Steven Hodson wrote a post that got me thinking. He was asking whether bloggers used tagging in their posts to extend the conversation by encouraging people in via search. I looked at my Google Analytics, and it turned out that traffic coming to my site via Technorati style tags was the 21st potential way someone was coming to my site.
Thus my question: why bother tagging? Here are my thoughts on the answer:
Tags are a way of adding a layer of metadata onto something one has placed on the web. We tag photos in Flickr, for organizing, for giving labels to images, to help computers see them. We tag blog posts, songs, profile information, and all kinds of other things. Why?
In his book, Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger talks about the need for tagging growing out of an ever more complex collection of bookmarks. It became a different way to organize information. And it is. When I search through my social bookmarks, I often don’t remember the names of the sites I’m searching for. Instead, I remember the topic I came up with to remind me where to look.
This kind of folksonomy becomes useful, because it means that even if YOU call something a great “Thought Leader Program,” I might call it “weblearning,” and leave it at that. Meaning, we don’t have to agree on how to file something in a world with tags. You say to-MAY-to, and I say to-MAH-to. (Add two strips of bacn and some lettuce, and we’re a sandwich!)
Why YOU Should Tag
Helping people understand your content is important. If at all possible, spend time tagging the content you make so that others might find it in a search. Think about how THEY will look for it, and label your tags accordingly. Don’t worry so much abou how your people actually want the data. They can use del.icio.us and other tools to re-tag it their own way. But help out in a starter set.
I’m going to tag my stuff because I want to make sure I can find it again. My categories were decided long ago on my blog site, and they’re not especially helpful. My tags? Not bad.
What about you? What are you doing with tagging? How have you built your tags in the past? What are your thoughts on how they reflect on your media?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
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Photo Credit, Allan Ferguson