Come On, Vocal Creators, Let's Support Each Other
Observations On Some Top Stories
Introduction
Every week in The Vocal Social Society, we feature (usually Top) stories from four Vocal Communities for people to read and therefore support the creators a little further.
Here are this week's choices:
Vocal tells us that to gain a Top Story, you need engagement, comments, likes, and more. You can check it out here:
What I Saw
There were two Top Stories in Unbalanced, both relatively recent (23 days and 2 months old), but before I left my mark, they had six likes and one comment between them.
This does not show community support. It may be these have got a lot of reads, but they have virtually no interaction from other Vocal supporters.
We can only do what we have time to do, and I know comments and hearts on mine have dropped significantly while reads are still at a good level, so that means that either my reads are coming from outside of Vocal or Vocal Creators just don't think my work is worth a heart or a comment (I hope the latter is not true).
Conclusion
So come on, you Vocal Creators, read one more Vocal Story, maybe by someone new, leave a heart and a comment, even an insight. Remember that usually leads to someone reading your stories.
Thank you for reading, and by doing that, you have shown your support for me.
Now go and read one more Vocal story by someone else, and maybe you will make a new Vocal friend.
Our community spirit is what makes Vocal so special.
The music is "Build" by The Housemartins.
About the Creator
Mike Singleton π Mikeydred
A Weaver of Tales and Poetry
Join & Share In VSS
Creationati
Call Me Les β₯ Gina β₯ Heather β₯ Caroline β₯
Reader insights
Outstanding
Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!
Top insights
Compelling and original writing
Creative use of language & vocab
Easy to read and follow
Well-structured & engaging content
Expert insights and opinions
Arguments were carefully researched and presented
Eye opening
Niche topic & fresh perspectives
Heartfelt and relatable
The story invoked strong personal emotions
Masterful proofreading
Zero grammar & spelling mistakes
On-point and relevant
Writing reflected the title & theme
Keep reading
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Comments (13)
Thanks for the gentle nudge, Mike. <3
I am in agreement with Dharr multiple submissions foods the pages and make other stories disappear. Although I too wonder why no one reads the top stories like they once did. I try to read as many as I can but sometimes I read so many teeth at I run out of time to write I am now choosing days for each
Part of the difficulty is there are too many good authors to read. I follow too many people, I canβt really keep up. Iβve got stuff saved in my reading list that I might never get to. I appreciate your sentiment though, part of what makes vocal unique is the engagement with other writers
I always try my best to read everything from the people I subscribe to. But sometimes, they publish multiple pieces a day which overwhelms me so I only read if I can. I used to seek new creators in the Latest page but I stopped after getting so triggered by the amount of AI-Generated nonsense
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A good reminder to everyone, Mike. Of course, we all want to whip out our stories, especially with the plethora of ongoing challenges, but taking the time to support our fellow creators is a sense of community no one should β£
You are a real one. Admittedly, I have a reading list 56 tabs long that I have not had time to whittle down
You are an encourager of all things. Keep up the good work.
As always, you bring up excellent points that I hope everyone will take to heart. Well written reminder.
I tend to read a bit on Vocal every few days. I am honestly trying to seek out new creators and yet, it's quite difficult with the continuous onslaught of AI generated stuff that still lurks around. I don't use the Vocal Reader App because it doesn't like my phone for some reason. I tend to read them either in bed or when I'm drinking coffee in the middle of the day. I love the way you reason it in this piece though - that Vocal often states that top stories are the ones with engagement and likes and comments etc. I randomly got a top story recently on a story I didn't think was even worth my time to read it (I've written better and more extensive/investigative stuff). So sometimes I do wonder how they are choosing in reality. You said once that they normally choose a few favourites and then throw in a random person every now and again to not make it look biased and since I get a top story consistently every month or so, I think I might be a favourite. I would at least like them to choose a story I worked really hard on though - maybe my investigative works I do on a Saturday that take me hours to research, write and edit and not a book review that takes me half an hour to type up after I've read the book. It's a bit here and there. But thanks for writing this piece mate, I am very much in agreement - I think there definitely needs to be more support for smaller creators. I don't want to think anyone gets turned off writing on Vocal just because they're not getting the reads they thought they would. If I might recommend that Vocal do something like a 'newbie of the week' thing to promote a new creator who's only made a profile in the last month or so. I'm not sure but I think that could help. Sorry for the long comment - but I really liked this piece x
I've been consistently commenting and hearting every piece I've seen come from you as well as others I subscribe to. I also went and individually co gratualted everyone in the challenge wins and top stories when I've seen them. My apps been a bit glitchy but I'm trying. That's not always reciprocated but that's ok. We can all only do our own part.
Mike, thank you for being such a great cheerleader. You have inspired me to do better. I got sidetracked by life and I'm sure others have, too...but we should all be courteous and have genuine appreciation for our "community" members, too.