By Ellen Bedrosian

When the cherry blossoms bloom, it’s a big event around the word. Entire festivals in many cities revolve around the awakening of the pink beauties from their winter slumber. Tokyo and Washington D.C. are particularly well-known cherry blossom destinations.

Closer to home is Branch Brook Park that spreads across the cities of Newark and Belleville. It is known to have the largest collection of cherry blossom trees in the United States. A couple of friends and I went shooting during the bloom, and I posted one of my photos on Instagram.

A friend of mine told me about the Wall Street Journal’s #WSJsakura hashtag. From the Wall Street Journal website: “Japan Real Time invites you to share your pictures of cherry blossoms with us on Instagram or Twitter by adding #WSJsakura to your texts. We will publish some of the best images on our website or share them on social networks.” So, I added the #WSJsakura hashtag to my cherry blossom image on Instagram and then forgot about it.

Imagine my surprise when my friend texted a few weeks later to me to tell that the Wall Street Journal had picked my photo as one of the best. (Mine is photo #19). Not only that, I made the Instagram 9 on their feed. My image is in the middle of the bottom row.

My photo made the Wall Street Journal’s Instagram 9. Mine is in the middle of the bottom row.

So when you add your photos to Instagram, Twitter, 500PX, Flickr or the social network of your choice, don’t forget to tag your photos. You never know who will be watching!