Delving into Hashtags with Rapha | Ep. #5

07/15/20 • 43 min

On the fifth episode of Candid Creative, Antonio speaks with friend Rapha about the power of hashtags. Rapha’s big interest is in hashtags and hashtag research. He has been primarily focused on the relationship between hashtags, data, and growth. From branding and marketing to traffic and SEO, Rapha knows the insides and outs of how to make hashtags work for you.

He broke through on Instagram as a “hashtag hacker” for sharing all of his secrets about SEO optimization and analyzing hashtag data. Starting with keywords, Rapha focused on the size of hashtags. Then he moved to people focusing on real estate posters and found that they do not behave the same way that content creators do. One example of this is that mortgage and real estate don’t comment on their posts, when the wineries would. A mentor told them that “normal people” don’t use the platform in the same way that workers do. This was a breakthrough.

Rapha and Antonio briefly dive into how the Instagram algorithm affects the exposure of posts, whether from humans or bots. What’s important for people to remember is that hashtags are only a tool: they cannot see the future. This has caused Rapha to greatly reduce the amount of time he’s spent analyzing hashtags. Rapha realizes that there are other metrics of far greater significance. Like, for example, are you creating good content? Do you understand your audience? Do you understand your why? Do you know the value of your content? These things are going to drive more success than trying to “hack” the hashtags. In many cases, even the developers don’t really know how the algorithms work.

Finally, Antonio and Rapha discuss some of the pitfalls of hashtags. The big one is this: less is more. If you have too many, they just get buried. The best thing to do is to move away from relying on hashtags and the algorithm and focus more on doing things to increase your own engagement. Spend time on the platform liking, sharing, commenting, posting good content—this is going to drive engagement more.
Follow Antonio on IG: https://www.instagram.com/imantonioruiz |

Follow Rapha on IG https://www.instagram.com/iraphacarpio |and for content in Spanish @_rafacarpioBecome a Patron to this podcast and Antonio's content on Instagram
https://www.patreon.com/imantonioruiz

Previous Episode

TikTok: Content & Growth with Chris Davis | Ep. #3

On this episode of The Candid Creative, our host Antonio Ruiz talks with Chris Davis, an internet marketer who helps people grow their influence on social media and make an impact. Antonio and Chris discuss the hottest social media platform in 2020: TikTok. With over 800 million active users, TikTok has the highest organic social media engagement rate. What makes this platform so special? How can you take advantage of it and what sort of content is suitable? Find out in this episode!

Chris begins by explaining that just because you see one type of content (dance videos) doesn’t mean you have to post that sort of content. There is a lot of other great things on TikTok and you can contribute to that!

Antonio asks Chris to explain how he got so many followers on TikTok to get where he is today. Chris talks about how he experiments to find out what sort of content attracts followers and the need to do something better than or different from everyone else. He also mentions the need to post in your own voice and do more than just voiceover videos. Followers want to know what you sound like and your own voice helps create your personal brand!

You’ll also hear Chris’ perspective on a recipe for success for Tiktok and advice for those just starting. He advises listeners to post every single day, focus on your strengths, teach people things they want to know, consume enough content, get a TikTok Pro account, and not to worry too much about hashtags.
Correction: At the time of recording Chris Davis had around 12k on TikTok. At the moment he is over 50k followers on TikTok.
Follow Antonio on IG: https://www.instagram.com/imantonioruiz

Follow Chris on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter: @chrisdaviswork

Chris’ agency website: https://revcarto.com/

Next Episode

Rule on Pinterest with Kareem | Ep. #6

On the sixth episode of The Candid Creative, our host Antonio Ruiz talks with Kareem of Pinterest fame. He talks about how he learned to use Pinterest to drive traffic. Early on, he realized that Pinterest isn’t really social media but a search engine. A lot of people know about the online world, but they shy away from it because they don’t know how to get the traffic.

The things that really work on Pinterest are pins. You have two types of pins: images and videos. Videos convert more, but images can convert. You also have the ability to post carousels, and they can be hits. A piece of content that really works boils down to the design. The majority of Pinterest users are scrolling on their phone, so you need to think about the real estate of the screen. You want to capture their attention quickly.

Kareem and Antonio also discuss optimization, SEO, and other tactics to use data to drive traffic to your site. Kareem started to spam affiliate links on Pinterest in an attempt to make a lot of money fast. Doing almost 100 in two or three days, his account was removed by Pinterest. After talking to them, he had to start from scratch, ultimately. But he’s thankful for this experience.

There are bits and pieces of good knowledge everywhere, you just have to look for them. Pinterest themselves actually teach you how to use the platform. It was a totally different ballpark when it came to the amount of data that was used. It doesn’t matter how many pins you make—what matters is how consistent you are pinning. You can even use tools to automate this process instead of doing it manually.
Follow Antonio on IG: https://www.instagram.com/imantonioruiz |

Follow Kareem on IG at https://www.instagram.com/marketingwithkareem
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The Candid Creative - Delving into Hashtags with Rapha | Ep. #5

Transcript

Unknown Speaker00:00:02.000

Welcome to the candid creative show made for creators, creatives and entrepreneurs. Whether you're starting out, rowing or establish, this is the show for you.

Unknown Speaker00:00:18.000

Hello and welcome to the fifth episode of the creative port. Today we'll be talking about hashtags. A lot of us despise them. We get frustrated. hashtags are not working or organic reach is dead. However, it's a little more