Cannabis is a community. A strong one. A protective one. If you don’t have some battle scars, you’ll be met with some resistance; there’s an extremely strong in-group / out-group delineation.

And for good reason! Historically, everyone outside of the industry was pretty hell-bent on destroying the lives and livelihoods of those who were inside.

If people don’t know who you are, your job (regardless of your function - branded products, retail, tech, cultivation, etc.) will be a little bit harder. One of the best ways to ensure people know you is to - quite simply - meet them. Trade shows, in-store visits, whatever. But meeting lots of people in person has time and geographic constraints - sometimes, it makes sense to build a one-to-many digital audience.

That’s what we’ll focus on today.

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🚀 Three tips for building a digital cannabis community

1. 👩🏾‍💻 Choose your platform wisely

How many times per week do we see cannabis brands - even ancillary, non-plant touching ones - lament the loss of their Instagram account? Given Meta’s still-archaic stance on cannabis advertising, it happens everyday. And often, there is no recourse for business owners. Years of work, curating a brand presence, engaging with fans, and *poof* - it’s all gone in an instant.

Colin Bambury, an industry marketing veteran, discussed this issue with High Times recently:

When I started writing content specifically for LinkedIn posts back in 2018, the cannabis professional community was small there - but LI never gave me grief, and the platform has always allowed me to talk about cannabis and psychedelics explicitly. So I continued to write - and as I wrote, the LI cannabis community grew quickly. A lot of professionals from traditional industries were jumping in, and they were bringing their LI presence with them.

As long as they uphold that reputation, I will continue to engage with the community there. For me, this is far and away the most effective way to speak to a very targeted group of people that (I think) find my comments valuable.

Twitter is also notoriously friendly for cannabis content, and there are several industry personalities that make noise on that platform.

The best of all worlds, though, is a fully-owned asset that does not depend on a third party or any fancy algorithms - I’m talking newsletters. If you can generate enough interest in your babble, your audience will opt in to hear from you whenever you feel like engaging with them.

2. 💭 Align your content with your actual opinions; don’t pander

I have learned, over time and through many failures, that pandering to your audience - or writing what you think they want to hear - comes off as desperately inauthentic. Every time.

Here’s the deal: about half of your readership will not agree with you, no matter what you say. Acknowledging this universal truth frees you to produce content that you actually stand behind. Don’t hold back. Content without opinion is boring.

You don’t have to be sensational for the sake of engagement, though. There’s a fine line between sharing your real opinions and throwing a grenade into the public discourse.

Some of my most popular content (from an engagement standpoint) were posts that I thought were relatively straightforward, but that generated a ton of debate. You never really know what those hot topics are going to be (mine have been MSOs developing in-house brands, people in leadership that don’t consume, and working from home 🙃), so keep sharing until you touch on something meaningful.

3. 📈 Be consistent

I’m sure there is a “perfect” cadence for content, I’m sure I could engage more with other peoples’ posts, I’m sure there are a ton of hacks that will enable you to build a digital audience quickly - but honestly, who has time for all that?

One of my basic rules is, simply, consistency. Just set a baseline number of posts per week - start at two - and write them. No excuses. If you have a good idea that is incremental to your two-per-week rule, post that too. You’ll find that your audience will start to become familiar with your tone and the topics you cover, and the ones that resonate with your opinions will engage with you (likes / follows / mentions / subscriptions).

Consistency, more than anything, has allowed me to build a pretty strong digital audience - and the best byproduct of that audience is that I usually get a half-step head start into important conversations, because people are familiar with me. Simple as that.

📚 tl;dr

• 3 for Thursday: building a digital cannabis community

  • Choose your platform wisely (LinkedIn, Twitter, newsletters are best)

  • Don’t pander. Say something with substance, and make sure you believe it

  • Be consistent!

• It is Thursday