June 20, 2014
Data tags are key to digital marketing success, allowing marketers to add context to content. Hashtags, geolocation, topical categories and product IDs enable B2B and B2C social media marketers to target and communicate more effectively.
Hashtags: The Beginning
IRC networks have been using hashtags to label groups and topics for some time, but the term became popular when Twitter began using the metadata tag to improve search. Since then, social platforms adopted the hashtag functionality to their sites, with Google+ being the most recent adopter. Users and brands use this feature to search social posts by topic and contribute to conversations with their own responses. Since the inception of searching social media by topic, brands regularly use hashtags to encourage and amplify relatable content using content curation services like Bazaarvoice Curations.
Geolocation Tags
With the rise and popularity of searchable social content by topic, a few social platforms such as Foursquare took advantage of the data tagging momentum and introduced geolocation data tagging to create another search criteria – content by location. This additional layer of location-based targeting puts online conversations, photos, and videos in the context of where they are happening. Brands now have the power to launch location-specific social campaigns, such as contests at events or displaying the reach of their brand using a geotagged map.
Social Commerce Tags
Social commerce tagging is a trending concept that activates the e-commerce potential of user generated product posts. Tagging content about products with associated product pages allows brands to lead customers from a social interaction to a purchase. By putting the tagging function in the hands of marketers, content platforms like Bazaarvoice Curations enables a new connection between discovery and closing a sale.
Product tagging is ready for retailers in every category, mapping directly to the projected rise of the e-commerce industry and the ongoing importance of the ROI of social media marketing. We’re excited to see some of our clients already using these capabilities to pioneer social commerce microsites, and we look forward to helping more clients realize their e-commerce potential!
Contact Bazaarvoice to see how you can harness the different types of data tags to curate, filter, and display social content for your social media campaigns
