Cannabusiness and Social Media, What are your thoughts on instagram promotion?

[Double F]

I am from the old school way of things, the real hustlers move in silence and keep our lifestyles free of the BS. no fancy cars, no stupid jewelry, even though i make a lot of money most of it goes back into re-investing and hidden places for the world to never really see.

Anyways, our industry is dramatically changing. With the recent developments the canna business is emerging, and there are thousands and thousands of growers, extractors, dispensaries, breeders, who are on instagram and Facebook blatantly promoting their cannabis brands even though some are technically still illegal.

A lot of my grow friends have instagrams as well, they update with pics of gardens, buds, plants, hash set ups, all sorts of shit. 3 years ago i would say you are crazy for posting that picture of your 20 lighter on social media, now 20 lights is small time and people post crazy big time shit.

I have been fighting and fighting against signing up and starting my own account. But now i feel like a fucking idiot because little dipshits with 4 lights and a BHO tube are establishing popular brands and followings amongst the sheeple pot smoking consumer populace. I grow on a much larger scale and i am somewhat sketched out, but if i am to compete in the legalized economy i need to start establishing my brand now.

I am still on the fence, what are your thoughts on instagram? i am not going to use Facebook but i feel like IG is a must for anybody trying to promote a cannabis brand in a med/legal state.

 

[Double F]

also, does IG only work with phones? how do you post pictures that are saved on computer hard drive?

the phone i am using is a prepaid bought and paid for 5 hours away from where i grow. i have disabled all the GPS settings. the email i registered the account to was signed up on via TOR and the IP was in europe.

does instagram only work through the phone? I've seen some guys post "throwback" pics that i know weren't taken on their new phones.

i know a lot of guys who have their instagrams registered to their main phone thats in their name, and NOTHING has ever happened with the law. I've seen instagrams with kids posting 10 packs and their glock pistols with extended magazines, you would think this would have them in jail weeks later, but i see the same fuck filling up gas at my local station free as a bird last week!

and don't even get me started on all the weed whores who post pics of themselves in lingerie and selling bud out of their 3k gucci purses. that alone is a good enough reason to sign up LOL.

but seriously there are kids blatantly peddling bud, hash, even pain pills on instagram as well as showing off their gun arsenals and stacks of rubber band money. has anyone heard of ANYONE in california getting busted via instagram, because i sure haven't. obviously i wouldn't be doing that, but i do want to show off some my outdoor and indoor gardens and let people see what a real serious growop looks like. i am tired of seeing guys with shitty garage grows, with unsanded unpainted drywalls, with extension cords lying all over the place, just overall amateur shit. i also see some very serious and dedicated growers and breeders on there that i would love to have them see my work and talk shop with them.

 

[maryjanesdad]

Resist the urge my friend. These kids dont see it the way we do, so let them brag and what not. But i understand your need to create your brand, there are other more subtle ways to promote yourself. If you wanna do IG, go ahead, just set it up under a burner phone and dont use your real info, etc.

where there is a will there is a way

 

[surfguitar]

If you do do it make sure you have all location services turned off. You can upload pics to your phone or email them to yourself and then post them to insta.

Honestly if your in a med state and smart about it I don't see any issues, not really that much different than posting to icmag on my phone like I'm doing right now. Like you said too it's a valuable asset in the scenario were facing with more and more legalization.

 

[Piff Rhys Jones]

Yo Double F I completely agree with you - a lot of the stuff I see on IG is asking for heat, it's bewildering.

I've read about a few busts as a result of IG but not purely ganja related, most involving guns and stolen goods. The problem is it's linked to facebook and those guys will roll over with your details at any LEO request. Actually just found an article about a Louisiana chick that got busted for weed photos!

You can sign up to IG without a phone whatsoever, there's a few different methods, google "instagram without phone". You can also upload images not taken on your phone.

But yeah, in my opinion it's not worth the heat but if you're legal then it's all good I suppose.

Peace

 

[Abja Roots]

Besides all the other things you stated my main concern is the BHO. As far as I understand it, the extraction process can get you a similar charge to manufacturing meth. It wouldn't be the equipment manufacturers I'd be concerned for as much as those actually making brands to produce and sell the BHO. The instagram pics link directly to the dispensaries where they are selling their products on a regular basis. I would never wish it, but I could see all the major vendors getting busted eventually.

I think you can build a brand with single plant pics, finished nug shots, cannabis cups, etc... I would refrain from posting large grow pics until it's completely legalized.

The choice is yours as always.

 

[mowood3479]

to the op... if u feel instagram is crucial to your future success and livelihood then go for it... me im happy to stay underground. feds sometimes play wack a mole... n that is one hammer i dont want to get hit with.
i think product speaks for itself.... marketing is bullshit primarily. that being said, in some of my more legal ventures i spend a good chunk of change on marketing....
so idk bro? id be wary of posting anything really incriminating on ig... especially a large grow and or large scale bho production. look at canada right now they have a conservative gov that is shutting down all medical residential growing and forcing card holders to buy from lp's.

who knows what the future holds? i think in the us we r headed towards legalization.... but wouldnt it suck if an anti drug/pot president/congress and house were elected and they decided to bring the full force of the federal govt down on known federal law breakers.... then it would really suck to have a known brand/ online prescence on ig or wherever.
i know this is an outlandish scenario but i think well within the realm of possibility

 

[Nade420xOG]

The IG cannabis community has blown up huge. when I got on IG about 2 years ago it was so big. Now it's everyone and their mom posting the grow ops , large scale turkey bags n such. But for what ?

To post "hey world look at me ?". Ask them for a plug or "where can I even find these buds" then get the response of "oh it's just for show"

Puts a lot of awkward factors on the community if you ask me

 

[VonBudí]

off topic bump

is instagram starting to purge cannabis related accounts? couple of my regulars have been deleted.

 

[rasputin]

Nah, they're not actively going after cannabis related accounts though it does appear that way. The problem is their shitty rules make cannabis related accounts a prime target for disabling accounts.

Check out this blurb regarding "mature content" and "spamming" which pretty much means 99.9999% of all cannabis related accounts could be disabled if someone reports it.

Don’t share photos or videos that show nudity or mature content.

If you wouldn’t show the photo or video you are thinking about uploading to a child, or your boss, or your parents, you probably shouldn’t share it on Instagram. The same rule applies to your profile photo. Accounts found sharing nudity or mature content will be disabled and your access to Instagram may be discontinued.

Don’t spam.

Instagram is a place where people can share beautiful moments from their lives, and when you engage in self-promotional behavior of any kind on Instagram it makes people who have shared that moment with you feel sad inside. This guideline includes repetitive comments, as well as service manipulation in order to self-promote, and extends to commercial spam comments, such as discount codes or URLs to websites.

The spam thing is hilarious because how many trashy ass celebrities are on their promoting shit? IG gonna ban Kim Kardashian or Rihanna?

An interesting theory someone posted on IG is that the people behind the new social media start-up specifically for cannabis are the ones reporting people so they get fed up with IG and move over to the new site. The problem with the new site, though, is it won't have the 'mainstream' base of people, at least no where near the numbers that IG has. If it's a bunch of growers/dispenaries/extract makers/breeders on it, it's just another weed forum. The thing with IG is you can promote your work to people who are consumers, not producers.

 

[VonBudí]

thanks, never knew the tou are that bad.

 

[WelderDan]

Here's my take. Kim Kardashian posts shit on IG. That's the place she posts her attention whore pics, and where people that follow that shit go to see and comment on them.

Now ask yourself this: Do YOU want to be like Kim Kardashian?

 

[VonBudí]

yes 100%

if your some where that you can grow and sell like in cali you would be a fool not to have an instagram account, people fucking love the fact that they can see their future smoke/meds grown from clone to jar, you turn yourself into a mini celebrity with smokers and dispensary's fighting for you and able to contact you easily.

 

[resinryder]

Besides all the other things you stated my main concern is the BHO. As far as I understand it, the extraction process can get you a similar charge to manufacturing meth. It wouldn't be the equipment manufacturers I'd be concerned for as much as those actually making brands to produce and sell the BHO. The instagram pics link directly to the dispensaries where they are selling their products on a regular basis. I would never wish it, but I could see all the major vendors getting busted eventually.

I think you can build a brand with single plant pics, finished nug shots, cannabis cups, etc... I would refrain from posting large grow pics until it's completely legalized.

The choice is yours as always.

^^^Yeah that.

 

[dddaver]

My thoughts about promotion on social media? Absolute fucking bullshit.

 

[HUGE]

Fuck Instagram and fuck facebook

 

[resinryder]

Fuck Instagram and fuck facebook

Agreed 100%

 

[skull and roses]

It depends what you want to do. You can link up with a lot of growers on instAgram that you may have never been able to. If you want to work with clubs IG can be really helpful. People can watch it grow then see where it's gonna "drop" and go buy it. So there's a lot of good things. The bad is that there's a lot of soliciting and a ton of dipshit amateurs. All in all I like it personally.