Did You Read My Story?

Introduction

These are just some observations on how we see people who support us. When I started on Vocal there was no way to know who had read your stories or what they thought of your writing. I was getting very few reads on my Vocal stories until I found the Vocal Groups on Facebook and that is when things actually kicked off, in a good way.

This article may contain observations and ideas from previous posts of mine and I apologise for that, but hopefully, it is actually a useful read for you and gives you some ideas.

The Facebook Vocal Groups

When I found some of these on Facebook I saw people sharing stories and I started to share mine. People commented on my stories and that showed me that someone was interested in what I had to say.

This was fine and then I actually got two one-dollar tips and they were what made me believe I could write and be appreciated. I have said this several times before but a small tip can have a huge impact on someone’s creative confidence.

However, the only way you were certain that someone had read your story was if they left a comment on Facebook. The heart option could be left by Vocal Members and the benefit of the Vocal platform is that anyone can read your story but only Vocal members could leave a heart.

The thing is reads should always be equal to or more than the number of hearts on a story, but Vocal’s atrocious reporting often shows pieces with many more hearts than reads. This could possibly be caused by people dropping in, hearting but not actually reading, but I am sure that most Vocal+ users will actually read the articles, I personally think it's a reporting issue.

Vocal Insights

This was trumpeted as a major addition from Vocal but insights could only be added from predetermined selections from tick-boxed categories, really they are a sort of super heart, but again you don’t really know who left that score unless they added a comment on Facebook. So this gave a little extra, but the heart is the only score that shows up on your stats.

I do find it nice when someone has put insights on my story but I only know who that is is there is one comment or they told me on Facebook.

Vocal Comments

When this was first introduced I was worried it would hit the commenting on the Facebook groups but it doesn’t seem to have had a negative effect. One of the benefits is that if people discover your story on Vocal or a non-Facebook platform such as Pinterest or Twitter, they can leave a comment and you can link back to them to see what their creations are like.

And this is where the title of this piece hit.

Now because you can leave a comment on the Vocal story people now have proof that you have read i and that they have read yours. Several people have told me that they have read my work, but they could not tell me anything about the story and there was no comment from them so my assumption is that they didn’t really read it.

This is a little sad because it makes you not trust people sometimes. I always try to read articles and leave feedback, but if I don’t read something I don’t leave a heart to give the creator a false sense of success.

And the thing is, now, if they don’t leave a comment then it looks like they have not read your story. It is a form of reciprocal proof of reading and I often copy my comment and post it on Facebook so the creator is in no doubt that I have read their piece.

There are many creators who seem to think that they can just expect others to read their stories without reciprocation, and when they are confronted they are adamant that they read other people’s work, but again without comments, it looks like one-way traffic.

Conclusion

The combination of Facebook Groups, Twitter (and other platforms) plus the Vocal Insights and Comments means we are digitally much closer connected and we know who reads and reciprocates and who just takes.

Be with the ones who reciprocate, because that is how be build these Vocal Facebook communities which in turn benefits us financially.

Some of My Favourite Vocal Facebook Groups