Hello Steemians,

I was sitting down with my morning coffee this morning and decided to open up Steemit and have a browse through the Steemit ‘hot’ page. Scrolling through I noticed a post with a picture of eggs benedict - interesting I thought, I wonder how that relates to Steemit - maybe someone has started a food blogging site on the Steem blockchain? I opened it up to investigate, and no it was about how eggs benedict was a good start to a week. Back to scrolling and I came across another food post in the Steemit section this time about the benefits of mangoes - and again had a read and it had nothing to do with Steemit.

This irks me for a few reasons - firstly and most importantly, the tags are there to help the user experience and make it easier to navigate content you will be interested in. I am interested in the Steem ecosystem so I read through the Steemit tag to find out about Steem related activities and discussions, such as new apps on the Steem blockchain, information about Steem witnesses, information/discussion about bots. If I wanted to know about mangoes and eggs benedict I would go to the food tag! Lets think about some more relevant tags that could have been used: #food #health #healthy #nutrition are just a few that come to mind!

Use your tags wisely

Not only this I feel like these users are actually not using the tags as beneficial as they could be used - I see tags a bit like target marketing. Its your chance to say ‘Hey my post is about food, come and have a look’. You only get 5 tags so use them wisely! I know tag abuse has been a problem in the past - people often use the most popular tags that get the most eye traffic (such as #bitcoin, #introduceyourself and #travel) whether the post is relevant or not. Sure this may bring more eyes to your blog, but I don't think it brings the most genuine readers. The Steemit FAQ even states that ‘the more relevant tags are to the post, the more like-minded people will come across it’

There are so many subcultures and tags on Steemit which will bring more people to your blog who are actually interested. It is also about finding the balance - if you use all the most niche tags such as #homesteading or #organicfarming you won't get many people looking at your blog. As long as the tag has some relevance to your blog article then its fine.

Surely there must be a way to filter out those who abuse the tags - I know when I search up Steemit on Google I don't get any articles about food! I know some people advocate for flagging posts that misuse tags - but that is not something I want to get into, and I would rather educate people than punish them!

This post is partly meant as a rant, but also I hope that it can educate Steemians about how to use tags to your benefit.