You want to promote your flower brand or new ketamine clinic on Instagram, but you’re worried about getting shadowbanned (also, is that even a real thing? We’ll investigate in another newsletter) or worse, shut down completely on socials.

How do these other brands do it, and how can you do it too?

First off, let’s start with the basics.

When it comes to marketing and advertising cannabis and psychedelic products, you need to follow some simple ethical guidelines.

1. Don’t post false, misleading, or unverified claims

2. Don’t offer medical advice if you’re not licensed to do so

3. Don’t promote overconsumption

4. Don’t target your ads or posts to children

5. Be transparent about your products, both the benefits and the risks

Now, to answer your burning question:

Yes and no.

(Sorry if that was a little anti-climactic)

It depends on the type of content and the platform.

• Product promotional content on Instagram and Facebook should be limited in general with less images of smoking/consumption. Sometimes things slip through the cracks, but even if it’s allowed to stay on your page, it will limit your profile’s reach to only followers, which isn’t necessarily what you want either

• Try to avoid words like “cannabis” and “marijuana” on Facebook and Instagram

• Educational and informational content is less likely to be taken down, so focus on providing information rather than directly promoting product sales

• Limit generic #cannabis hashtags that will trigger the algorithm

• LinkedIn is generally considered very cannabis-friendly, but you should avoid posting direct purchase links

At Sofie Does Everything Inc., we personally try to stay away from using the word “cannabis” on Instagram and Facebook, but find it totally fair game on LinkedIn (although there have been recent reports of people’s cannabis posts being taken down — more on that here in Cannabis CMO and in Alice Moon’s post here).

Instagram’s rules on cannabis are fairly strict:

“Instagram doesn't allow people or organizations to use the platform to advertise or sell marijuana, regardless of the seller's state or country. Our policy prohibits any marijuana seller, including dispensaries, from promoting their business by providing contact information such as phone numbers, email addresses, street addresses or by using the "contact us" tab in Instagram business accounts. However, we do allow people to include a website link in their bio information.”

This makes things a bit difficult in some states and countries, especially when it comes to posting product images. To get around this, we often say “canna”* or “MJ” or just use a leaf 🍃 emoji instead of “cannabis,” especially when working with product brands.

*But “canna” can be dangerous too, especially when it comes to hashtags. The algorithm is always changing, and in our industry, we have to stay ahead of the game. That’s why you subscribed to High Notes, right? Right.

What about ketamine and psychedelics? 🤔

Ketamine is federally legal in the USA and many other countries, and hundreds of ketamine clinics operate legally in the States with no problems.

Psychedelics, on the other hand, while we believe the word itself does not need to be censored on any of your social media, especially when promoting educational content, it’s still been a red flag for some accounts, including magazines like Double Blind. Words like “LSD,” “psilocybin,” and “microdose” tend to be flagged on the platform, and we suggest staying away from them whenever possible.

A good rule of thumb is this: If you can’t find it as a hashtag, it’s best not to use it.

That’s why we safely use “ketamine” in our client posts — because hashtags like #ketaminetherapy exist with over 28,000 posts and are easy to find.

Oh, and when it comes to YouTube, where we spend most of our time, it’s best not to even think about it — YouTube’s rules on drugs and drug-related content are so strict, you’ve really got to censor yourself, both in your titles and descriptions and in your actual speaking script, especially if you’re a newer channel (Got more questions about this? We’ll be writing some YouTube specific newsletters soon).

If your account is limited or flagged, all you have to do is head to your “Account Status” page and see if you have any content that violates the rules as well as what you can’t do on IG. Take it down (we prefer to archive over delete), and you’ll have a clean slate again.

We like to check this often to see if there’s anything that needs to be wiped.

How To Find This:

Settings & Privacy —> Account Status

TL;DR:

• Not all social media platforms are built equal; the rules that exist on one may be totally different on another

• Try to avoid saying “cannabis” or “marijuana” on Instagram and Facebook

• LinkedIn is a very cannabis-friendly platform, but has clear rules about not posting a link where someone can make a direct cannabis-related purchase

• You can say “ketamine” and “psychedelics” on all social media platforms, but try to stay away from “psilocybin” and “microdosing” on Facebook and Instagram

• Avoid direct product promotion and sales across most platforms when you can

• Focus on educational and inspiration content rather than sales

• Avoid direct contact information for marijuana sales offers on Instagram (no address, phone number, etc, just a website is enough)

• Look at hashtags for a good idea of what you can and can’t say

• Keep checking cannabis and psychedelics marketing blogs, creators, and newsletters (like this one) for up-to-date information

Thanks for reading the first-ever issue of High Notes!

We hope this helped.

If you think we got something wrong, or have more questions, just reply to this email.

We love feedback and are always listening.

And if you’re hunting for a social and digital media marketing agency for your cannabis or ketamine brand and want to work with someone who knows what they’re doing, you can find out more about us right here.

See you next time!

—Sofie, Founder & Digital Media Marketer @ Sofie Does Everything Inc.