Tags are keywords or phrases used to group collections of content together or assign a piece of content to a specific person or entity.
Tagging , therefore, means assigning a keyword or phrase to describe the subject of a set of articles, photos, videos, or other types of media files as a way to organize them and easily access them later. Tags can also be used to assign a piece of content to another user.
For example, if you blog about several articles about dog training, but not all of them are about dog training, you can assign those articles to the "Dog Training" tag for easier organization. You can also assign multiple tags to any post, such as using the "Beginner Dog Training" tag to differentiate between more advanced types of dog training posts.
If you upload a bunch of photos on Facebook from a wedding you attended, you can tag your friends' profiles to the specific photos they appear in. Adding hashtags on social media is great for driving conversations.
Tags are used by all kinds of web services—from social networks and blogging platforms to cloud-based productivity tools and team collaboration tools. Generally speaking, you can tag pieces of content, but you can also tag people (such as their social profiles).
Let’s look at the different ways to use markup online.
Given that WordPress is currently the most popular blogging platform on the web, we’ll focus on how markup works on that specific platform. WordPress generally has two main ways for users to organize pages and posts – categories and tags.
Categories are used to group larger groups of content based on general themes. Tags, on the other hand, allow users to get more specific, grouping content using multiple keyword and phrase tags to get super descriptive.
Some WordPress users place tag clouds in their website’s sidebar. These tag clouds look like collections of keywords and phrase links. Just click on a tag and you'll see all the posts and pages assigned to that tag.
Adding tags is very popular on social networks and is the best way to make your content more visible to the right people. Each platform has its own unique labeling style, but they all follow the same general idea.
On Facebook, you can tag friends in photos or posts. Simply click on the "Tag Photo" option at the bottom of the photo to click on the face and add your friend's name, which will send them a notification that they have been tagged. You can also tag a friend's name in any post or comment section by typing the @ symbol followed by the friend's name, which will trigger automatic friend suggestions for you to choose from.
On Instagram, you can pretty much do the same thing. However, adding tags to your posts can help more users who aren't already connected to you find your content when they search for a specific tag. All you have to do is enter the # symbol before the keyword or phrase in the post comment title to assign it a tag.
Of course, when it comes to X (formerly Twitter), everyone knows the hashtag. Like Instagram, you must tag your keyword or phrase by adding a # symbol at the beginning, which will help people follow the discussion you are in and view your tweets.
Very good question. They are almost the same but have some slight differences. Firstly, hashtags always include the # symbol at the beginning and are usually used only to follow social content and discussions on social media.
Tags generally apply to people and blogs. For example, most social networks require you to enter the @ symbol first to tag another user, while blogging platforms have their own section in their backend area to add tags without the need to enter the # symbol.
More cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools have jumped on the tagging bandwagon, giving users ways to organize content and attract the attention of other users.
For example, Evernote allows you to add tags to your notes to keep them nice and organized. Most collaboration tools, such as Trello and Podio, allow you to tag other users' names to easily interact with them.
So all you really need to know is that tags provide a convenient way to organize, find, and track information, or interact with people. Each tag is a clickable link that takes you to a page where you can find a collection of information or the profile of the tagged person.
