Whatever tag you use, you can make it popular only when you make it synchronized with the commercial ads. That way steemit will become more sustainable and it can also propel the price of steem higher which is struggling now.
You can not run a economy only on the basis of upcoming investment to your steem power or steem and it needs to be more sustainable and that can be achieved through commercial ads.
In a photography tag, ads related to photogrpahy and camera should be displayed. If the tag is travel, then commercial ad related to travel should be displayed and in this way every ad campaign will buy steem and that will be more helpful to run the steem economy and if that can happen then steem will become more stable and it will rise even more than the all time high.
This kind of commercial ad campaign in steemit user interface can be structured in a organised way too and I think Ned should focus on this area now and if SMT can be combined with commercial ad, then it will be a big boost to steemit and steem.