6 Local Marketing Tactics To Advertise CBD on Instagram Without Actually Advertising

Hemp seeds and CBD oil on a table. Can you advertise CBD on Instagram. Tips on how to advertise CBD on social media platforms.

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So, can you advertise CBD on Instagram or not? We have the answers for you! It is possible to advertise your CBD oil on Instagram, but it comes with risks. In this article, we show you 6 digital marketing tactics to market and promote CBD products without any paid advertising. 2021 UPDATE – check the updated tip #7 below for an effective alternative to Instagram ads that does include paid advertising.

UPDATE DEC 2021: Please read our updated article on CBD marketing & advertising on Facebook & Instagram: How To Market CBD on Facebook + 3 Alternative CBD Marketing Tactics.

UPDATE 2022: Check out an updated article for 2022 on How To Promote Selling Weed Online.

Can You Advertise CBD on Instagram?

You own a dispensary or a CBD company and you’re looking to increase sales by advertising your CBD on Instagram. Your first question inevitably is “can you advertise cbd on Instagram“?

The good news is yes, you probably can try to advertise CBD oil and other CBD products on Instagram but you’ll likely have your ads disapproved, or even worse, get your account shut down or banned.

We speak with many CBD business owners from Europe, Canada, and the United States who always ask “can you advertise CBD oil and other products on Instagram, Facebook, or other social media channel?”

We let them know that we have been able to advertise medical cannabis on Facebook, Google, and YouTube, and we can try to advertise your CBD oil on Instagram, but there’s only a slim chance that the ads will be approved.

Ultimately, you need to drive the right people to your dispensary website or CBD/cannabis retail store in order to sell them CBD online or in person.

Can you advertise CBD on Instagram should no longer be your first question because you know that for the time being, ridiculous restrictions exist when it comes to advertising CBD on Instagram.

This article will discuss 6 tips on how to market and promote CBD on Instagram without actually having to advertise.

Plus – an updated 7th tip for 2021 showing how you actually can advertise CBD products outside of Instagram!

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6 Local Marketing Tactics To Advertise CBD on Instagram Without Actually Advertising

In my opinion, one of the best ways to advertise CBD oil on Instagram, along with your dispensary location, without actually placing any paid advertising, is to treat your CBD dispensary marketing like any other local business.

Instagram provides many tools for local businesses including CBD dispensaries to advertise their local CBD business on the platform, without actually running any paid advertising campaigns.

The goal of advertising CBD on Instagram is to increase awareness of your CBD products and drive potential CBD customers to your website e-store or dispensary retail location. What if you could do this without advertising?

Instead of asking yourself can you advertise CBD on Instagram, ask yourself, how can I promote CBD oil on Instagram like the local coffee shop you follow that is super busy all day and doesn’t advertise on IG.

Here are 6 ways to advertise CBD on Instagram without actually running a paid advertising campaign.

UPDATE DEC 2021: Please read our updated article on CBD marketing & advertising on Facebook & Instagram: How To Market CBD on Facebook + 3 Alternative CBD Marketing Tactics.

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1. Engage With Your Local Instagram Community By Reposting Relevant Local Content

While posting pics of your new CBD oils and other CBD products is important and a useful Instagram marketing strategy, you should also take time to connect and engage with your local community via Instagram.

This tactic will help improve local PR for your dispensary as well as contribute to the overall branding of your CBD oil products.

Posting local content and reposting content from other local businesses and residents will help your CBD business strengthen its reputation online in a similar way that advertising CBD on Instagram could.

Granted your reach would be much higher if you could advertise CBD on Instagram, but if you use the right hashtags in your post, add location tags, and other IG local marketing tools, you’ll be able to get enough reach to boost awareness of your CBD dispensary.

There is a win-win element to resharing other local content. The company, brand, or person who’s content you reposted will feel super thrilled especially if you shout them out in your post, which you absolutely should do.

They may then repost some of your content at some point and shout you out in their feed. This is added exposure you’re getting for your CBD products just like you would if you can advertise CBD on Instagram.

Another benefit of reposting local content from local events, residents or other businesses is that it makes your new CBD dispensary more approachable and community-based.

In other words, your company begins to feel like a friendly neighbour, rather than a business after sales.

This strategy is not only effective at creating a stronger reputation in the community, but it also saves you a lot of time creating original, unique content. Just be sure to ask first and tag the user’s Instagram account.

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2. Establish Yourself With Your Local Lifestyle

What is the local lifestyle of your business? For a CBD and marijuana dispensary, local lifestyle is the life that your customers lead after they’ve purchased your CBD oil or other CBD products.

Since we’re speaking about promoting or advertising CBD on Instagram, and we just noted above that Insta is the world’s most popular photo sharing application, can you see the fit?

You can use your Instagram feed to show how your customers use your CBD oil in their every day life in your community. By using this CBD advertising/marketing tactic, you establish your CBD brand’s local lifestyle with unique engaging photos daily on Instagram.

The benefits of incorporating how real people use your CBD products in their daily lives in their hometown is that you allow new and potential customers to relate to your CBD brand’s lifestyle.

This is important to your CBD business because this type of CBD advertising/marketing strengthens your brand value, moves people further through your conversion funnel, and encourages people to make a purchase.

When it comes to producing the images or video content to establish your CBD dispensary with the local lifestyle, try to always incorporate popular local landmarks in your town as much as possible.

Using popular city/town landmarks in your CBD advertising and marketing on Instagram helps to complete the customer’s vision of your products in their life.

Lifestyle marketing is one thing when it comes to marketing and advertising CBD on Instagram, but demonstrating how your CBD oils are used by local people, in local areas of your community allows you to establish and maintain the trust needed to gain new customers for your CBD products.

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3. Remember To Use Geotags, But Not The Same Geo-Location Tag

If you own, operate, and are looking to grow your local CBD & marijuana dispensary, promoting to potential customers in your geographic area is a must, right?

If your CBD store is online only, this stratgey can still help to promote and advertise your dispensary’s CBD related events on Instagram.

Basically, if you want people on Instagram to discover and visit your online or local CBD dispensary, you need to easily let them know where’s you’re at.

You’re able to add geotags to your Instagram posts and your Instagram Stories. When uses click on that location tag, a map pops up in the Instagram app and shows them the exact location of where your business is at.

This doesn’t mean that you should geotag your retail location each and every time, but you should try to use geotags of your location as well as other locations and landmarks in your city.

So, if you’re posting content that was shot at another local business or popular local landmark, you’d want to use a geo-location tag for that particular location.

An added benefit of using geotags to increase your reach when marketing or advertising CBD on Instagram is that geotags sort of work like hashtags. Strategic use of hashtags on Insta gets your content seen by more people.

So when users click a geotag, not only does the map showing the exact location show up, but also all the other posts that use that geotag also show up.

A nice tip for marketing or advertising CBD on Instagram is to run a content where you offer a monthly prize to people who buy CBD products form your retail store, post it to Instagram, tag your business, and use a geotag!

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4. Location, Location, Location Means Use Localized Hashtags

Since we mentioned hashtags above, let’s stick with that theme and briefly discuss why you should be using localized hashtags in your CBD marketing & advertising stratgey on Instagram.

Hashtags help you get more reach on your CBD content on Insta. To optimize the local reach of your instagram page, in addition to using local geotags, your CBD marketing stratgey should include localized hashtags, i.e. popular hashtags relevant to your local area.

People use hashtags to search for specific content on Instagram just like people use keywords to search for specific answers on Google.

Using localized hashtags allows potential CBD customers to find your dispensary through geoarea-specific hashtags.

For example, instead of using #cbd, #cbdoil, or #dispensay, which are very generic, consider searching for popular geo-modified versions of these hashtags like: #torontodispensary, #vegasdispensay, or, #CBD[cityname].

Instagram allows for a total of 30 hashtags per post. We’re not suggesting that you use 30 local hashtags, but definitely use a few of the most popular ones and switch them up regularly.

As with everything with Instagram marketing, there are challenges with using local hashtags to advertise CBD. How local should you get?

Your options include using hashtags relevant to your specific town or even your entire state or province. Is it better to use a hashtag with just your town’s name, or is there more volume in the town and state/province?

The good news is there is no absolutely correct answer here. It largely depends on how people search for CBD oil and related products in your local area. Therefore, you need to do some research to determine the best local CBD related hashtags to use in your CBD marketing.

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5. Keep Your Organic CBD Ads on Instagram Unique From Other Platforms

Instagram has always been the first, and arguable best, photo-sharing app. Instagram was always meant to showcase and share unique filtered/unfiltered photographs, that people would not post on other social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook.

When it comes to brands on Instagram, and CBD products, in particular, the imaging, aesthetic, and tone of your posts need to remain consistent with your CBD brand, but too much similarity can cause your brand’s CBD products to blend in and not stand out.

The challenge with advertising or marketing your CBD products on Instagram is to be able to strategically navigate the space between posting consistent unique content on Instagram and not posting this same content on other social platforms.

You want all the messaging for your organic CBD ads/posts on Insta to be different on each social media platform. If not, some of your customers who follow you on multiple channels will end up seeing the same messaging multiple times.

While this type of repetition may seem like a good thing for advertising CBD on Instagram without actually “advertising”, it actually can be the opposite.

Promoting your CBD products by sharing the same content and messaging on Instagram and other social media platforms is a bad idea because it stops being engaging and starts being disruptive.

It’s not all black and white in this world of wondering if you can advertise CBD on Instagram. It’s all a grey area and there is this “but”: sometimes, posting the same content on all social platforms is a good idea.

CBD retailers don’t need to advertise their CBD on Instagram when hosting a local event, launching a new product or new CBD oil promotion. Instead, responsibly spread this type of messaging across all your social media profiles, including your website and blog.

By responsibly we mean, don’t just copy and paste your CBD content from Instagram to other platforms, but use each social channel appropriately to promote the same CBD event or product.

For example, change the imagery, copy, and call to action to fit the platform appropriately.

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6. Instagram is Social Media, So Be Social!

You will not believe how important this tip is to have in your CBD advertising plan for Instagram.

I’m sure you’ve heard for years that all social media platforms are they own community. Social media is not a one-way street. It works best when there is 2-way communication between brand and customer.

You want your local CBD dispensary business to be a valuable and respected part of your local community, right?

So why wouldn’t you want the same for your online CBD community on Instagram? You want to show that your CBD business carries a strong and valued reputation on this platform.

This CBD advertising and marketing tactic will help you earn more followers that are super eager to engage with your content. This, in turn, grow the reach and impressions you CBD content gets on Instagram.

The challenge here is that simply posting awesome posts, stories, and videos isn’t enough to win at this CBD advertising game on Instagram.

In order to effectively establish a strong reputation for your CBD oil in the Instagram community, you need to follow CBD Instagram influencers and other brands, including direct competitors, and get in on the conversation, or better yet, start one.

Make it a point to engage with the content they are posting and interact with others who are commenting. But don’t make this sales-y!

Remember to stay social on social media in this case and not always be selling.

Sales for your CBD products will come down the line as you form more relationships, increase your following, build your reputation and grow your reach on Instagram.

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7. UPDATE: Bonus Tip: An Alternative To Instagram With Less BS

I can understand you really want to advertise your CBD brand on Instagram. I get it. It is possible – but it is very challenging and is arguably not sustainable/reliable.

Facebook & Instagram do allow you to advertise hemp-based topical products only. The only restrictions are that you can have no mention of CBD in your ad copywriting, your ad creative, your landing page, your product labels, and on your e-commerce page – the page where the sale takes place.

If you follow these guidelines, we can absolutely help you run experienced and managed “CBD” ads on Facebook & Instagram. Even better, these campaigns can be sustainable and reliable and can run for as long as you’d like to run them.

However, if you don’t follow these guidelines, you may get your FB ads approved for a few days/weeks, but you will inevitably get shut down and lose your business page, ad account, and lose all of your advertising data, that you paid for.

That’s why we offer the following two highly effective alternatives to Facebook & Instagram advertising for your CBD products:

i. Google Search Advertising:

We have been managing successful Google ads campaigns for cannabis & CBD/hemp companies in Canada, United States, and UK since 2017, and we can do the same for you. We have an 88% success rate for getting Google CBD ads approved, as of Mach 2021. These campaigns include text ads on the Google search network. See our case studies here.

Your ads are shown to people who are actively searching to buy CBD online. We target “warm” people in the evaluation and purchase stages of the sales cycle at the time when they are actually searching Google to find CBD to purchase.

When people are actually looking to purchase CBD, they are not on Instagram or Facebook. When someone is looking to buy CBD online, they are more than likely on Google searching for a solution. This is why we highly recommend using Google search ads for CBD marketing instead of social media platforms.

Follow this link to learn more about our Google search advertising management services for CBD & Cannabis companies.

ii. Programmatic Display and/or Video Advertising/Retargeting on Popular Websites:

Display/banner advertising on some of the world’s most popular websites is an essential tactic for every CBD company. Believe it or not, our DSP partners allow for display and/or video ads for CBD products including CBD oils, tinctures, extracts, edibles, and topicals, so ad approval is not an issue. It’s easy to start driving highly-qualified traffic to your website.

We are able to target people by demographics and interests with custom advertising just like we would on Facebook & Instagram. We’re also able to retarget all your site visitors, target look-a-like audiences, and custom audiences (email lists), also just like FB & IG, but with no risk of disapproved ads or getting shut down.

If you want to get started with a CBD advertising campaign with retargeting right away, with no BS, contact us to set up and manage your programmatic display advertising.

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Can You Advertise CBD On Instagram? We Can Help You Try!

I hope you now have an answer to your question of can you advertise CBD on Instagram? If not, you should have at least 6 effective ways to market and promote your CBD products using Instagram.

Before you try advertising CBD oil on Instagram or any other social media platform, I’d suggest trying some of the CBD marketing ideas listed above for 2-3 months and monitoring performance.

If you find you’re able to grow your business by using organic CBD marketing tactics instead of paid advertising of CBD on Instagram, then great! Good on you and keep it going.

However, if you want to try to run a few test campaigns and advertise your CBD products on Instagram, we can help you!

Check out our case studies on how we advertise cannabis products on Google and Social media.

If you’re ready to get started with your Instagram CBD advertising, please reach out using the form below or contact us here.

We’re Ready To Help You Grow!

UPDATE DEC 2021: Please read our updated article on CBD marketing & advertising on Facebook & Instagram: How To Market CBD on Facebook + 3 Alternative CBD Marketing Tactics.

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