Just Tagging Along

In Chapter 9 of Paul Gillin's book, New Influencers, I learned some pretty valuable information on tagging. Gillin told us how to properly tag blogs and videos and podcasts, and he explained exactly how tags worked and how they could be used effectively. Before I read this chapter, I would just pick out some keywords that I used throughout my blog and use those as my tags. These tags are used so search engines and websites can judge the content of your blogs and make them available to the people who want to read about that subject.

When checking out my tag list - the list of all the tags that I've used in my past blogs - I found that I have used 64 different tags! Of course most of them were only used once, but a few of them, like AdRants, AMA, New Influencers, ONU, viral and social media were used a couple times. YouTube, however, has been tagged in 5 of my blogs.

My list consisted of pretty general terms, and after reading Chapter 9, I realized that I could actually get more in depth in my word choice and tags don't have to necessarily have to be topics. Gillin used Volvo as an example and they tags that he used would be, "Volvo, car, sedan, Eurpoean, 4WD, snow, safety, vehicle, upscale." If I would have written an article about Volvo, I never would have thought about using those words as tags.

After gaining a much better understanding for the usage of tags, I have a better idea of what to do and plan to implement that to increase the effectiveness of the tags that I use for my blogs.

How New Influencers Influences Me!

Well as you may know from one of my previous posts, I have an internship with the Ada Chamber of Commerce coming up this fall. Now even though I don't officially start until the fall, I've still been working on an assignment, a company fact find/data sheet and meeting with members of the board. While reading the chapters on podcasting in our New Influencers book, I was able to get some really great ideas that I can use and implement on the chamber's website and Facebook page. Using some of these ideas will help us to connect with followers and members and offer interesting facts and information about the companies around Ada to help promote their business, products and services.
What I found especially helpful in the chapters were all of the examples of the small ideas turned thriving businesses with the use of something simple like a podcast. It was pretty incredible to read about all of these success stories, and I'm sure there are countless others out there that weren't featured in the book, as well. I think the tips from the book on how to start up and offer something interesting to the public is the most beneficial and what I can use most toward my internship this fall. I'm getting very excited and am starting to brainstorm for all the fun things I can bring to the Chamber.

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