Is Reciprocity Cyclical?

Introduction

I was going to ditch this as it might just seem like me whining about losing readers, one of the reasons for this was me walking out of a group after being pilloried by one of the members for "not sticking to the rules" and "self-promotion" because I shared Vocal stories there.

So Is Reciprocity Cyclical

I have written about the importance of reciprocity before and this was my last piece.

You could say that I am very guilty of self-promotion on Vocal because I often share links to my other Vocal stories in my stories as I have done here.

I always feel guilty when I miss stories from my subscribed Vocal Creators and my friends, but I have to be honest I could not realistically read every story from everyone I am subscribed to, and the converse of that is that I cannot expect everyone who subscribes to me to read my stories.

Vocal notifications are generally a flood of publications, so I seldom take notice of notifications which means that I often miss new subscribers, hearts, and comments (thank you so much for that Vocal, thank God you put the filter on the roadmap twelve months ago), so I use my subscription feed to check for new stories that interest me.

I think that we find Creators we enjoy and when we see their stories we then drop in. I think it is always good to leave a comment on the Vocal Story and if you saw it elsewhere, Facebook, Discord, or Threads then leave a comment there. While a Heart is nice to get, you never know who leaves them in Vocal, unless you see them in your Vocal Notifications and that is highly unlikely if you subscribe to a lot of Creators.

I have been advised to trim my Subscriptions to fix my notification issues, but that says to me that Vocal doesn't want us to connect, so why bother with comments, hearts, subscriptions, and tips? Going forward I will maximize my engagement by keeping all of these channels, and I won't ditch subscriptions unless Creators flood my notifications or never engage with me.

The thing is, people have jobs and family commitments, and so many other things that may stop them from engaging. When they are doing these things, everything else has to be put to the back.

I have many friends who disappear and then return, and that is a thing with friends, it may be three days or three months, and you do miss them but when they reconnect it is like they were never away.

I think this is part of the cycle of reciprocity, the ones who appreciate you will always reappear at some point and let you know when they have taken the time to read your work.

You obviously need to make yourself visible. sometimes you may feel you are being ignored when the reality is that real life is just taking your audience's attention.

So I keep writing, knowing that people may pick up what I have done at some point, and similarly, I will pick up on others' work, when I get the time to read and properly appreciate the amazing work that people do.

I am thankful to Vocal for having helped me make these connections, and hopefully I will make many more.

I love seeing comments and compliments and I always try and reciprocate, although sometimes when I see a flood of comments on a story I answer with a cover-all comment, but that is just my inherent laziness.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading and I will keep reciprocating, time and opportunity permitting.