How Americans feel about Cannabis in their quest for natural healing
As of a 2016 Gallup Poll, the majority of Americans from the United States support the idea of medical cannabis and whether they just have a hunch or a clear understanding of the benefits of medicinal cannabis, most Americans have been denied a proper education on the multitude of the benefits, businesses, products, and services that cannabis offers. It goes beyond the stigma of “smoking weed” and “getting high”, which I imagine the other 40% of non-supporters have concocted in their minds. It’s about understanding that cannabis offers us environmental sustainability, a healthy lifestyle, an alternative and complement to harsh pharmaceuticals, and economic opportunities. Not to mention cannabis offers us an extremely worthwhile opportunity to conduct research, explore, and EDUCATE on this very special Genus of plants.
So how does it feel to live in the age where you are responsible for delivering the honest educational content on medicinal cannabis that has been suppressed for far too long? AMAZING, right?! Well, the hurdles are lower, the forecast is cannabis, and the landscape is digital. So here is what you need to know about how Americans educate themselves and how the Cannabis Industry can use this information to navigate healthy channels of education and communication with the general public.
Finding Information
Information is everywhere. In order to expand your digital education efforts, it is important to understand where people are getting their information. Is it newsletters, social media, news apps, search engines, or shared links? Here’s what current research tells us.
A study released in February 2017 by the Pew Research Center examined how more than 2,000 U.S. adults obtained their news over the course of a week for a total of 13,806 news interactions, looking at 2-hour blocks of time. The study found that the majority of participants received their news from news organization websites/apps 36% of the time and from social media 35% of the time, while search engines (20%), news org emails/text (15%), and family emails/texts (7%) accounted for the remainder of the ways in which news readers acquired their news.
This means when sharing educational content to an average reader you have to consider how your strategic process should be developed for focusing on the best delivery methods. Your business already has a few social media accounts, right? Let’s call that your low hanging fruit. Start sharing your website centric content to your social media followers. Then take your second step and focus your strategy on how you can get noticed through these news organizations directly. We have a hint for you, original data! Our previous blogs have spent much effort stressing the importance of sharing your data. Share your studies, conduct research, or use current research to support your content. Whatever the case may be, one of the best ways to get noticed by these big news sites is to share content that is not widely available except through you. You have unique medical marijuana data, it’s a matter of taking the time and putting forth a plan for creating content from that data and placing it in the hands of this general news reader population so that they can visually understand, find use in, and share your content.
Which Apps do Americans primarily use to scroll for news?
Yes, Facebook is still a powerhouse when it comes to social media as a source of news, but surprisingly it is not the only top social media outlets used for news. Reddit proved to be a slight leader when it came to news source apps, closely followed by Facebook and Twitter. What makes Reddit unique is its user-centric rating system. Virtually anyone can post on Reddit. The global community can then vote the post up or down on the leader boards based on its value in this online community. The site also allows people to interact with your posts in the comments, which sparks debate, commentary, clarity, and humor.
Providing awesome share-worthy content is key to making a name for yourself on Reddit. To do this, you need to be creating unique content that people are actually seeking. It needs to be natural, unscripted, and likable. Talking about your business is easy, but for this, you have to create content that will engage the reader and tie it back to what you can do for them. This isn’t a sales pitch. This is an opportunity to share your knowledge, experience, content, and stories in an impactful way.
This graph provided by Pew Research Center serves as a tool for you to understand what other sites you should consider joining to best leverage your original content. I highly recommend taking a moment or two to read through each one to understand how these may be useful platforms for your business and remember, choose wisely.
Follow-up actions including shares, posts, comments, bookmarking and likes were also considered in Pew’s Study. The findings were a bit inverted from the previous results of how people got their news. For example, few people spend time sharing news via email or text with friends and family, yet when they do these are the stories that are shared, commented on, and liked the most.
Also, the content topics that inspire follow-up actions are ripe for the Cannabis Field since, according to the study, when the news topic was health related, 66% of the time these news stories were shared. Cash in on this!
Difference in Devices?
Whatever the platform and whatever the content, make sure that your digital materials are responsive to all devices; computers, smartphones, tablets, etc.
The devices you decide to focus on are going to depend on you and the type of customer you are trying to attract and retain. This means using a varied approach when communicating with your audience. Tailor your message, distribution channel, and tone to positively enhance your reach, educate the right audience and bring in new ideas, patients, partnerships, and communities together.
At the end of the day, your educational marketing method is completely up to you. We hope to offer some insight and tips to create amazing articles, campaigns, blogs, and education-driven content.
A.R. Marketing House focuses on leveraging your already useful data to create an entire educational content strategy. Need help leveraging and promoting your content? Contact us!
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