Tags are custom labels used to organize and categorize connections. Instead of forcing a standard system, Lime allows you to create any tags that match your business strategy, industry, and workflow. This flexibility requires more initial setup, but the long-term reward is a network organized exactly how you need it.
Tags transform an overwhelming connection list into manageable, strategic groups. They enable precise searching (find all potential clients in London), filtered analysis (compare engagement rates across industries), and targeted outreach (work through all warm leads systematically). Without tags, finding the right connections in a network of hundreds or thousands becomes nearly impossible.
Why Tagging Connections Matters
Find important connections quickly
Tags surface strategically valuable connections from your entire network. Instead of scrolling through thousands of names hoping to remember who’s important, spend time tagging people as you find them, and then search for hot leads or referral sources (for example) to instantly see priority connections.
Segment your network strategically
Different connections serve different purposes - clients, potential clients, referral partners, content collaborators, industry peers, past colleagues. Tags let you group them accordingly, so you can focus effort where it matters most rather than treating all connections equally and getting lost to the algorithm.
Track relationship progression
Use tags to mark relationship stages: first contact, had initial call, proposal sent, negotiating, closed won. Combined with Lime Segments (kanban boards), tags help you visualize where each connection sits in your sales or partnership pipeline.
Prioritize limited time
Let’s face it, you don’t have time to spend all day on LinkedIn. And even if you could, you can’t engage deeply with everyone. Tags like priority, high value, or strategic 2025 identify connections deserving daily or weekly attention versus those needing only occasional check-ins.
Enable complex searches
Combine multiple tags to create precise connection lists: tag:coach, tag:uk, -tag:life coach finds people you’ve tagged as UK-based and coaches, excluding anyone you’ve tagged as life coaches. This granularity is impossible without consistent tagging.
Maintain context over time
Tag connections with information you’ll forget: met at conference 2023, interested in partnerships, posts about ai, friend of mo. Tags preserve context that helps you remember why connections matter and what you discussed.
Organize by multiple dimensions simultaneously
Unlike folders where items live in one place, connections can have multiple tags: someone might be client, london, saas, referral source, and content collaborator all at once. This multi-dimensional organization reflects real relationship complexity.
How to Tag Connections
Individual Tagging
Add tags to connections one at a time through their contact cards.
From Card View:
- Go to Connections > Card View
- Click a connection’s name to open their contact card
- Click Tags or Manage Tags in the contact card
- Type a new tag name or select from existing tags
- Hit enter or click Add
- The tag appears on the connection’s card immediately
From Kanban View:
- Go to Connections > Kanban View
- Click a connection card
- Follow the same steps as card view above
From LinkedIn (using drag-and-drop):
- Browse LinkedIn within the Lime app
- Drag a profile name or picture into Lime Control Center (on the left side of your screen)
- Their contact card opens (if already in Lime) or profile loads (if new)
- Add tags through the contact card interface
Bulk Tagging
Add tags to multiple connections simultaneously from search results. See the Bulk Actions section in Search documentation for detailed instructions on more bulk actions.
Quick bulk tagging process:
- Create a search to find connections you want to tag (e.g. search “marketing” in Other Text). Learn more about advanced searching and filtering
- Quickly scan the results to ensure the surfaced connections match your intended group
- Click the tick box on the left on the first connection in the list
- Click the tick box about it to quickly select all connections on the first page
- Click the green text above - ‘select all connections in this search’
- Click with all [xxx] connections
- Choose bulk tag option
- Enter tag name
- Confirm - the tags will be applied to all selected connections
Tag Naming Best Practices
- Stay consistent with naming conventions
- Don’t spend so much time tagging your connections in the beginning that you never get started with taking action. Realistically, you can only nurture 10-100 connections at a time, so don’t try to categorize everyone at once. Your LinkedIn network is built over time.
- Choose one term and stick with it (e.g. uk instead of mixing uk, UK, and United Kingdom).
- Make tags descriptive but concise - saas is better than s, but software as a service company is unnecessarily long. Find the middle ground: clear enough to understand at a glance, short enough to type quickly.
- Use specific industry/role tags - don’t just tag everyone as potential client. Add specificity: potential saas client, potential agency client, potential consultant client. This granularity enables better filtering and analysis later.
- Create relationship stage tags - track progression with tags like: cold outreach, initial contact, had discovery call, proposal sent, negotiating, closed won, closed lost, past client, active client. (You can also use Lime Segments for this if you prefer).
- Tag by geographic relevance - location tags enable regional outreach: london, manchester, uk, europe, us - east coast. Useful for assigning territory, preparing for local events, or analyzing geographic relationship distribution.
- Include source/origin tags - remember how you met people, e.g. met at saastock 2024, linkedin connection request, referral from Zara, podcast guest, webinar attendee. This helps you recall context and evaluate which networking sources produce the best relationships.
- Mark engagement patterns - tags like highly engaged, frequent commenter, never responds, posts daily, posts 10am help prioritize who deserves your time and who doesn’t engage despite efforts.
- Use action-needed tags temporarily - for example, needs follow up, awaiting response, send proposal, schedule call. Add these as reminders, then remove once the action is complete. Don’t let temporary tags accumulate - they become noise. Dated reminders are generally better for keeping track of this.
- Avoid over-tagging - more tags isn’t necessarily better. Each connection needs enough tags to be findable and categorizable, but drowning connections in 15 tags makes the system unwieldy. Aim for 3-7 tags per connection on average.
Tag Organization Strategies
Hierarchical tagging
Create tag families that work together:
- Geography: uk, london, manchester, birmingham
- Client status: prospect, lead, qualified lead, client, past client
- Industry: saas, agency, consultant, coach, freelancer
Use broad tags (uk) and specific tags (london) together. Someone might be tagged uk and london, which is useful since you can search broadly (uk) or specifically (london).
Lifecycle tagging
Track your relationship journey with progressive tags:
- new connection → relationship building → warm → very warm → hot lead
- cold prospect → contacted → responded → interested → proposal sent → closed won
Remove previous stage tags as connections advance, or keep them all for complete history (choose one approach and stay consistent).
Remember, you can also use segments and boards to sort contacts by lifecycle stage.
Value-based tagging
Mark strategic importance explicitly:
- high priority, medium priority, low priority
- tier-1, tier-2, tier-3
- key account, standard client, small client
This prioritization helps when limited time forces choices about who gets attention.
Capability tagging
Tag what connections can provide:
- e.g. can make introductions, referral source, content collaborator, podcast guest, speaking opportunity, joint venture partner
Helps when you need specific help - search can make introductions when you need an intro, podcast guest when booking episodes.
Content engagement tagging
Track content interaction patterns:
- e.g. engages with my content, shares my posts, thoughtful commenter, never engages
- e.g. posts about ai, posts about marketing, posts about saas
Identifies your content supporters and helps you find relevant content to engage with. This is especially helpful on days you have an important piece of content going out - comment on engaged connections’ content and they’re more likely to give yours a boost.
Using Tags Effectively
- Start with broad categories, refine over time
- Don’t try to build the perfect tag system immediately. Begin with obvious categories (client, prospect, referral source, industry types), then add specificity as you identify patterns and needs
- Review and consolidate periodically
- Every few months, audit your tags. Merge duplicates (UK and uk), rename unclear tags (misc becomes needs categorization), delete unused tags. Tag systems can get messy - regular maintenance keeps them useful
Document your tag system
Keep a list of standard tags and what they mean, especially if multiple people use the same Lime account. Ensures consistency and helps onboard new team members.
Combine tags with other filters
Tags are most powerful when combined with Lime’s other filtering: client + Citizen Score 0-25 finds clients with degraded relationships. prospect + Date Connected “Last 90 days” finds recent prospects who need nurturing. Find out more about searching and filters.
Use saved searches for common tag combinations
If you frequently search hot lead, saas, -contacted, save that search for one-click access rather than rebuilding it repeatedly.
Tag as you go
Don’t let untagged connections accumulate. Tag people immediately when adding them to Lime, or schedule regular “tagging sessions” to work through untagged connections systematically.
Use AI-suggested tags as starting points
When using the AI Profile button, Lime’s AI suggests tags based on LinkedIn profiles. These suggestions aren’t perfect, but they’re good starting points - accept, modify, or supplement them with additional tags.
Tag Management
Viewing all tags
Go to Tag Settings (Tools > Settings > Tag Settings) to see a complete list of tags across your entire network.
Deleting tags
Remove unused or outdated tags from Tag Manager by clicking the x next to their name. The tag disappears from all connections who had it. Use carefully - deletion is permanent.
Tag colors (optional)
Tags can be given colors for additional visual meaning. Use sparingly to highlight truly important categories (for example, red for hot leads, gold for VIP clients) without making the tag system visually chaotic.
Emojis in tags
Tags can include emojis: 🇬🇧 uk, 💼 client, 🚀 saas. This adds visual distinction but can make tags harder to type. Most users find emoji-free tags more practical (it can be hard to remember the emoji when you come to search for the tag), but experiment to see what works for your workflow.
Common Tagging Mistakes to Avoid
- Creating too many single-use tags: If only one connection has a tag, it’s probably unnecessary. Merge similar tags or use notes instead.
- Inconsistent naming: client, Client, CLIENT, and clients should be one tag, not four.
- Tagging everything: Not every detail needs a tag. Use tags for grouping and finding connections, use notes for unique individual details.
- Never removing outdated tags: Someone tagged prospect three years ago who’s now a client shouldn’t still have both tags (unless your system intentionally keeps historical tags).
- Using ambiguous abbreviations: MM might mean “marketing manager” to you today, but will you remember that in six months?
- Forgetting to tag new connections: Untagged connections become invisible in searches. Make tagging part of your connection-adding workflow.
