Don’t Depend on Big Tech, Here’s Our Alternatives to Instagram
With over a billion users, Instagram is a household name. In the social media world, it’s the number one photo sharing app. However, just because it’s the biggest doesn’t mean it’s the best, especially for the cannabis industry. Instagram deactivated and reactivated our founder, Bess Byers, nine times, but she’s not alone. Almost daily, Instagram takes down legal cannabis-related accounts, despite following guidelines. As a result, we’ve taken our digital marketing elsewhere and want to share our alternatives to Instagram.
With the cannabis industry unable to utilize paid ads in marketing efforts, organic content is heavily relied on. An account repeatedly deactivated is not only detrimental for views and engagement, it’s lost money for businesses and influencers. So, what does one do when big tech censors cannabis? Easy.
Similar to Stocks, Diversify Your Digital Portfolio
Email Marketing
Email Marketing is the most direct way to reach your customers. Where on Facebook and Instagram you cannot mention sales or prices, in emails you can let your mailing list know the latest deals, new strains, upcoming vendor days and events. Engaging content combined with high quality graphics and thoughtful layouts that entice users to open the email will make a huge difference in getting your word out.
Blogs
An effective way to boost Search Engine Optimization (SEO) without paid ads is blog content. Understand your audience and research topics which resonate with that audience, to create quality blog content. Utilize keywords in titles and copy to increase your rankings in Google searches, then get ready to put your content in the spotlight. An important note about blogs however; do not confuse quantity over quality. Ten blogs a month is nowhere near as valuable as producing fewer pieces that perform better.
Videos on The WeedTube
The WeedTube launched in March, 2018 by a crowdfunded campaign lead by YouTubers deleted for cannabis content. Video is quickly becoming the most popular media form, but cannabis-focused videographers can’t get publicity from YouTube. Even with such short inception (by tech standards anyway), The WeedTube already has hundreds of thousands of users so content creators can showcase their videos without fear of deletion.
Despite Facebook and Instagram’s crackdown on cannabis content, Twitter (as usual), is immune to any such censorship. Twitter is quickly becoming the place in modern society where all important events happen, trend and are talked about. That is where Twitter’s true value lies; the ability to have instant conversations with people in real-time. The cannabis community is thriving on Twitter. There are no restrictions on disclaimers or sales. Additionally, it allows brands to be the first-to-know when industry news or scandals break out.
Deactivated? Don’t Sweat it.
If you find yourself or your brand deactivated, don’t get discouraged! Our founder wrote this blog to help people successfully reactivate deleted accounts. Lastly, Instagram is a great tool for sharing photos and reaching lots of users, but there are other options out there too. Similar to a stock portfolio, it’s important to diversify. This is why we’re always looking for alternatives to Instagram.
Are there other channels we didn’t include? Have you found success on other outlets? Let us know, so we can continue to show Big Tech why the cannabis community matters!
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