In the past year, a cannabis brand’s social media presence has never been more important and more difficult to cultivate. With restrictions across North America preventing consumers from exploring brands in-store with their budtenders, brands have focused on building their brand identity across their various social media platforms. Due to Instagram’s widely contested stance and enforcement of its terms of service, legal retailers and producers have seen their pages removed without warning if they don’t navigate the platforms correctly.
Many brands have not just survived the Instagram cannabis account purge but have thrived with creating engaging content that furthers their brand’s identity. Below are this year’s finalists for Best Social Media in both Canada and the USA.
Let’s go through the finalists as voted by you, the ADCANN community.
BOLD
BOLD Growth’s social media presence is, well, bold! Utilizing stylistic photos of their products, a bright colour palette, and clever typography, each post is intentionally framed in such a way that will make a user stop scrolling. The type of content varies, as they’ve shown their cannabis doing activities from science experiments, to fishing, to just relaxing in a stash.
Their typographical posts find ways of making one pause, be it manipulation of the text or even (censored) profanity.
Divvy
Alefia Health’s everyday cannabis brand, Divvy, has posts ready to be shared. Utilizing the brand’s calming colour palette, Divvy’s posts are simple yet eye-catching. Often featuring live shots of the products, Divvy adds a personal touch by adding elements that look as if they were drawn onto the finished product – such as little joints, arrows to add emphasis or even little speech bubbles on their buds.
Divvy also understands what entices the cannabis community to share their posts, and through this, their brand. Through clever yet simple posts such as their “Send doobs” or even their latest “Dear Parents” post, they have seen their posts shared across various pages in the cannabis scene.
Top Leaf
Top Leaf’s social media understands what it means to be a luxury brand. Their black & gold branding is consistent throughout their posts making their product photos, often featuring their rich-green nugs, jump out when scrolling their page. This married with their artful designs for each cultivar build a sense of opulence for their brand.
Their page is more than just product shots and teasers, as they’ve featured unique campaigns such as their “Roller’s Rights” as well as cannabis history and other forms of cannabis education.
Pure Sunfarms
Pure Sunfarms’ social media takes all of their successful branding elements and marries them on one page for their over 11K followers to explore. Featuring their unique design style that looks pulled from an artful magazine alongside product photos, vanity packaging, shots of their facility, and unique videos, their Instagram profile takes their iconic green bag and builds upon it.
Aside from their static posts, Pure Sunfarms has also utilized the Instagram stories & highlight option to keep their brand top-of-mind for budtenders and consumers alike. Not only do their highlights feature staples of their brand & information, but they’ve also utilized it to share their unique branding as wallpapers for those who want an “on the low” cannabis home screen or background for their mobile device.
Cookies
Cookies is an already-iconic brand that has long since utilized social media as a primary form of marketing – earning them a spot in both the Canadian and American award categories.
Each cultivar has a uniquely crafted video marrying engaging music with eye-catching visuals; both featuring the clear hip-hop influence that appears across their posts. While each region’s social media has different “do’s & don’t’s”, Cookies utilizes its influence in hip-hop and stunning product shots (both static & video form) to entice those who’ve debated springing for one of their iconic blue bags.
Gage Cannabis Co.
While Gage Cannabis Co. is present in both Canada and the United States of America, their U.S excels in demonstrating their brand identity. Featuring stunning macro-shots of products, the bright packaging their cannabis comes in, and their social justice campaigns such as “Everybody vs Injustice”, Gage uses their bright orange and marries it with all of the above to create an engaging social presence.
SLAPS.
While SLAPS is not a cannabis company themselves, this L.A/NYC-based agency has created engaging media for brands such as Bonsai, Jonko, and Verde. Their Instagram demonstrates their unique creative style, a marriage of pop-art and hip-hop influence – even curating playlists of hip-hop songs they appropriately deem as “slaps”.
Rather than simply listing their services, SLAPS. uses their social media as a portfolio of sorts, allowing their work across various industries to speak for itself and entice their following.
Stiiizy
Stiiizy is a brand that many who enjoy vaporizing know in the United States. Having been featured in publications from VICE to High Times, they’ve cultivated an impressive half-million followers on their Instagram page.
Often featuring product shots to allow the quality of their wares to speak for itself, they also feature videos to highlight their products, social good campaigns, and of course, attractive women smoking Stiiizy pens.
Weedmaps
Being a service to find new brands and cannabis community rather than being a producer, Weedmaps has created nearly 2,000 unique posts for its 535K Instagram followers with the goal of creating community.
Featuring giveaways, photos of top-shelf cannabis, and elements designed to be shared, their posts work to entice cannabis users into exploring the various articles on their website & push forward cannabis culture.
Which of these brands had the best social media presence?
Last Updated on December 8, 2021 by ADCANN
