From what I have observed so far, it seems Tagging plays a major role in content navigation and distribution on Steemit.
Tags are essential for effective Steeming i.e to Submit a Story at Steemit, there are only 3 elements - Title, body and the Tag. Clearly, effective use of tags is vital. I see most of the popular posts always carry fewer and only relevant tags. While most steemers already make a great use of tags there is still many who don't.
So as to spread more awareness about tags, I am sharing this basic tag performance chart in simple way.
Here's a view of today's top payout trending tags and replies
Highest payouts to date are against tag STEEMIT with highest number of replies, followed by INTRODUCEYOURSELF.
Interesting to note that ANARCHY and ANARCHISM both clubbed together are at no. 10 only next to 8 and 9 - MARIJUANA and WRITING.
The Payout per reply presents a relatively different picture, TETHER is at top with just 4 replies on single post here - https://steemit.com/trending/tether. Again, ANARCHY and ANARCHISM are at top in payout per reply - that's a good news for ANARCHISTS of the 'crypto-internet age' (coined by anonymous, right now).
# Notes
Please note this is just a general presentation of trending tags. On the day of posting, data is taken from https://steemit.com/tags.html/trending.
As the trending tags data is constantly changing, the numbers shown here might have changed by now. Primary objective of this post is to spread awareness about effective use of tags.
Your post teaches people to do what we do not want them to do :)
A good tag isn't a tag which will get a post the most attention, but on that is accurate to the topic. Spamming the tags works in the short run, but will kill interest in the overused tags in the long run, including for posts which actually do belong under the abused tags...
Disagree they can focus content creation where there is demand. It shows collective interest of the group.
Agree, if misread or not read at all; it can allude towards spamming the tags. However, I see there's very good spam control culture at Steemit. So spammers are free to spam but they can't gain from it.
People need to tag topics with the proper tags. Steemit is top because most people posting here just tag with #Steemit even when not appropriate. Just because your posting on Steemit doesn't mean it belongs in #Steemit.
The second part of the problem is the curation system. People are going to tend to vote where they see the money went last time. Vote for content not just because it's trending.
The site does need better tagging features and better ways to filter/view topics. I hope this is coming in the near future.
There are a lot of shoulds that have taken a new person like me a little while. I did have some coaching from my boyfriend but he is learning too. I think it seems to be hard to track down and easy to use compendium. All of the info changes rapidly and comes from seemingly many authors. I am a humble mom trying to use the system the best I can. If you really want me to be able to tell my friend's. Other average joes most are going to need some help. Does this make any sense?
Yes, you are spot on and you are doing great so far - I upvote. I also realise the system is unique in that it's running on minimal rules of the play. And this is what makes it easy to use but hard to misuse.