How does one find content on Gather? Here's a tip to share with you. Take a look at the top of the Gather page. Just below the menu bar is an outlined blue box with a list of "tags" that you can look at from various perspectives: "Suggested," "most viewed," "most discussed," and "most published." The latter three are based on what is popular on the Gather site at any given time. They change regularly, and highlight the content that is the most popular. But the first option, "Suggested" Tags – holds the key to finding the great content on the site. Authors who use these tags are the easiest to find, and the "Suggested" tag landing pages you jump to often have a great array of related content to view.
What is a "Suggested" tag? "Suggested" tags are a set of keywords that the editorial team has chosen to show the breadth of content that can be found on the site (i.e. business, environment, family, health, travel). These tags do not change like the other three lists do, making these tags particularly helpful for finding content on a subject of interest or getting discovered on the site for a great new article. Why? Because every time you publish a political article with the tag "politics" you will show up on a well trafficked part of Gather due to its high visibility as a part of our standard navigation. If you use a tag like "us politics" you will have to depend on someone finding that tag or think of typing it into the address bar.
Get featured in the right places. You will also have the opportunity, if featured, to headline the tag page associated with these "Suggested" tags automatically. This gives you visibility in a number of places, by choosing your tags simply and strategically. How does this work? When the editors choose an article to feature, it also gets featured on the pages that are created based on the tags used to "describe" the article. On a page like movies (www.gather.com/movies) the featured articles are based on the fact that a featured article has the term "movies" as a tag. If it is tagged "film" only, it will not show up on that page (though it will show up on www.gather.com/film).
Find content, authors, and groups similar to yours. As people learn to use these suggested tags, the pages that are created become rich with content. The community picks, features, recent articles, images and groups are all related to each other on this page through a common tag. A popular writer in the area of music will show up frequently in the "Top Members" section of the tag page linked to "music."
Be broad and specific. These broad tags help others find your content. But to figure out specifically what your article is about, tags are key to providing insight into an article. If you are writing an article about starting an elementary level charter school, your article's "Suggested" tag should be "education" followed by "school," "elementary school," and "charter school." You could even add "public school" or "private school" depending upon which one you have written about. This way, fellow members interested in charter schools can find your article and have access to information that is important to them.
Don't go overboard on tags. While some people fail to tag their articles at all, there are others who go in the opposite direction by adding tags that do not reflect what the article is about. An article with solely a recipe about how to make scones should not be tagged with "business," "politics," or "travel." This is also applicable to images.
Tagging your articles appropriately with your own keyowrds and the appropriate suggested options will help them get greater visibility and wider readership. They are the bread crumbs to help people find great content throughout the site.
David Cooperstein is Editor in Chief at Gather. His past The Editor's Desktop columns can be found at editors.gather.com, a group for people who want to connect around the content on Gather.
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Comments: 16
However, I have an issue with the advice you provide in the final section "Don't go overboard on tags". I believe that it is in a members best interest to use as many related tags as possible. While it is true that unrelated tags should be avoided, the use of related tags increases the likelihood that an article on a particular subject will be located. This is especially true as Gather attracts a more diverse and international audience. As long as the tag is related to the material, is there some downside that I am unaware of?
I feel badly about this, but since your article can serve some members as documentation, it should be accurate.
A popular writer in the area of music will show up frequently in the "Popular Members" section of the tag page linked to "music."
Should actually be:
A popular writer in the area of music will show up frequently in the "Top Members" section of the tag page linked to "music."
A problem I have with tags is the still growing number that I can't edit or delete. Any progress on authors having control/ editing of these? I do urgently need to delete many of the tags - it takes forever to scroll through the list of them.
Magi
I'm slowly getting the grip on "the tag thing", so I appreciate your article. Question: Is there a way to save blocks of tags so that they can be copied and pasted into an artcle before publication ?
This would be a great time saver and increase the accuracy of tagging of articles.
My biggest gripe is the "Gatherholics" group, which is a jokey group about people who spend too much time on Gather. It is not about serious addiction. Yet, they use the "addiction" tag for their groups and all their posts.
I wrote the group leader, and she didn't seem to care about this at all.
The editorial team at Gather should be stepping in and clearing out tags from articles and groups that don't belong. Otherwise, people abuse the tags and they end up being totally worthless.
It might also help to create more defined categories, and give people only a limited number of categories to put their stuff into. This will keep them from including every damn tag they see in their articles.
I wrote the group leader, and she didn't seem to care about this at all.
The editorial team at Gather should be stepping in and clearing out tags from articles and groups that don't belong. Otherwise, people abuse the tags and they end up being totally worthless.
Steph, instead they promote her as a favorite.