Social Bookmarking and Tagging

In this post i discuss the new concept “tagging”. Tagging is powerful because the taggers or the users are creating an organised structure for the content which i available online. Tagging not only enables people to file the away content under tags, but also it gives opportunity to share it with others by filing it under a global taxonomy that they created.

Using webiste and social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, digg or stumple upon etc and Flickr - a photo sharing site - people online are collaborating on categorizing online content under certain keywords, or tags.

I am a regular user of this webistes for marking my posts in these website and found it useful in introducing new topics and get more traffic from these webistes. For instance, a one can post snaps of their iPod on Flickr and file it under the tag “iPod.” These images are now not only visible under the individual user’s iPod tag but also under the community iPod tag that displays all images consumers are generating and filing under the keyword. Right now Flickr has thousands of images that are labeled “iPod.”

Social Bookmarking or Tagging is catching on because it is a natural complement to search. Type the word “blogs” into Google and it can’t tell if you are searching for information about how to launch a blog, how to read blogs, or just what. Large and small sites alike are already getting on to the world of tagging or social bookmarking. They are rolling out tag-like structures to help users more easily locate content which the user is looking for.

Start subscribing to RSS feeds to monitor how consumers are tagging information related to your product, service, company or space. These are living focus groups that are available for free, 24/7. Social Bookmarking sites can be also be carefully used to unleash viral marketing campaigns - with a caveat. Marketers should be transparent in who they are, why they are posting the link/photos and avoid spamming the services.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.