When we make posts for social media, we are always trying to reach more and more people to grow our audience base and engage our followers. We may even spend money to “boost” a post so more people see it or hope that the people who see it find it interesting enough to share or retweet. However, boosting every post and playing the “hope” game isn’t always in the cards. That’s where the concept of tagging comes into play. If you know what this is, consider this a refresher, but pay close attention if you don’t know what it is.
The Concept of Tagging
Tagging on social media sometimes referred to as social mention, is when you engage people, businesses, or any entity with a social profile by mentioning them in a post or comment. If you have ever replied to a comment on Facebook, you have an idea of this concept, but you might not have known that’s what it’s called. When you click the reply button on a Facebook comment, a text line appears to enter your reply. You’ll notice, though, that Facebook adds something to this reply field by default. They add the person’s to the front of your reply, and when you submit your reply, the person’s name looks different than the rest of the text. How it looks can depend on the browser, device, and other factors (i.e., bold on Google Chrome and blue on mobile), but the important thing is that it is different. What makes it so different? The social platform creates a hyperlink to that person’s profile. Hovering over the name will give you a preview of their profile, and clicking will take you to their profile. Feel free to look around on your social platforms and see if you find some examples of this.
How to Tag
The good news is we can do this in regular comments and our posts’ main body. When typing your post, simply type @ before typing the name, and a list will appear with potential matches. Select the appropriate name from the list, and that’s it! Then continue typing your post and go through this process whenever you need to. So, what’s the purpose of all this? Who cares if we have this hyperlink to a person’s profile or business page in our post? What we have accomplished is we have tapped into their friends and followers. Now the friends and followers of those you tagged will see the post in their feed. Not just your followers. It’s almost like the people you tagged or mentioned shared the post directly on their profile or page. With very minimal effort, you’ve got your post in front of a lot more people, and best of all, it didn’t cost you a dime!
Problems With Tagging
Now, let’s say you are putting together a post and you want to tag “Cardinal District.” You type “@cardinal district” into your post, and you see all these different options for Cardinal District but not us. What now? Open a new tab or browser window, go to your social platform, and do a quick search for Cardinal District. Once you find us, click on the name or profile picture, and our page will appear. Once on our page, you will see the unique username or handle for our page (see images below). You can use this handle or username directly in your posts to get the exact Cardinal District you want. Type “@cardinalbhs” to limit to only us, and this works with all entities on social media.
Facebook Username/Handle 
Twitter Username/Handle 
Instagram Username/Handle
Let’s say you have gone through all of this and still can’t find the person or business you want to tag or mention. While it is rare in today’s world, there is a possibility that they don’t have a social profile. I know a few people that just aren’t on social media for various reasons, and when you come across those instances, there’s nothing you can do. However, when it is available, tagging or social mentioning is a great, no-cost solution to increase your social media reach by tapping into friends and followers of others and provides a better opportunity to grow your follower base.
Jordan Busboom is a Technical Services Assistant at Indiana State University’s Hulman Center. He received degrees from Indiana State University in Music and Mathematics in 2018.