Backed by an increasing influx of financial investment and growth,
MassRoots has ascended in the social media spectrum as the leading platform for cannabis connoisseurs. Founded humbly as a start-up mobile app in Colorado in 2013, MassRoots caters exclusively to the marijuana industry. The social media platform brings together cannabis consumers and businesses from all walks of life on a multi-channeled platform. While scrolling through its app, users can acquire knowledge about growing marijuana, learn about the latest developments in legalization on a state-by-state basis, share marijuana-related experiences, and most of all, post marijuana related content without fear of having their accounts suspended, or worse, deleted by moderators.
UPDATE: Massroots Hanging on by a Thread… But Hanging on Nonetheless
Since we first posted this blog, MassRoots went through a lot of ups and downs. In their first quarter of 2018, the social media platform repeated abysmal earnings of $1,492. However, they’ve yet to fold, having just moved their headquarters to Los Angeles, California. The legalization of cannabis in California had been seen as a last ray of hope for the struggling platform but, as the first quarter results indicate, the state’s recreational sales did not transfer good fortune to Massroots. Currently, Massroots is moving forward with a focus on providing a tech platform for licensed dispensaries as paid clients. Can this approach bring Massroots back from the verge of death? We’ve seen greater miracles in the business world but a miracle is definitely what it will take.
Facebook and Instagram Delete Marijuana Accounts Daily
Amid an unexpected massacre of
banned accounts on Facebook and Instagram in February due to supposed user content violations, many medical marijuana distributors and marijuana related businesses were left frantically searching for other avenues of regaining their now deleted following base.
According to notifications sent from Facebook, the social media juggernaut removes businesses that exhibit "any promotion or encouragement of drug use," which is vaguely broad, considering the nature of the marijuana industry and the world of social media in general. This statement alone by Facebook, is a clear example of the the risk involved when choosing to market on its platform, especially for business models that distribute marijuana or marijuana derived products, the likes of which took the brunt of the most recent string of account terminations.
The Devastation Is Real
Caught off guard by the devastation of signing into a now non-existent social media account, cannabis businesses such as Colorado-based Dixie Elixirs that, in some cases, spent years building up a credible social media following base, now have the demoralizing task of starting all over.
Not only does this destroy a primary marketing branch for the business in question, but also burdens the precious resources of time and money translated into opportunity cost, that could have been spent on other social platforms with more amicable approaches towards marijuana.
"Facebook and Instagram were critical for us from a marketing perspective and for keeping in touch with our customers,” said Joe Hodas, director of marketing at Dixie Elixirs, in a recent interview with
Fortune Magazine. “It really cuts off an arm, so to speak.”
MassRoots Migration Has Begun and Will Only Continue
Expected to reach the one million user mark no later than 4/20/2016, MassRoots has acquired a following of 775,000 + users which will only continue to rise in 2016 as more states legalize, prompting more businesses to become aware of the platform's presence in the industry. Not to be misunderstood as a replacement for major social media giants such as Facebook which has well over
one billion users worldwide, MassRoots success is being gauged not by its number of users per se, but rather its
quality of engagement within its
targeted demographic.
Receiving a majority of its engagement through mobile applications, the company has also adopted a sound SEO strategy, that in turn, will add even more users to its base. According to
Insider Financial, MassRoots experienced its highest Alexa ranking this past January since launching its web platform, resulting in increased traffic to its website.
MassRoots for Business
Rivaling paid advertising options and primary business portals offered by other major social media sites, MassRoots also boasts of a newly developed business dashboard known as MassRoots for Business, which is still in beta mode. Although dwarfed in scale compared to Facebook or Twitter due to its limited user base, the business dashboard for MassRoots delivers relevant data such as impressions and engagements, while allowing businesses to manage their profile information and schedule posts all in one place. This, combined with its targeting opportunities and lack of restrictions makes it an attractive marketing platform for marijuana-related businesses.
“We’re just taking the business model that works for Facebook and Twitter, and applying it to the cannabis industry," stated MassRoots CEO, Isaac Dietrich, while talking to
the Cannabist this January at a Consumer Electronics Show in Denver.
As businesses in the marijuana industry increase, so will the threat of account banishment on platforms that haven't fully adopted the more liberal aspects of the marijuana industry. Being met with the unrelenting fear of having to rebuild a social media account from scratch after being deleted with vague reasoning, might be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back in terms of which social media platforms marijuana businesses decide to spend marketing budgets on in the future.
In case you're ahead of the curve and already on MassRoots, be sure to follow
@MarijuanaPackaging for our latest updates!
