Have you used hashtags on any social media? If so, surprise! You’ve already used folksonomies ! They’re often used on social media for social tagging . This is interpreted as a way of describing users’ language from their perspective.
In other words, it’s the use of keywords that can be expanded so other users can search for and use it. It’s a classification that humans perform using their own words.
For example, hashtags are used on Instagram and Twitter. Their syntax is the pound sign followed by a keyword. Today, most websites have mastered tagging, allowing users to contribute to a global and easy-to-learn language.
What is folksonomy for ?
Folksonomies allow each user to individually design and promote useful categorization of web content. Social tagging allows users to view and search other users’ bookmarks .
If you’re looking for specific information on a particular topic, social tags can help you quickly find the content you need. They can be used on both traditional websites and social media. Therefore, they’re widely used on platforms like Pinterest and Instagram.
For example, users can add tags or captions to image collections that categorize content by topic. The same is true for photo platforms like Flickr.
Types of folksonomy
There are two types of folksonomies that we explain below:
- Narrow: Also known as limited. In this context, the content creator sets the guidelines for the keywords to be used in their posts, thereby ensuring proper tagging of said content.
- Broad: In this type of content, the content creator doesn’t formulate the keywords their content will be categorized with. Users do this themselves.
That is, both broad and narrow folksonomies allow content searching by adding a textual description or access points to an object.
However, the reality is that a narrow folksonomy doesn’t have the same benefits as a broad one, since the latter allows for the monitoring of emerging trends in the use of labels and vocabulary development.
How does it relate to the SEO world?
It’s important for you to understand that folksonomies can be a powerful tool for online marketing.
If you use search engine optimization, you should know the keywords that interest people. These keywords will allow you to easily determine which keywords are popular, so you can use them to generate traffic to your own website.
You might be wondering, so how can I use folksonomies in my online marketing campaign?
The answer is that folksonomies are useful and easy to master. Use them to research the most important topics on the Internet.
Also try to find a way to make current topics relevant to what you’re promoting.
Plus, you can be the brains behind a popular, trendy hashtag and create your own folksonomy . You’ll love creating a cool hashtag that people will be interested in. It’s an easy way to kickstart a great viral marketing campaign.
Application of SEO tags on web pages
Specifically, folksonomies are used on web pages in the form of meta tags . These are snippets of text that describe the content of a page… They don’t appear on the page itself, but only in its source code.
SEO tags are essentially small content descriptors that help tell search engines what a web page is about. The only difference between tags you can see (on a social network, for example) and tags you can’t see is their location.
Meta tags exist only in HTML, typically placed in the “head” of the page, so they are only visible to search engines (and people who know where to look).
The “meta” stands for “ metadata ” which is the type of data these tags provide: information about your page’s data.
Some examples of folksonomy on web pages
Folksonomy can be a very powerful tool for all types of websites. Below are some real-life examples to show you how powerful this strategy can be:
Some major models that use this type of tool are Flickr, the social bookmarking site del.icio.us, and YouTube. All of them have a large number of registered users who actively use folksonomies . It’s no wonder this growth has occurred. Tagging is fun!
On the other hand, the online retailer Amazon allows users to tag anything for sale and work with tags in many useful ways. You can choose tags that others have already used, as well as find discussions and people related to those tags.
As you can see, folksonomies can help all kinds of people in different situations gain real, actionable insights from their unstructured data. Whether you’re interested in finding beautiful images of sunsets or helping medical researchers shed light on new findings, folksonomies can help you achieve it.
