Dear Amy: The #SMEtiquette of Facebook Tagging

We've all had it happen to us.Someone posts a photo of roses with some inspirational phrase superimposed on it and tags 20 or 30 people, including yourself. Why? Because. Some people like it, sure. And that's great.But what's the etiquette of tagging people randomly on Facebook?Don't forget, submit your own #SMEtiquette questions!

Dear Amy:

I love posting inspirational photos once or twice a week and tagging a bunch of my friends in it.

I just want to share the inspiration with them, but I notice several untag themselves afterward. Why would they do that?

Terrific Tagger

Dear Terrific:I kind of hate to tell you, but what you’re doing isn’t so terrific. Tagging someone in a photo tells the world – and Facebook – that this person is in that photo. Particularly if there are people in the photo, that can get confusing. In addition, this photo is then showing up on your friends’ Facebook profiles.You may think you’re merely alerting your friends to the inspiration – and there’s certainly nothing wrong with tagging your friends in comments, which will achieve the same goal. But you’re not – you’re making your photo a part of your friends’ timelines.There are exceptions to this, of course. There’s one Facebook group I belong to, where there’s a weekly event, and the group manager posts a photo for that event each week and tags the most active members. We are willing participants in that, and if any of us preferred not to be tagged, we could simply tell the group manager not to.I also participate with a group of friends in a fun weekly “Fistbump Friday” meme on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, hashtagged #fbumpf . We tag each other in the photo(s) to kick it off for the week and to make it easier for us to find them. It’s a group activity, so in a sense we’re all in that photo. There’s also an understanding that this is what we do – again, if anyone preferred, he could simply ask not to be tagged in the photo and he wouldn’t be.But simply posting something that inspires you and tagging 5, 10, 20, 30 people in it (I’ve seen photos with dozens of people tagged) really seems like little more than an effort to be seen by large numbers of people. When your friends are tagged in a photo, it is seen not only by you and by their friends, but it also shows up in the newsfeeds for your friends.There are many people on Facebook who do this for no reason other than to be seen by more people – to get more “reach,” as it’s known.I am not saying this is your reason for doing so. I take you at your word that you are doing this merely because you have been inspired and want to share this inspiration with your friends. So next time you post one of these, don’t tag anyone in the photo. In the comments, name the folks you think would be interested in it or would benefit from a little dose of good cheer.