Step 3: Add Custom Tags To Each Share

Last Updated: Oct 18, 2018 04:53PM PDT

With awe.some you can  dynamically associate any custom attributes you want with each user share. So if you’re interested in knowing things like; The SKU of each item posted to Pinterest, or the topic of each article shared to Twitter — awe.some attribute tagging make it possible to analyze each share in custom ways.

What Can You Do With Tags?

By “tagging” each user share, it becomes possible to analyze and filter your sharing data based on custom attributes that are important to your business. And what you choose to store in the the tags is entirely up to you. You can have up to 5 different tag groups associated with each share, and each of the 5 tags can have multiple values.

Here are a few ideas to get you thinking about our attribute tagging functionality can be used.

Enable User Segmentation

Tags can be used to group users into segments based upon specific demographic and behavioral data. For instance, the example below will help you organize your sharing data so you can analyze how location, gender, or user type impacts sharing behavior.

// User Demographics like Location, Gender, and Behavioral Attributes
&tag=California&tag_2=Male&tag_3=Registered User

Identify The Type of Content Most Frequently Shared

If you publish content, try using tags to track of the type of content you publish; its author, category, and the topic(s) covered. Then use this data to see which types of content from which authors, about which topics has the biggest social impact.

// Content Attributes like Author, Content Section, and Topics
&tag=Nick Bilton&tag_2=Technology&tag_3[]=Apple iPhone&tag_3[]=Samsung Galaxy S3&tag_3[]=HTC Droid

Identify The Product Being Shared

If you sell products online, tags can be useful for helping you understand what items if most frequently shared. You can use this information to help improve the effectiveness of your merchandising, or to improve personalization.

// Product Attributes like SKU, Manufacturer, and Product Name
&tag=B008GFRDL0&tag_2=Amazon&tag_3=Kindle Fire 2

Track What Hashtags & Mentions Are Used In Each Tweet

If you enable user to post to Twitter, you may be interested in tracking what hashtags and @mentions are being shared. With awe.some its easy to extract this information from each tweet, and store it for later analysis.

//#hashtags used in Tweet
&tag[]=moustache&tag[]=awesometag[]=roundhousekick

//@mentions used in Tweet
&tag_2[]=ChuckDamnNorris&tag_2[]=NotBurtReynolds

How Can I Implement Share Tagging?

You can use this functionality by passing your data into the tag parameter of your awe.some powered sharing buttons. If you are using our API to power your user sharing, you can add in the tag parameter whenever you create an awe.some tracking link.

Step 1. Define Your Tags

You have 5 tag fields available for your awe.some project. Each tag field should be used to store related values. So, if you wanted to store hashtags used in a Tweet, you’d store all of the mentioned hashtags in a single tag field. You would not store each hashtag in a separate tag field. But if you wanted to store the @ mentions in the tweet, you would want to do that in a different tag than the one you stored the hashtags in.

Step 2. Determine Your Tag Mode

Tag fields can operate in two different “modes” — single value mode or multiple values mode. When used in single value mode, tag fields are allowed to have only a single value. When used in multiple values mode, tag fields accept an array of values. For example:

Please note that a specific tag field can be only single value OR multiple value. Modes may not be mixed in a given tag field.  You must determine what mode you’d like to use for each tag field before using it.

Step 3. Append Tag Values To Each Share

Once you have determined what type of data you want to store in each tag, you will need to pass us that data. Please be sure to “url encode” the data.

If you’re using a tag in single value mode, you should pass in the value like this:

<– Single Value Tag Mode –>
tag_1=Male //Gender, a single value mode tag

If you’re using a tag in multi value mode, you should pass values as URL arrays, like this:

<– Multi Value Tag Mode –>
tag_2[]=blue&tag_2[]=green //Favorite colors, a multiple value mode tag which can contain an “array” of values.

You may also pass values in multiple tag fields simultaneously, like this

&tag[]=Red&tag[]=Green&tag_2=Salsa

Please note that the length of each tag field value cannot exceed 255 characters. If your value exceeds the limit, the value will be ignored, and the field will be set to null. If you are using our APIs to integrate, it is possible to also pass tag values using the url/update endpoint  — but be aware that doing this will overwrite, not append, values.

Using The Data

After you’ve configured your custom attribute tags, you can view the data using our reporting interface. However at this time, our reporting interface only supports tags in single value mode. If you have created a multi-value tag, and attempt to use it in your report, you will not get any results back. We hope to have multi-value support in the reporting interface soon.  If you must use multi-value tags, you can do so using our Stats API to get them data.

If you would like to integrate tag data into your application you can do so using our Stats APIs. Adding custom attribute tag data is simple, and can be done for any call you make, by adding the parameter “with_metadata=true”. More information can be found in the Stats API documentation.

Up Next? Building A Custom Report

Now that you’ve configured your data collection, its time to start analyzing it. In the next Getting Started Guide, we’ll show you how to use our reporting interface to build highly custom reports that will help you understand what users are sharing, and the results each share drives.