Tips for Newbies @Steemit !! Use your tags carefully!!

But before you read this post, I want you to know that I am writing this article out of sheer embarrassment..

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(picture courtesy : freepik.com)

Yes, you read the heading correcly... To tell you the truth, my last article was really popular and many people reached out to me and thanked me for the tips. Being a newcomer here, I was really happy to interact with the community members and was basking in the glory, but suddenly my whole world came crashing down when I received this message from

@spaminator

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It was a warning to use the the tags carefully !!
In my previous post, I described the importance of using the tags correctly but unknowingly, I committed that same mistake on that same post. This is what I wrote on mistagging in my earlier article

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In my previous post, I used 5 tags.
Primary Tag: blog
Secondary Tags: introduceyourself, introducemyself, steemit & steemiteducation

But why I unknowingly committed that mistake ?

So, according to

@spaminator &

@steemcleaners , #introduceyourself and #introducemyself posts are tags specific to the initial self-introductory post. IT MEANS, THESE TAGS ARE CREATED TO BE USED ONLY ONCE !! But why people are using #introduceyourself & #introducemyself tags so regularly? It is confusing for a newcomer like me .

If you want to check it, then right now, open another tab in you internet browser and go to the Trending, Hot, New & Promoted pages of #introduceyourself and #introducemyself tags. What do you see? Do you see all the people posting their introductory article? No right? You will find many experienced steemians using #introduceyourself tag for different subjects.

Does it mean that many people ( even the experienced ones) still don't know how to tag properly? It appears so!!

It is difficult being a newcomer. You tend to pick up things from surrounding without knowing anything about it. There is no one to tell you what is right and what is not and you tend to accept whatever you see as the thumb rule. And that's where I made a mistake. I was so accustomed to seeing people using #introduceyourself tag regularly that I thought this tag could also be used for posting informative articles for newbies !!

I thought tags can be used in related subjects ( like #introduceyourself tag in my "Tips for newbies article" which I thought is related to newbies in steemit) and not entirely different subjects ( like writing a poem and tagging it in #bitcoin tag) but now I know little bit more about tagging, thanks to

@spaminator who shared an interesting article.

So, here is what I have learnt:

Inaccurate tags can be considered as Tag Spamming : It happens when the author purposely applies tags that don't fit the post in order to gain extra rewards.Wrong tags can lead viewers to downvote your the post and remove whatever rewards you could have otherwise received. It is very important to use tags that accurately-describe the posted content. If a whale decides to downvote your content, you may lose your reputation points.

Tag Abuse : It is the unintentional application of the wrong tags to a post.

Tags on steemit are used differently than Instagram, Facebook and other Social media platforms. You can use hundreds of relevant and irrelevant tags under you posts in these platforms but not in Steemit.

the first tag is actually a category and it cannot be edited after the post is published

all the other tags except the first tag can be changed later on

Tags and their use :

These are the tags , mentioned in the Game of Tags article from

@steemcleaners . Please read their article for more information. I hope you will know the importance of tagging now !!