One of the most underrated features of Jottings is per-tag feeds. I built it thinking most people would use their main feed, but after watching how creators work, I realized this is actually the most powerful tool for building engaged audiences.

Here's the thing: not everyone who follows you cares about everything you write. Someone might love your photography but skip your technical posts. Another reader is obsessed with your dev thoughts but doesn't care about personal life updates. With traditional single feeds, you force them to subscribe to everything or nothing.

Tag-specific feeds solve this. They let your audience subscribe to exactly what they care about.

What Are Per-Tag Feeds?

Every tag on your Jottings site gets its own RSS feed. If you tag a jot with #photography, that jot appears not just in your main feed, but also in a dedicated photography feed.

Here's the structure:

• Main feed: yourname.jottings.me/feed.xml (all jots)
• Tag feed: yourname.jottings.me/tag/photography/feed.xml (only photography jots)
• Another tag: yourname.jottings.me/tag/tech/feed.xml (only tech jots)

It works the same way as your main feed—subscribers get new posts in their feed reader—but filtered to a specific topic.

Why This Matters

I see three huge wins here.

First: Better audience experience. Someone subscribed to your photography tag feed isn't drowning in unrelated posts. They get exactly what they signed up for. Higher signal-to-noise ratio means they stay subscribed longer and actually read your posts.

Second: Lower friction. Instead of "follow my entire blog or nothing," you're saying "follow just photography if that's your thing." This converts people who might have bounced. A designer might not care about your morning reflections, but they'll happily subscribe to your design tag feed.

Third: Community building. Tag feeds let you build mini-communities around specific topics. Your photography followers form a coherent group. Your readers who follow tech posts see themselves as part of that audience. It's subtle, but it changes how people engage.

How to Set Up Strategic Tags

The secret isn't complicated, but it does require intention.

Be specific, not generic. Tags like #thoughts or #ideas are too broad. Use #photography, #indie-hacking, #book-reviews, #parenting—things specific enough that someone would actively choose to follow them.

Use 3-5 main tags. You don't need 50 tag feeds. That's overwhelming for your audience. Pick 3-5 topics that define what you write about, then make sure your tags reflect those clearly.

Tag consistently. If you write about photography, make sure every photography post gets the #photography tag. Inconsistent tagging means your feeds become incomplete and unreliable.

Keep tag names readable. Use lowercase, hyphens instead of spaces (indie-hacking not indie hacking). Simple names are easier to discover and subscribe to.

Document your tags. In your site's settings, add a page that explains what each tag is for. Something like:

I write about three main things:

• #photography: Gear, composition, photo essays
• #indie-hacking: Building products, solopreneurship, lessons learned
• #book-reviews: Books I've read, recommendations, my thoughts

This lives on your site so people know which feed to subscribe to.

Using Tag Feeds Like a Newsletter

This is where it gets interesting. Tag feeds aren't just for RSS readers. You can use them as your newsletter infrastructure.

Here's how:

1. Choose a feed aggregator. Tools like Substack let you add RSS feeds as input. So do most email newsletter platforms.

2. Convert your tag feed to email. Services like kill-the-newsletter or Substack's RSS import can turn any RSS feed (including your tag feed) into an email newsletter.

3. Segment your audience. Different newsletter lists for different tags. Photography subscribers get a monthly photography digest. Tech subscribers get a weekly tech roundup.

This is how you build newsletter-style distribution without actually running a newsletter platform. Your source of truth stays in Jottings. The tag feeds handle distribution.

Real-World Examples

Let me give you concrete examples of how creators use this.

Sarah, a designer and writer. She tags posts as #design-thinking or #personal. Her design clients subscribe to the design feed. Friends and family subscribe to the personal feed. Same writer, two completely different audiences, both getting what they actually want.

Marcus, who writes about indie products and parenting. His audience skews startup founder or parent—sometimes both. But not everyone who follows his company building cares about parenting posts. His tag feeds let people choose. The startups follow #indie-hacking. The parents follow #parenting. Some subscribe to both.

Jen, a photographer and programmer. These are completely different audiences. Photography folks on Instagram would never follow her programming blog. But in Jottings, her code-focused readers can subscribe to #dev-notes while her photography followers get #photos. She's not fragmenting her audience; she's giving them control.

Setting Up Automation (Optional)

If you want to go further, you can automate distribution:

• Zapier or Make.com: Watch a tag feed, send each new post to a Slack channel, email list, or social media scheduler
• IFTTT: Create recipes that trigger when new posts hit a specific tag
• Custom integrations: If you're technical, you can write scripts that listen to tag feeds and do whatever you want

But honestly? Most creators just post to their Jottings site, and the tag feeds do the work automatically. The beauty is that it's passive once you set it up.

The Simple Version

If all that sounds complicated, here's the easy path:

1. Pick 3 main topics you write about
2. Tag consistently when you publish
3. Share your tag feed URLs in your site bio or footer
4. Wait. People discover your tag feeds naturally or through search

That's it. No setup, no configuration, no newsletter platform to manage. Jottings handles the feeds automatically.

Why I Built This

When I was planning Jottings, I wanted to solve a real problem: most platforms force a choice between "follow everything" or "follow nothing." Social media solved it with algorithms (yuck). But RSS readers don't have algorithms.

Tag feeds bridge that gap. They let you build structured audiences without losing the simplicity of blogging.

Get Started

If you're running a Jottings site, your tag feeds are already live. Check yours:

• Go to your site (e.g., yourname.jottings.me)
• Find a tag you've used
• The feed is at yourname.jottings.me/tag/yourtag/feed.xml

Share that link with people who care about that topic. Put it in your bio. Write a post explaining what each tag is for.

Your audience is already filtering themselves mentally. Tag feeds just make it explicit.

Want to try this? Create a Jottings site, tag your posts strategically, and share your tag feeds. Watch how different audiences engage with the exact content they care about.