Even with new social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram is still one of the most popular social media channels in the digital world. One of their best features is Instagram Stories. However, not every cannabis dispensary is using it to its full potential. Often, companies will repost from other accounts or even their own–which is fine, but there’s so much more you can do to drive engagement. Let’s take a look at Instagram story ideas you can try to get more eyes on your cannabis dispensary.
Behind The Scenes
Give your audience an insider’s look at your cannabis dispensary with behind-the-scenes footage. You can record footage of a day in the life of one of your employees, provide a sneak peek of upcoming products, or show your audience how something is done. You can build buzz around your new products or events, and promotional discounts as well. Remember to talk to your audience in the video or show them something interesting–like how to use one of the new products at your dispensary. Instagram story ideas with random behind-the-scenes footage without any intent usually don’t do well. Entertain, inform, educate, or do a combination with your behind-the-scenes video.
Live Story Q&A
Going live on Instagram Stories can be scary at first, but if there’s structure to your session, you’ll have a better chance at using it successfully. One of the best ways to utilize the ability to go live on Instagram is by doing a Question and Answer session. This can be done in a variety of ways. You can invite your audience to view the session and ask any questions they would like to, allowing you to choose questions at random to answer. Also, you can have them send questions throughout the course of a week or so, and you can choose a few randomly to answer live. To give this exercise even more structure, you can set up a cannabis topic, such as terpenes or edible micro-dosing. Your cannabis dispensary can display its knowledge about marijuana products through live story Q&As.
Use IG Stories to Highlight Followers
Everybody loves getting shoutouts on social media. In your everyday routine for Instagram, you should be interacting with your followers. If you run into something awesome that they’ve posted, share it on your story and give them some love. You’ll make that customer/potential customer feel special with the shoutout and also show others that you care about connecting with your followers. Remember that you’re not just a cannabis dispensary–you’re also a cannabis brand. You can even incentivize your followers to tag you in their posts with products they purchased from your dispensary, so you can share them on your Stories feed. Posting user-generated content can help you engage with customers and give you free promotions.
Listicles on Stories
If you check out any business blog, you’ll notice that many of their posts are listicles. People love reading lists–ranked or unranked–since they are scannable and are ingrained in our culture. They also can be perceived as bulleted notes, which are more memorable than blocks of content. Using the listicle approach on your cannabis dispensary Instagram Stories can help your customers and potential customers engage with your brand more. Make a list of your top-selling products, list out the best strains, rank the best cannabis rolling papers, and so on. You can even repurpose a blog as an Instagram Stories listicle to save time. Additionally, you can prompt your viewers to interact with the listicle by choosing their favorite on the list. There are plenty of opportunities for deeper, more fun engagement with a listicle on Stories.
Audience Polls
Have you considered the polls you’ve been using for your Instagram story ideas? At its best, polls can help you learn about your audience’s preferences. Create polls that gauge what types of cannabis products they prefer. For example, you can set up a battle between cannabis drinks vs. cannabis gummies–the winner moves on to a poll versus pre-roll joints. You can even set a poll for voting on the best locations to consume cannabis with immersive visuals to really hook them in. The possibilities are endless, and your audience will be interacting with your stories. These are just a few ways you can use Instagram Stories to your advantage. LinkedIn and Facebook have something similar, so you can also bring these ideas to those platforms.
If you would like to take your cannabis dispensary marketing to the next level, we can help. Contact us today for more information on our digital marketing services.
