A new consumer phenomenon is called "tagging" or "folksonomies" (short for folks and taxonomy). Tagging is powerful because consumers are creating an organizational structure for online content. Folksonomies not only enable people to file away content under tags, but, even better, share it with others by filing it under a global taxonomy that they created.
Here's how tagging works: Using sites such as del.icio.us - a bookmark sharing site - and Flickr - a photo sharing site - consumers are collaborating on categorizing online content under certain keywords, or tags.
For example, an Internet user uploaded a photograph from their iPod to their Flickr account, and tagged it as "iPod". The image that was uploaded would then appear in the collection that has "iPod" as a tag. Hence, the image could be accessed by other Internet users too. In addition, people who search for "iPod" pictures would also see this. Today, Flickr have 5,000 photos that are filed under "iPod".
Folksonomies naturally complements search. In effect, it is currently improving its popularity. Try to search for the word "blog" on Google. You will see that there would be thousands of results with the word blog. This is made possible by tags or keywords. Probably, you will be seeing articles such as "How to launch your first blog site" or "Tips on writing blogs". These tags eases searching of contents.
Although tags are far from perfect, marketers should, nevertheless, be using them to keep a finger on the pulse of the American public. 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. Folksonomy 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.
About the Author:
There are more freebies to grab at Instant Lead Magnet. Get to know Damon Nelson and his Fast Video Reviews at http://FastVideoReviews.com
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