The Importance Of The Vocal Facebook Groups
Without Them, Vocal Would Be Much Less Of An Attraction
Introduction
I was tempted to Vocal by the huge competition prizes back then that I believed I was good enough to win. Vocal decided I wasn't. However I have been successful in many ways on Vocal, but I believe much of that is due to the various Facebook Vocal Groups.
"Let's Work Together" is a perfect song for this piece, and this is the first time I have heard the Wilbert Harrison version, it has various incarnations and is sometimes played as "Let's Stick Together" but both thoughts are good ones to apply to how we live our lives.
The Brilliance Of The Facebook Vocal Groups
When I started on Vocal I wondered how I could build an audience, and at some point decided to have a look on Facebook. I have run a blog for nearly twenty years and while it has had over a million visits and is currently hitting a thousand visits a day, none of those turned into money or interaction despite the adverts and links on the posts (which these days are mostly about what I am reading). It's not professional but I did some very interesting posts in the past and very often they show up and I repurpose them for Vocal Stories.
I can't be certain of the first Vocal Group that I found but I think it was the Vocal Social Society, created by Lesley Anne and Caroline Jane, now administered by them, Heather Hubler and Gina Viggiano Nobriga and still growing, and encouraging readers and writers.
Creators can share their stories and build their audience in this and other groups.
This and other groups also host non-Vocal challenges and prompts to inspire creators.
The group gave me a lot of encouragement and advice and I made a lot of friends in the group. They made me believe that my work was worthwhile and had value, something I would never have gotten from Vocal. Vocal is a platform to store and share your work and for that, it serves its purpose. The Facebook Groups communicate with their members and always have someone on hand to try and help, something rarer than hen's teeth on Vocal.
The Vocal & Medium Cafe is not for sharing stories and is great for asking questions and sharing good news. This group is great for Creators who are not members of the cliquey Vocal Discord group (I joined but had one or two interactions, some spiteful criticism for some things I shared, so I removed them and left).
Great Incantations: A group dedicated to Writing Challenges does what it says in the title. It is solely for sharing Challenge related stories and therefore great for getting your challenge pieces read and noticed.
The Medium Writers and Vocal Creators Support Group is led by Judey Kalchik with help from some moderators and is a cross platfrom Facebook Group. This is good if you are both a Medium and Vocal creator. I am a member of both platforms but haven't posted on Medium for over a year as I find the format far too time consuming.
One of the most recent groups and the admins are incredibly active and non-stop with so many threads to take part in on a daily basis as well as being jointly responsible for a recent Vocal Challenge that you can check out here.
True Crime, Horror Story & Dark Poetry run by Dharrsheena again does what it says in the description, but is dark and humourous and is a group where I am trusted as an Administrator.
Epilogue
Without these Facebook groups, Vocal would be a drearier place and I don't think I would still be on the platform. Because of these Facebook groups, I can see myself being here for a long time.
These are some of the best Facebook Vocal Groups shared with you in a poem of mine
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Comments (13)
I'd second that. I've only recently got involved in a few FB groups, and it's given a new impetus to my Vocal efforts. I'd just add that FB (and other social media) can be a handy place to promote writing. For example, my Pints & Parkruns pieces are a good fit with the Parkrun Tourism FB group, and I can draw readers from there. Probably any kind of regular feature is likely to have group that would be a reasonable home, even if (especially if?) it has nothing much to do with this platform.
I would never forget how much the Facebook groups helped me when I found them a few weeks after joining Vocal. I was veryyyyy active in all groups until early 2023 when Vocal introduced notifications. When that happened, I couldn't handle both Vocal notifications and the Facebook groups. I was becoming too overwhelmed and realised that I had to choose one. I chose the Vocal notifications because that way, I get to read everyone's work even if they didn't share it in the Facebook groups. So I wouldn't miss out on anything. But the Facebook groups would always have a special place in my heart 🥰🥰🥰
An informative piece which confirms your altruistic generosity once more.
Another good & helpful article about these groups & how to connect with & support one another, Mike.
I think I'm in all these!
I like how extensive this is, and really informative. And I agree with you. The groups I'm in really help bring the Vocal community together. I've only joined some about a month ago, but I've already made new friends and acquaintances that I enjoy writing with!
Thank you very much for all these tips and your desire to help others. You are very kind ♡
I agree, to have these groups is so important to foster closer relationships with the writers and see what is being written.
Happy to be members in these groups with you Mike.
The groups do make it easier to earn reads, but sometimes they also make it difficult to grow an audience. As writers we need readers and that means promoting ourselves far and wide. Sometimes, not all the times, but sometimes we as writers end up in brand loyalty to a/the Facebook group(s). When what we need to do is, not be greedy, but install the boundary that we are trying to grow ourselves. Believe it or not You are Your own brand. Your blog posts for instance is something that You, Your own brand, has built. I'm not saying that the groups are bad by any stretch of the means, but we need to find a balance within the groups just like how we have to find a balance with Vocal. Spiteful criticism, eh? I feel like I was especially apart of this in the #story-showcase channel. Cause a while back I noticed that the link to a story of Yours and Your screenshot was gone. If I appeared to be spiteful, well that wasn't my attempt. If anything it was meant to be sarcastic, like a spot of good ribbing. I still stand by what I meant about the difference between a thumbnail and an image accompanying a thumbnail. Besides Mike, if You think the discord is cliquey, it's mostly comprised out of the same people in all of the Discord groups. The extent of the cliqueyness is based on the people.
I love the fb groups! They really expanded my Vocal experience as there was no commenting in the beginning on pieces so it was hard to interact with other creators. Love the groups you listed :)
Aw thanks for this Mike! Some I haven't encountered! I tried Medium but it was too much faff. I do really enjoy the interactions on FB though, they really do make Vocal quite special. Glad we're all in this together!
I love how many groups you shared and mentioned how each is set up!