When social media platforms first came into the market in the 2000s, they had a single purpose--to connect people in a digital social setting (and they were aptly named). Now, more than a decade later, social media platforms have become public forums where individuals, organizations, brands, and businesses are major players. What began as an optional social circle has become a nearly mandatory element of modern life, especially for brands and businesses.

1. 3 Ways Social Media Is Changing How We Do Business
When social media platforms first came into the market in the 2000s, they had a single
purpose--to connect people in a digital social setting (and they were aptly named). Now,
more than a decade later, social media platforms have become public forums where
individuals, organizations, brands, and businesses are major players. What began as an
optional social circle has become a nearly mandatory element of modern life, especially for
brands and businesses.
Social media has transformed how we understand both personal and corporate connections.
And while many critics debate over the implications of a more connected world, one thing is
for certain--social media gives people a voice.
This is especially important as society moves to hold brands accountable for their actions.
Social media is a public forum where people can share opinions and insights about a brand
or business. From executives to entry-level employees, so many people have joined in
discussions about remote work, mental health, leadership styles, and ethics at work. These
are critical conversations that are shifting the way we do business and facilitating change for
the better.
Here are three ways social media has transformed how we do business and my prediction
for the upcoming era of social media strategy.
Brands, businesses, and organizations use social media to reach people
One of the most transformative things that social media has created is a space where people
can connect, no matter the time or location. Social media has helped us reach people. This,
of course, transformed marketing. Now, brands can reach their customers in a more
personal and direct way than they could with billboards or print advertisements.
Social media has been leveraged to build trust between the brand and the consumer. Online
social platforms are a space where users can provide feedback about a product, and brands
can respond. If a customer has a complaint and voices it online, the brand can connect
almost instantly and offer customer service to retain that relationship.
Social media is a public forum
I think it's important for digital natives to understand that social media is a public forum. It is a
place where people come together to share ideas, opinions, and insights about what's going
on in the world. The best way brands and companies can build trust with consumers is to
demonstrate brand values and allow customers to engage with those brand values.
Consumers want to align themselves with companies that are socially responsible and held
accountable for their actions. This is where social media comes into play.
Companies in both the public and private sectors can leverage online platforms to create
discourse around their projects. This facilitates engagement and helps people connect to the
mission or heart of the organization, whether it be for brands in the private sector or
agencies in the public sector. Here's an example: A capital planning and construction

2. management software company is leveraging social media to collect community feedback.
Aurigo's platform, Engage, helps public agencies -- towns, cities, and states -- gather
feedback from the community on infrastructure plans for new or improved highways, roads,
water utilities, rail and transit, and buildings. The technology platform replaces traditional
public engagement methods such as town halls and written surveys with a social
media-powered public forum that enables constituents to express their opinions on planned
projects that will potentially impact their community. Public engagement is critical because it
directly impacts how residents' tax dollars are spent.
Stakeholders hold public companies accountable, constituents hold government
organizations accountable, and consumers hold brands accountable. In each context, social
media is a tool that can improve engagement, transparency, and access.
This is one way that brands and businesses can use social media to get feedback from
consumers. It can be as complex as a separate platform to facilitate engagement or as
simple as a poll or questionnaire shared on social media.
The next big trend in business management is discourse-driven decision making
I predict that the next business movement we'll see is discourse-driven decision making.
Now more than ever, brands need a support system of customers who trust their company
and believe in their values. Discourse is the best way to facilitate this, because it provides a
space for collaboration between the company and its consumers.
Discourse-driven decision making will be supported by social media. Companies and
organizations can use social media platforms to connect with consumers and ask questions
about a product. In this way, social media becomes a referral source for a brand. Consumers
are more isolated than ever because of the pandemic, and social media has become the
primary way that people share the brands they love, interact with companies they trust, and
get exposed to new products and services. Companies across industries will rely on
discourse to strengthen their brand image and provide insights into the way their buyer
personas think.
Companies can leverage social media to create public forums where they regularly interact
with their customers to nurture positive experiences that strengthen brand loyalty. This
practice will transform and take over how we do business in the digital world. It's time for
brands to step up and create digital experiences that facilitate community engagement.
Social media is the best place to start.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
02
How to clean up your social media accounts

3. If you haven't updated, curated, or otherwise cleaned up your social media accounts since
2009, it's time for a social media deep clean. After all, the profiles and bios you created then
probably don't reflect who you are now or even who you want to be.
Plus, it's just good digital hygiene to maintain habits like updating your social media
accounts' passwords, making sure your profiles look professional, and decluttering your
follow/friends lists to ensure you're updated on the people and topics you actually care
about.
screenshot Delete and archive posts you don't want public
The most obvious way to clean up your social media presence is to delete or archive posts
you no longer want displayed publicly on your profile. If you just have a few posts here and
there that you want to get rid of or archive (read: save the post, but keep it hidden from
others), the process is usually easy enough. For example, on Facebook and Instagram,
each post has its own menu of options, and by tapping or clicking on the icon for that menu,
a list will appear that includes options like "Delete" or "Move to trash/archive" or "Archive."
But what if you need to do a deep clean and remove lots of posts at once? Well, there are
mass deletion and mass archival options, depending on the platform. If you need to mass
delete tweets, you'll want to use a third-party tweet deletion service like TweetDelete or
Twitter Archive Eraser. TweetDelete is a free web app that also offers a premium version of
its service. Twitter Archive Eraser is a paid desktop app that is available for MacOS and
Windows PCs.
Instagram lets you archive and delete multiple posts at once, but this feature is only
available in the mobile app of the social media platform. Facebook has a similar mass

4. deletion and archival feature, and it's also available on the web version. To access it via the
Facebook website, click the Down Arrow icon in the far right corner, then select Settings &
Privacy > Activity Log > Your Posts. From there you can select multiple posts and choose
Archive, Trash, or Change Audience.
Update any outdated bios, URLs, or usernames
Sometimes the bios and usernames we came up with for our social media profiles aren't as
timeless as we'd like to think. You can give your profiles a quick refresh by updating your
usernames, profile URLs, and bios. In most cases, you can edit these profile elements by
navigating to your profile page and selecting its respective Edit Profile button or link.
Changing your username may vary, however. Instagram lets you change your username via
the Edit Profile button, but Facebook and Twitter will make you go through their Settings
pages. It's also worth noting that changing your username will usually automatically change
your profile's URL, too, so make sure your username is something that represents you well.
screenshot Deactivate or delete unused accounts
Now that we're spring cleaning your social media accounts, it's a good time take stock of all
of the accounts you have and which ones you actually use. It's so easy to create them, and
it's possible a few of them have fallen into disuse over the years. Make a list of all of your
accounts, and if you notice that a few of them haven't been used in a while and you know
you won't be logging into them anytime soon, you may want to consider deactivating them
for now or even deleting them.
As Consumer Reports notes, deleting inactive social media accounts can be particularly
helpful for protecting your privacy and bolstering the security of your personal data. Having
online accounts that you don't interact with very much (and probably don't monitor) can leave
you vulnerable to having your data stolen, since online accounts tend to store personal
information about you. It's important to keep the number of online accounts that store such
information to a minimum. Keep it to just the accounts you know you will use.
Update all of your passwords
If you've updated your passwords for your social media accounts recently, then this tip isn't
for you. But if you haven't updated your passwords since you opened the account nearly a
decade ago, or if you have a tendency to reuse passwords across your accounts, you need
to change your password. While the consensus is you don't need to update your passwords
every few months, according to noted online security company Nord Security, it is good
digital hygiene to protect your accounts by doing it at least every year or so. Are you
reluctant to change your passwords because remembering new ones can be difficult? Go
ahead and get yourself a password manager.
screenshot Clean up those friends/follow lists
Cleaning up your social media accounts isn't just about updating your profile and
strengthening your online security, it's also about being more mindful of the content you
consume. You're not required to follow everybody and every page or to keep up with every

5. trending topic. If you find yourself in a situation where you're following people or brands or
publications that generate content that isn't helpful, informative, or entertaining, you should
consider unfollowing, muting, and/or unfriending them.
Take this as an opportunity to prune and curate your timeline and feed. Unfollow the
accounts that don't resonate with you and follow the ones that do. Social media should be
enjoyable, so take the time to curate your feed with content you're actually interested in. And
don't constantly subject yourself to posts on topics you don't care about from users and
brands you'd rather not hear from.
In most cases, you can just visit your following or friend lists and unfollow/unfriend them from
there. Or, you can go to their profiles and unfollow or unfriend them there.
Curate the topics and interests that you follow
You may not be interested in the same topics that you were a few years ago. Some social
media platforms like Twitter will let you update the topics you follow. This can be helpful for
managing the suggested posts these platforms add to your feed.
On Twitter's website, you can easily manage your Topics by clicking on More and then
selecting Topics from the menu that pops up. From there, you'll be presented with two tab
lists: Followed and Not Interested. The Followed tab has all the topics you're currently
following. Click on the Following button next to each topic that you want to unfollow and then
hit Unfollow again to confirm. The Not Interested tab has topics that you don't follow. If you
want to follow a topic from here, just click on its respective Follow button.
Editors' Recommendations
03
Social Media Is A Minefield For The Cannabis Industry.
Are Solutions On The Horizon?
Challenges facing the cannabis industry on social media apps including Instagram and
Facebook have come to a crisis point.
It’s become increasingly common to see cannabis industry brand pages with massive,
devote followings, deactivated for violating community guidelines. Because of the strict
guidelines on “illegal drugs,” and marijuana being lumped into that category regardless of
operations in fully legal states, Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, has
cracked down hard on cannabis. Even using the best tips and guideposts for avoiding
deletion and shadowbans on social, companies and influencers are getting flagged left and
right.
What can be done?
Social media competition is fierce

6. For years, people within the legal weed industry have speculated that companies
purposefully use the “report” feature on many social media apps against their competitors in
the space.
Are brands and cannabis influencers really weaponizing social media?
“100% yes,” says Tammy Pettigrew, educator and business owner in the cannabis space
with a massive following on social as The Cannabis Cutie. “I definitely think that competitors
are using this as a tool for taking out their competition. When cannabis brands have stuff
taken down for hate speech and bullying, as soon as it’s reviewed, they say it was a mistake.
I’ve had my account deactivated 5 times. Every post I’ve had taken down except 1 has been
an infraction on bullying and hate speech. Honestly, it’s brilliant.” Pettigrew was on stage for
Core Conversations at Hall of Flowers speaking on this exact subject.
Pettigrew offers tips on diversifying your digital portfolio to deal with the issues cannabis
brands have at Meta. “You can’t allow these companies to control your business,” says
Pettigrew. “If I lost my Instagram, I’d be in trouble. Create a newsletter, create a blog, expand
as far as you can go. Try not to be at their mercy.”
A new cannabis-only app offers a solution
Cookies founder Berner and the cannabis tech company Weedmaps have concocted a
solution: an entirely new social media app dedicated to the cannabis community. “As the
leader in the cannabis technology space, we were tapped by Berner to be the technology
partner for his new, cannabis-friendly, social media platform Social Club,” says Chris Beals,
CEO of Weedmaps. “The purpose of the Social Club app is to create a social community
specifically for cannabis consumers, growers, businesses and more.”
Beals believes the Social Club app, which will be available to people aged 21-and-up and is
slated to launch in Q2 of this year, “showcases the ongoing evolution of cannabis and
e-commerce coming together. The app is being launched in beta as we speak.”
To the tech giant, the social media dispute is personal. Weedmaps’ own Instagram account
with over 539,000 followers was deactivated mid-December 2021 and then reactivated in
late January 2022. The deactivation was a result of Instagram’s community guidelines, says
Beals.
Weedmaps and Cookies founder Berner are working on Social Club, a weed-friendly app for
people aged ... [+] 21-and-up.
Weedmaps
“Given cannabis is still largely banned from most major marketing channels, the deactivation
on Instagram was demonstrative of the ongoing censorship that companies in cannabis
continue to face,” Beals explains. The CEO says that Weedmaps has been ‘shadowbanned’
for many years on Instagram, and the hashtag #weedmaps has been banned as well. “We
wanted to tackle the ongoing issues Weedmaps and other cannabis businesses face, and so
decided to create a digital commercial spot timed to the Super Bowl. The intention behind
creating the ad was to shine a light on the challenges imposed on the industry, including the

7. marketing hurdles—like social media censorship and a lack of consistent advertising
regulations.”
When it comes to the weaponization of these social media platforms, Beals is skeptical. “I
think what’s more likely are the social media companies stepping up their moderation around
cannabis,” he says. “One of the reasons I am so excited to see the Social Club launch is the
ability to have a space to post cannabis content without having to wonder what step you’re
going to have to take to avoid getting your account banned—this in itself is a meaningful
step forward for safe and real cannabis conversations.”
A petition to bring Meta to the table
Arend Richard’s company WeedTube was founded as a safe space for cannabis content,
partly in an attempt to find a solution to this growing frustration and strict regulations on
digital platforms. Richard recently launched a petition for Instagram to ease its regulations on
the cannabis industry. The petition on Change.org has amassed over 1,000 signatures as of
this writing.
“The goal of this petition is to get Instagram to actually come to the table to start an open
dialogue on how to best move forward with the legal cannabis industry,” says Richard. “The
current enforcement of their ‘policies’ don't seem to have any sense of consistency.”
Does Richard think that cannabis may receive recognition and solutions from Meta
platforms? Yes, because they already do, selectively.
“If Instagram simply had a 0 tolerance policy for canna content, like TikTok, then I would
suggest the industry find new means of advertising,” says Richard. “However, plenty of
cannabis related brands receive recognition from these platforms already. The problem is,
they are usually corporate entities with big dollars behind them.”
The numerical goal on the petition is for a lofty 1 million signatures. Tapping into the
mainstream, consumer audience would enable him to reach his goal. “I like to dream big,”
says Richard. “Our platform of WeedTube has seen over 5 million unique visitors since the
launch of our new technology in 2019, and that's without spending a dollar on marketing our
brand. The community is out there to get the 1 million signatures. Will it be easy? Not at all.
But I'm not going to let that stop me from trying. 1 million people strong would show
Instagram that the cannabis community means business.”
This systematic change won’t come without a fight. “Instagram has already begun deleting
posts and accounts just for sharing the petition,” says Richard. “The cannabis industry and
community need to come together now for these changes and solutions to happen,” says
Richard. If not, he fears, “we will be delivering this industry into the hands of mainstream
corporations when federal legalization happens.”
Cannabis insiders hope that changes are on the horizon with Amazon and Apple signaling
support for the industry, but Richard warns that those larger corporations run the risk of
pushing out smaller business owners. Social media access is also about equity.
https://www.socialpilot.co?fp_ref=ashan97