How to Write a Top Story for Vocal Media

I’ve written a lot about Vocal Media. While I prefer Medium and my own site for writing, I still find value in cross-posting my site onto Vocal Media as well.

Occasionally, I will achieve the coveted goal of creating a “Top Story” — a post that the editorial team at Vocal Media deem good enough to promote on their front page.

Garnering a Top Story is beneficial to writers on the platform because it increases the visibility of your work, which attracts a higher readership to your writing, which ultimately increases the amount of money you can earn on Vocal Media.

There doesn’t appear to be a standard formula for reaching a Top Story, but I’ve managed to do it twice. Therefore, here are some of my observations on how to create content on Vocal Media that will increase your chances of landing a Top Story on the platform.

1) Use Lots of Images

One of the easiest ways to enhance the quality of your post is to add lots of images. My most read post, “Why I Pay For Fanart Commissions”, is very image-heavy, which was relevant for the topic at hand but had also added bonus effect of enriching the experience for the reader.

An important note: make sure you have permission to use the images you select. Absolutely DO NOT go to Google Images and pluck willy-nilly, you may choose an image that requires special licensing and it can land you in financial and legal trouble down the line.

My best advice is to choose sites that offer a vast library of free-to-use images. Unsplash is the most popular, as Vocal Media has a feature to search and embed images straight from the site. Some other good options are Pexels, Pixabay, Freepik and Canva.

2) Write for a Popular Community

Vocal Media organizes its content into various categories, dubbed “Communities”. For example, tech-related content belongs in the “Tech” Community, Makeup and Beauty posts are housed in the “Blush” Community, and so on.

Both of my posts that were made into Top Stories were in the “Geek” Community, likely because they were about my hardcore fandom for the show Hey Arnold!

A quick scan of the various communities would show that, aside from the “Humans” Community, “Geek” is one of the most popular non-fiction Communities on the Vocal Media. Meanwhile, some of the lesser-known Communities, such as “Marriage”, have yet to break 1000 stories.

What’s interesting is that I usually don’t assign my posts to the correct Community. Nine times out of ten, I place my writing in the Humans Community upon submission; it’s generally the editorial team that reassigns my writing once my posts go live.

My general rule of thumb is to select the Community where you believe your writing is best suited, but with the knowledge of which Communities are the most popular and that your writing may get moved at the discretion of Vocal Media’s editorial team.

3) Write About What You're Passionate About

In order to earn money on Vocal Media, you have to write about interesting topics that people are excited to read about.

By that same token, in order to write something compelling, you have to be interested in your subject of choice.

Even if posts about minimalism are hot on the site, it makes no sense to write about it if you know little or care little about the topic.

A better strategy is to select a topic where you already have vast knowledge. Not only does this cut down on the amount of research needed, but when your passion flows through on the page, you are more likely to write hundreds of words beyond the 600-word minimum.

A post hovering around the 800–1500 is the perfect sweet spot for SEO — Search Engine Optimization — so even if your posts are not getting seen by the readers on the site, you can still enjoy the lingering effects of continuous traffic should your post make the first page in a Google search.

The TL;DR Takeaway?

There’s no way to “game” the system at Vocal Media. However, if you follow the 3 steps outlined above, you’ll increase your chances of making the cut and landing a Top Story.

Good luck, and happy writing!

—

Sylvie is a dual American/Canadian citizen living in Toronto, Canada. She has written for numerous sites, including Screen Rant, The Spool and Midnight & Indigo. Sylvie is currently writing her first YA novel; follow her writing journey at https://sylviesoul.com and @sylvsoulwriter on Twitter.