Now that Cannabis is legal for both medical and retail use, dispensaries in competitive areas want to incorporate Google PPC, Twitter sponsored ads and Facebook Ads but can’t due the restrictions these advertising platforms maintain concerning marijuana phrases of any kind. Each has separately announced they will not allow sponsored ads, posts or tweets that promote the use or sale of cannabis; yet cannabis product pages and companies exist and use their platforms regularly.

With most platforms already offering demographically targeted ad placements as well as utilizing social signals for local SEO rankings; specificity for Marijuana Search Engine Marketing and Paid Advertising should be simple.

Google, Twitter and Facebook’s policy on marijuana ads is simple: “Just Say NO” to the promotion of illegal drugs, legal or synthetic highs, herbal drugs, chemicals and compounds with psychoactive effects, drug paraphernalia, or aids to pass drug tests.

Bypassing Google and Facebook Keyword Policies

Another way to advertise your Canna-business is via organic SEO, making your website friendlier to search engines by altering coding, generating interactive audiences and altering content accordingly so they appear in favorable search engine result positioning. The problem is that proper White Hat SEO can take minutes or months, all depending on how fast you begin trending through social media and affecting search engine results. You could get lucky and find the perfect term to trend and become viral all at once, thereby skyrocketing the results of your website and establishing your brand as king among Google results.

More realistically speaking, if your business is not something like the next I-Phone, XBOX or Horny Sexy Dates in your area; your dispensary needs to mix a healthy serving of social media interaction with QR Codes and POS “geotagging” to establish your brand and quickly dominate and expand your local search engine results. QR Codes are the funny symbols you see on some packaging, much like barcodes only with a Rorschach type design.

So how can you advertise if you’re a cannabusiness?

There is another way to use your social signal to promote your business, expand your brand name and reward loyal customers; a simple QR code.

Most QR codes can be attached to a Facebook business page, a twitter feed, URL or other platform and then shared and liked by each customer upon visiting your store.

QRs can be added to the labeling of different marijuana strains so that willing customers can scan the code and share it with their like-minded friends across social media.

QR Codes can be made to access Leafly and Nuggetry for enhanced strain descriptions.

QR Codes create the ability for instant reviews of any POS.

QRCode and Socialize your Canna-business.

Marijuana dispensaries in Colorado and Washington State are perfectly legal and regularly raked over a hot bed of coal for advertising, yet still generate hundreds of millions in tax revenue and provide new local employment avenues. So why shouldn’t Retail and Medical Marijuana dispensaries be permitted to advertise online, like any other business?

Two things should occur with the use of a QR and the correct social connections:

Your locations social signal increases by generating constant activity on your business’ page Your Social Signal increases search engine rankings due to the constant activity on it and a growing audience reposting the material. Local SEO rankings will also peak due to 1 & 2 activity, as well as the fact that the QR code would reflect local customers as opposed to global. With the QR code your Retail or Medicinal Marijuana Dispensary also generates a customer list to share newsletters, coupons and giveaways with on a daily, weekly or monthly level.

And there is plenty of proof that QR codes work on a storefront level.

WeChat.com has been providing QR based marketing thru direct SMS messaging to clients who scan and friend the store they visit for years.

Recently QR codes have appeared at bars where tourists can snap a photo and order without any language or interaction issues. Each code can be embedded with social media share links.

Singapore super mall VivoCity recently completed a live QR code promotional during their biggest sale of the year, increasing Facebook fans for the mall and individual stores by the thousands.

Advertising and sponsoring Social Club Events with QRCode promotions.

QRCodes will expand your online followers and audience.

Easiest way to explain Geotagging is by imagining a guy in Denver who comes to your Colorado Springs dispensary for regular purchases and then constantly swearing you have the best product in the world, to anyone who will listen. Then those people do the same, etc., etc., until you are renowned in several zip codes or possibly states. Only this is now done thru our wireless devices.

What the @#$% does Geotagging have to do with QRCodes

Clients who visit your dispensary should be encouraged and enticed to participate in “check-ins” from your store, liking your business pages and building one hell of a social media signal which broadcasts where they traveled from and to; as well a for what. The algorithm currently used to determine placement in Google is always said to have nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter, plainly seen as competitors to Google Plus and whatever they plan on doing with that. Only that is a bunch of crap and we all know it. Each and every time you login to your Google account through Chrome or Android apps you provide a vivid history of your behavior on their search engine and leave digital footprints as to your search preferences. When you look at the results you get from searches in your area for pizza, more and more appear as reviews posted on social media about restaurants in your area.

Add to this the interaction of a Facebook post, foursquare check-in or tweet and suddenly you have expanded into a new zip code through the same social media that won’t sell you advertising. The social signal is key in promoting your storefront so remember to engage customers and encourage social media interactions with discounts and other incentive plans.

Huffpost reported

“In the first five months of legal retail sales, Colorado dispensaries sold about $90 million worth of recreational marijuana, The Denver Post reported Thursday. Yet it was still outsold by its medical counterpart, which has been legal in the state since 2000. Medical marijuana brought in about $165 million in revenue during the same January-through-May period.”-

Adults in Colorado have legally purchased marijuana for recreational purposes since the beginning of 2014 and the state initially projected that it would pull in at least $33 million in taxes during the first six months. Newly released figures show that only $12 million has been collected in those same months, mostly due to medicinal marijuana being taxed at a lower level. What we may soon see is that medicinal marijuana is limited to specific ailments and the limited scope will increase retail sales and state tax earnings.

Don’t let the search engines and social media platforms dictate how you advertise while continuing to abide by their rules. If you’re a Cannabusiness, the longer you take to establish your online presence the longer it takes for you to empty the shelves of marijuana and related paraphernalia, the longer you are ignored as the “go-to” dispensary in your area and the smaller the area can become.

We created Denver Pot Vacations and 420 MultiMedia as our way of applying functional search engine optimization and Internet marketing to the growing marijuana industry. Clients enjoy in-depth Internet marketing trend knowledge, blue-collar work ethics and hands-on audience expansion and brand recognition on social media, local SEO and Email/Adwords/PPC management.