SUPER SIZE Your VISIBILITY with TAGS
July 13, 2010
A lot of people are not tagging photos of their artwork and craft on social networks very effectively. Sometimes a couple of tags, perhaps three or four, maybe none at all. Are you kidding? Tags drive Search Engines more than ever. If you don't have tags on the images of your art and craft, how is someone going to find you or your work? If there are only three or four tags and they don't include your name you are completely missing the idea. SUPERSIZE YOUR VISIBILITY with appropriate tags.
I have a suggestion for speed, efficiency, and getting the job done effectively. I have a word document on my computer that holds all my 2.0 social networking tags for my photos. I constantly add or improve these tags, of course, but any time I post images, I can quickly open the document, copy my tags for that category and paste the tags for my photos. Then, if appropriate, I can add a few more relevant tags, such as color or theme, specific for that piece or item.
Here is an example Flower pin and the tags:
recycled tin cans, jewelry from recycled materials, harriete estel berman, harriete, estel, eco, harriet, harriette, earth day, april flowers, flower, green, recycle, upcycle, eco, trashinista, earth day, brooch, pin, san mateo, san Francisco bay area, jewelry from tin cans, colorful, advertising, packaging, consumer society, Blue, Orange, anti aging, watch, fifty,
Look at the tags closely. There are lots of perspectives to enable someone to find this image of a flower pin by Harriete Estel Berman.
First, since my name is commonly misspelled, I include misspellings in my tags. People often seem to remember my name as Estel. So I put Estel in my tags.
I put the same words in my tags that I (or other people) use to describe my work, such as recycle, upcycle, trashinista.
Note that I include both San Mateo and San Francisco, two ways to describe where I live.
For this flower pin I would add the following tags specific to this flower pin: blue, orange, anti-aging, watch,
In situations where the number of tags is limited, mix up the combination of words. For example, on Etsy tags are limited to 14, so I put my name in the tags in different ways on different pieces. All I need to do is get people to my shop. Flickr allows up to about 75 tags. I don't know if there are limits to the number of tags on Crafthaus. Just prioritize the order and go for it as fast as you can.
I know that there are lots of online discussions about the best keywords, but I don't think that is as important as putting up a variety of tags. Use your own common sense. How do you describe your work? How do other people describe your work? OK. You got it. Those are your tags!
Now open your photo albums on each social network site and tag away as fast as you can. Make your images into superheroes traveling at the speed of light around the world, and working 24 hours a day.
This post was updated on January 19, 2022.