’s not as simple as just posting a picture with a funny caption every couple of days.
Here are five ways that you can improve your social media presence, gain authority, and grow your CBD sales.
Table of Contents
Influencers
Working with influencers is a necessary part of the social media game these days. Who better for an audience to learn about CBD from than a trusted personality?
This makes it a more approachable subject as well as acting as a virtual-referral for products and services.
However, there are some important things to think about before working with influencers.
For one thing, it’s important to work with influencers who are directly linked in some way to your brand. Just because a given influencer has 300,000 followers doesn’t mean that any of them are going to be interested in your product.
An influencer’s niche should match your own business. Whether you’re working in sports science or CBD it’s important to match influencers with products and services.
Guidelines and restrictions
Rule number one of social media and CBD – always check the guidelines.
If you’re advertising a CBD product anywhere online you can run the risk of having your page shut down or suspended. Having your presence removed by a platform algorithm is something you want to avoid at all costs.
Before posting on any channel, carefully review the terms of service agreement for businesses. It should state the platform’s stance on CBD products to avoid legal issues and the possibility of being banned.
So what else can you do?
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Facebook, Instagram, and Google may be the most effective advertising platforms, but they’re not your only options.
In fact, you might have more luck posting on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. You won’t know until you find out and test your findings.
Community is what matters
Creating a community is essential for long-lasting growth anywhere on social media. You want buyers to organically come to your brand, and they will, but only if you’re providing quality content.
Consumers consistently engage with brands on social media on as many as seven social platforms per customer. It is necessary to use this level of social connection to establish trust and an ongoing relationship with your customers.
Consumers are turning to social media for customer service
Many consumers are using social media as a way of connecting with services they enjoy, too. Every day the DM’s and replies of companies as varied as McDonald’s to Notebook Therapy are filled with messages from consumers. It’s necessary to keep investing time in these messages to compete in the CBD space.
It’s not just about Self-promotion
As part of your social media strategy, spend considerable time on platforms responding to comments, interacting on follower pages, posting useful or educational content your customers want to see, and providing excellent customer service. Remember, it’s not simply about promoting your own product.
Promotional content is almost unnecessary with a solid, reliable customer-company connection. Use it and watch your CBD business flourish.
Canniscience provides high-quality hemp health and wellness products and is dedicated to building community through their social platforms. Canniscience CEO Liz Zucco, says, “If you are simply thinking of social platforms as sales tools, you may be missing out on a lot more value for the time and expense.”
Choose the right demographic
Most CBD companies may not even realise that an entirely different demographic exists.
Extending your marketing to additional groups can be as simple as a hashtag or a new influencer. Like we mentioned above, it’s important to ensure that your social media account focuses on providing valuable information, rather than self-promotion and hard selling.
Because the market is an increasingly saturated market, CBD businesses must bring value to their potential customer and become well versed in how to strategically market to target demographics.
For example, dogs using CBD , cats, athletic recovery, sleep-aids, and skincare are very different segments that are all incredibly popular in the CBD market.
“We currently market to what we consider three very different older markets,” Liz Zucco said. “There are no less than three conversations that must be maintained simultaneously within this broad category.
“Within those age categories, we segment out male vs. female, lifestyle, and even geography. Our goal is to utilize all viable social platforms to engage with our customers to share, to tell our story, and to hear theirs.”
Videos, videos, videos
We see them almost as soon as we look at our phones in the morning. And when we see a great one we can’t help but share it around.
Why then, would you ignore this avenue of customer engagement?
Video ads might be off-limits for Facebook and Google but informational videos are pretty much fair game. People love videos and consumers constantly share videos online that amuse or interest them.
The key is creating videos that inform and engage your audience. This can be as simple as short, Instagram Stories or even longer, documentary-style YouTube videos. You could also experiment with creating customer testimonials.
While these videos won’t be ‘advertisements’ per se they will serve to promote your brand and hopefully spark word-of-mouth reputation. They will create authority around your brand and draw more consumers to your products and services.
