Why Tagging Matters

You should be adding tags to any content that you post online. What are tags? They are labels or keywords -- words or short descriptive phrases that can be inserted to accompany a blog post, or an image, or a video, or a social bookmark, or a review, or pretty much anything you post online.

Why does tagging matter? I will explain this in terms of each of the three basic principles of digital literacy: consume, create, and connect:

Critical Content: Your Online Profiles

Flickr - IDream_in_Infrared (creative commons licensed)

Perhaps the most important content you can create today is you.

That's right. You've got to represent yourself -- that is, if you want to be taken seriously in the digital age. You can either not attend to this, and let people find what they will when they search for you online (and believe me, they will!); or, you can manage your online identity and build it into something that creates real opportunities.

So, start with managing your online profiles.

An online profile is a place where you can formally introduce who you are, what you do, your interests, social connections, and content streams. I suggest managing at least three such profiles, beginning with those that will be most visible and useful -- profiles on Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and your blog profile: