Are you a connector? Are you always handing out business cards, sending people to your Etsy store, your blog, or your product? Do you meet people at festivals or conventions and need an easy way to connect, and stay connected? This tutorial is for you.

With an NFC tag and a few clicks in a smartphone app, you can create a necklace, necktie, hat or costume piece that not only makes you look sharp, but also helps you connect with your people. Simply tap your necklace to a smart phone with NFC technology (which is most of them, these days) and your contact info will appear on their screen like magic.

Or, set up a Venmo link on your NFC tag to make a tap-to-pay sign that's even easier for your customers to use than a QR code. NFC tags offer so many possibilities.

Parts

Adafruit carries a lot of different NFC tags in various formats. For this tutorial, be sure you're getting one that's labeled NTAG2** instead of "Classic" -- the newer NTAG2 devices work with modern smart phone apps and the classic tags don't.

LinkTree

I have four Instagram accounts, three Facebook pages, two websites and an Etsy store. When I meet someone and want to share contact info it can get tricky to send them to the right place.

I use a free service called LinkTree to solve this problem. Sign up for a free LinkTree account and you can create a simple mobile-friendly web page with a custom list of links, so folks can follow whichever account you want, or get a quick Venmo link.

Using a service like LinkTree means your tag(s) won’t require re-programming as social media platforms come and go; your LinkTree “parking space” stays put, you just curate the links there.

Go to the App Store (for iPhone) or the Google Play store (for Android) and download the NFC Tools app. There are several apps available for writing to NFC chips, but this is the one I had the most success with after testing a few.

Troubleshooting

If you're not having success, here are a few things to try:

1. Do you have an NTAG2 device? These apps don't work with the classic tags.
2. Try a different app. I had more success with NFC Tools than with some of the others available, but your results may vary.
3. Bluetooth NFC connections are not allowed on iPhone devices -- Apple has blocked this avenue. Disappointing, but iPhone users can still create links or use many of the other available features.

These tags are small and light and can be attached to almost anything. The NFC stickers are flexible and can be wrapped around a pen or stuck to your festival totem. Our NFC buttons can be sewn onto any piece of clothing or a purse. My favorite is the NFC dots: a small round disc about the size of a quarter. These can be easily hidden inside a necklace or other costume piece, or hidden under a sticker on your backpack.

You can also go old-school and use a credit card sized NFC, to replace the classic stack of business cards in your wallet.

The one thing you'll want to avoid is placing them in or near anything made of metal. The metal will block the signal and the tag reader won't work.

And that’s really all there is to it! Straightforward once you have the walk-through; all those acronyms and frequencies only make it seem complex.