Thoughts On Mass Tagging (Challenge Response)

Personally, I don't do it. The idea of it makes me a little anxious as it feels desperate. There's a part of me that has this "Build it and they will come" attitude toward creative pursuits, even though I know that exposure and community connections are half the battle and success in anything requires that you put yourself out there. And I would assume that people who are mass tagging are doing it for exposure, doing it because they have something they want purchased or shared. I could only really see myself tagging other users if I thought that what I'd written is something they'd specifically want to see (a topic they like, something based off a previous interaction, etc)

I recognize that visibility can be an issue on the site. For most people, myself included, getting 10+ likes on a post and even a few reposts is a pretty big deal which is a little surreal compared to social media platforms where you see content really easily and it doesn't take much for a post to get hundreds, thousands, millions of views.

I don't dislike it enough to ask others not to mass tag me, but I will say that it doesn't increase the likelihood that I'll engage with the piece that I'm tagged in. Sometimes, when it comes to mass tags, I will like the piece to acknowledge it and the writer, but chances are I'm not going to read it because it feels a little bit like someone coming up to you in a parking lot and asking you to buy their mixtape. If I'm being brutally honest, I'm more likely to check out someone's work if they like something I've posted or if I'm going through the various entries of a popular challenge. I don't use the Posts or Portals pages very often but I do regularly look at different challenges and their entries. It's probably the strongest part of the site as far as community engagement goes. I've found a lot of awesome posts and awesome writers that way, even in challenges I don't enter.

I have noticed a few trends when it comes to popular posts:

-Higher follower count/long-time active user

-Short to medium length (Longer pieces are usually exceptionally engaging, like to a professional degree)

-Comes across as thoughtfully written with an understanding of the craft

-Posted as a response to a popular challenge

-Are relatable, controversial, and/or unique

--and it seems like posts that fall into one or multiple of those categories tend to not only get more natural engagement, but more engagement overall than posts that are mass tagged.

P.S. Not an admin or anything but I've been on the site for a hot minute