Tags - Top 20 Profitable, Engaging and Popular tags

G’day team,

So I found myself perusing steem recently and between alternating through some amazing advice on altcoins and some travel-porn, I noticed that posts about different things (and under different tags) on steem always illicit very different reactions.

So I’ve decided to have a look at some of the most popular tags on our website (using a snapshot from 27/12/2017 and do a basic analysis of which tags are popular, profitable and interactive.

Please note all the following analysis were done ONLY FOR THE TOP 100 POPULAR TAGS!

POPULAR – Top 20

These are the tags with the most posts, this might mean there’s a lot of competition, but it may also mean there are a lot of readers. If you’re willing to fight for your popularity these tags are always a great go-to!

1. Life @ 93,634
2. Photography @ 56,474
3. Steemit @ 43,597
4. Blog @ 34,559
5. Art @ 30,675
6. Bitcoin @ 28,543
7. Story @ 21,289
8. Cryptocurrency @ 19,955
9. Nature @ 19,926
10. News @ 19,590
11. Travel @ 19,288
12. Funny @ 17,512
13. Steemit @ 17,450
14. Writing @ 16,044
15. Introduceyourself @ 14,969
16. Busy @ 14,123
17. Money @ 13,826
18. Video @ 13,566
19. Food @ 12,795
20. Photo @ 12,344

I don’t think anyone will be surprised with this list. What we see is a lot of tags that can be linked with a broad range of topics. This means that under these tags we can see people writing about almost anything and throw the tag on because it'll always fit, as such the tag gains a lot of popularity.
But let’s move on, which tags are producing the most income per post?

Payout Per Post – Top 20

Looking to make that cash-money-dollars. Here's where to go!

1. Technology @ 437
2. Psychology @ 223
3. Fiction @ 208
4. Steemit @ 188
5. Cn @ 174
6. Freedom @ 164
7. Kr @ 162
8. Philosophy @ 156
9. Community @ 137
10. Business @ 132
11. Steemit @ 122
12. Blockchain @ 112
13. Writing @ 111
14. Science @ 110
15. Deutch @ 106
16. Contest @ 105
17. Travel @ 103
18. Ethereum @ 102
19. Gaming @ 102
20. Introduceyourself @ 102

Here we see a completely different list to the one above. If we look at these topics they’re all quite narrow niches, they’re areas that people like to be informed about (technology), are passionate about (nature), that make people think (psychology) or that get people excited (travel). I think here we really see the ‘quality over quantity’ aspect of successful steemit posts coming through!

But if you’re interested in more than just profits you might be asking… what posts engage people?

Comments Per Post – Top 20

1. Kr @ 5.6
2. Utopian-io @ 3.8
3. Sevendaybnwchallenge @ 3.1
4. Technology @ 2.7
5. Dtube @ 2.6
6. Spanish @ 2.3
7. Tr @ 2.3
8. Introduceyourself @ 2.1
9. Deutsch @ 2.1
10. Contest @ 2.1
11. Colorchallenge @ 1.9
12. Cn @ 1.5
13. Christmas @ 1.3
14. Steemit @ 1.2
15. Food @ 1.2
16. Bitcoin @ 1.1
17. Introducemyself @ 1.1
18. Poetry @ 1.0
19. Sport @ 1.0
20. Nsfw @ 1.0

Here we’re looking at the topics which elicit the most response, feedback and engagement. Now to me this list looks like a set of topics that people want to weigh in on. Once again these are niche topics, but unlike the payout per post catagorie we’re seeing a tags with a much more personal touch. Places, events and arts feature strongly. #introduceyourself and #introducemyself are both on this list indicating that people will respond when you open up then you’ll get a response (really speaks for the strength of the steemit community), the same could be said for #poetry.

So what’s the overall picture here?

Breakdown

If we look across all these categories we see a few tags that really do well across the board.

Winner: #technology
---Payout per post- #1 at 437
---Comments per post #4 at 2.7

This is really my pick of the bunch. It’s a topic that both informs and excites people. Technology is relevant to our everyday lives, but it’s also something that we can all go hard-core fan-girl about! Whether it’s the latest gaming rig or the next-generation drones, the up and coming iPhone (yuck!) or the state-of-the-art VR headset coming out in a month, technology posts are something everyone can be a fan of. Similarly they’re easy to read about you’ll get both the lay man who wants to learn about some new tech and the expert who wants to weigh in on pros and con’s

Honourable Mentions
Apart from #kr no other posts were even in the top 10 of both engagement and pay-out. But some topics like #steemit and #introduceyourself are just universally popular.

Closing Comments
Ultimately, a good post will always do better than junk, and knowing which tags are the most popular or pay out the best is not going to be a make-or-break factor in your steemit. But being able to gain any edge possible might just mean that you can target the areas where you’ll get the most exposure for your well thought out, researched and written posts!

I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on the topics above (including any mistakes I’ve made) and if anyone would like to see the full list I’ll be putting that up as a daughter article in the next few hours!

Thanks team

-tfc