Can You Advertise CBD on TikTok?

Tiktok’s Community Guidelines on CBD

TikTok’s Community guidelines do not mention CBD once. Although drugs, controlled substances, alcohol, and tobacco are banned from advertising on TikTok in TikTok ads. Since CBD stems from the cannabis plant, which is federally illegal in the United States of America, TikTok considers CBD a drug and bans the advertising of CBD on its platform.

 The TikTok Community Guidelines specifically state the following:

“We do not allow the depiction, promotion, or trade of drugs or other controlled substances. The trade of tobacco and alcohol products is also prohibited on the platform.”

“Do not post, upload, stream, or share:”

• “Content that depicts or promotes drugs, drug consumption, or encourages others to make, use, or trade drugs or other controlled substances.” 
• “Content that offers the purchase, sale, trade, or solicitation of drugs or other controlled substances, alcohol or tobacco products (including vaping products, smokeless or combustible tobacco products, synthetic nicotine products, E-cigarettes, and other ENDS [Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems])”

• “Content that provides information on how to buy illegal or controlled substances” 

• “Content that depicts or promotes the misuse of legal substances, or instruction on how to make homemade substances, to become intoxicated”
  

Whether your CBD company is marketing ingestible CBD products or noningestible CBD topical products, TikTok prohibits the advertising of all CBD on its platform. Topical CBD products marketing is banned on TikTok as well. One of the only known exceptions was topical CBD ads marketing, as reported in an article on Forbes.

The Forbes article claimed, “TikTok is a valuable tool for CBD companies.” Using Cannabombz as an example, who started their TikTok marketing in January of 2020, it took them 7 months to go viral in a TikTok marketing post entitled, “Have you ever soaked 800 milligrams of full-spectrum CBD before?”. Since then, the marketing video got over 1.9 million views, 243,500 likes, 2,600 comments, and 18,400 shares. 

As a result of going viral on TikTok, Cannabombz’s marketing campaign generated a $25,000 spike in sales within 24 hours, 50 times their normal 24-hour sales. Over 4 weeks since posting the marketing video, Cannabombz’s sales revenue increased by 623%, and individual orders are up 839%.

Unfortunately, the story of Cannabombz TikTok does not have a happy ending. According to the Cannabombz website, their TikTok was deleted at 67k followers since TikTok prohibits CBD content and cannabis content on their platform.

In the short term, CBD brands like Cannabombz use TikTok as part of their CBD marketing strategy to gain sales growth from cannabis content. Still, long-term TikTok will permanently ban your cannabis content account, like what happened to Cannabombz Tiktok.

Cannabis and marijuana are federally illegal in the United States. For this reason, TikTok considers cannabis a drug and prohibits both advertising and organic content on their platform. Content containing cannabis, showing cannabis, or using the words “cannabis” is strictly prohibited. It could result in your profile being permanently banned if this rule is violated.

Can you show hemp on TikTok?

According to Lindsey Bartlett, a social media manager within the cannabis industry for the better half of the past decade, “photos of the cannabis plant and hemp are one of the main ways TikTok’s AI (artificial intelligence) uses to flag posts and ban accounts that talk about cannabis and hemp.” The short answer is no, you cannot show hemp on TikTok in ads or organically created content. 

Even using hemp in your hashtags could result in your social TikTok account being permanently banned from the platform. One way to work around this is to not use the words CBD or hemp anywhere in your TikTok posts and hashtags. However, the risk of being permanently banned from the platform long-term still exists.

Can You Advertise CBD on Social Media?

All major social media platforms restrict the advertising of CBD or outright ban advertising of CBD on their social platform’s content. The best way to advertise CBD is on Google’s organic search results using SEO. The organic search results on Google are completely unrestricted to promote CBD in your web content. This means you can advertise CBD directly in the organic search results on Google using your website content. 

However, to get your website in the organic results on Google, your website needs to earn placement using SEO or Search Engine Optimization. The higher your website ranks in the SERPs (search engine results pages) in search engines like Google, the more traffic and revenue your brand will receive.

Can CBD Companies Advertise on Instagram?

The short answer is no. Instagram’s ad policy says, “Ads must not promote the sale or use of illicit or recreational drugs, or other unsafe substances, products or supplements, as determined by Meta in its sole discretion.” 

Instagram considers CBD an unsafe drug for consumers because it stems from the cannabis plant, which is federally illegal in the United States of America. There is one way your CBD brand could get exposure on Instagram to potential customers, but it comes with some risk. 

Check out our full in-depth article about “can you advertise CBD on Instagram?” to find out how your brand can get exposure using Instagram. Influencer marketing using influencers is well known on Instagram. Still, it comes with inherent risks, which we discuss in our article. 

What Platforms Can You Advertise CBD on?

Advertising CBD products is arguably the biggest problem cannabis companies face alongside regulatory hurdles and payment processing boundaries. All major platforms, such as Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Instagram, TikTok, etc., have unique rules for running CBD ads. All of them prohibit or restrict the advertisement and marketing of CBD on their platforms.

 The best platform to advertise CBD on is the free search engine results pages on Google using SEO. Search Engine Optimization or SEO delivers the largest return on investment over time. This means more money and higher profits for a lower cost.

 If you are interested in learning more about using SEO to drive organic traffic and revenue from CBD advertising to your CBD website, then reach out for a free consultation. We will deliver for your company or return your money.