Maggie Rants [and Raves]

Tagged!

by Maggie Franklin | December 27, 2011 | Bookmark +

Recently I watched one of the blog posts from my business website go viral. That was cool. OK ... I'm not talking about millions of hits and a subsequent book deal, but I recently moved my website from a more traditional format to a blogspot site, which means that now I get to include a blog on my regular website too.

When I did it, I shared the link via Facebook. And then one of my friends shared the link to one of the posts I'd written about MMA ...  and since she shared it via Facebook and we're friends, I got a notification that the link had been shared. And then I got a notification when two more people shared the link... and a day or two later I was looking at the stats for the site and discovered that the MMA post had had 60,000 thousand views in the previous 24 hours!

And, since I have tracking software on my site, I also got to see the day the Czech Republic discovered my website when someone posted the link on a message board there.

Eventually someone tagged me in a note or a photo on Facebook and since everyone can see the things I'm tagged in, one of my clients started asking questions at her next appointment.

And you know I love to share with you whenever something happens that twists my perception of the world; we really do experience things in the industry differently from the way consumers do.

Yes. My client asked me what MMA is. Yes, she was interested in the answer. But since I had been tagged in something regarding MMA, her first thought had been that someone was insinuating that I used MMA. She thought that either someone was calling me out or that someone was attempting to defame me by accusing me of using it.

It never occurred to me that someone might interpret a tag that way, and I find it worrisome to realize that this probably is a glimpse into the mind of our "friends," "followers," and "fans" who stumble across us in one form or another via the Internet.

I want credit for what I write if I'm being quoted or copied, and I was plenty content with getting tagged to link back to my profile, but if people are going to associate that tag with an accusation instead of an education, maybe I'll rethink that!

Just an anecdotal heads-up; consider how the public interprets what they find!

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.

a Bobit media brand

Create your free Bobit Connect account to bookmark content.

The secure and easy all-access connection to your content.
Bookmarked content can then be accessed anytime on all of your logged in devices!

Create Account