The Engagement

This is essentially for every Vocal Creator who is a member of a Facebook Vocal Group. Also I apologise if I seem too pushy or offensive , this is really just to make people aware of what needs to happen to make our wonderful groups succeed. This is not me telling you what to do, it is me telling you what I do and what I hope others will do more of.

One of the problems is that we all have lives away from social media, where we do chores , look after families , and do jobs that help pay for us to be able to run our machines and access the parts of the internet we need to in order to post our stories and opinions.

While my primary motivation now is to write something worthwhile and hope others appreciate it, ultimately I want people to read it and feed back on it, and the read will mean I am paid 0.6c , not much but it does add up. When I started on Vocal it was for the big prize money but now I real that is as unlikely as hitting the bulls eye at darts while blindfolded.

It took me two months from signing up to get involved with the Vocal Facebook groups and through them I have grown an audience. That audience pays for my monthly Vocal+ subscription by the number of reads I get. But now to the point of this article.

Every time I post a story, especially on a thread or in a group, I always read at least two more stories and leave comments on what I’ve read, In my comments, I try and include something about what I have read and leave a heart but only if I actually find the story interesting, which I do 95% of the time.

Now I have written that I prefer threaded themed posts rather than solo posts because it enables better interaction as you know what is happening.. Ignorant link bombers can disrupt this, but I very seldom drop a link without some dialogue. I do not engage with link bombers,

But ......

I will sometimes see a thread with one of my posts in and after a couple of hours my post will be the only one without any acknowledgment. And most of the others will have a single acknowledgment and reply, and that will be from me. This is not engagement and we all need to start doing it.

There are some games and swap threads that have a temporary effect on reads but they are not a long-term solution. The main answer is engage, comment and read, so people get feedback and usually reply or return reads. Too often today we will see a thread which may be anything goes and people still don't qualify what they are posting with a short introduction. That always helps me and drags me into reading the article.

Especially Vocal Social Society , Vocal Creators Support Group and Vocal Progressive Group For Writers And Readers there is an instruction on themed threads to pay it forward, a read for a post. The administrators of these groups put in a lot of unpaid work to enable an audience for our posts often at the expense of their writing. Remember that each time you post in these groups.

I read a lot more than I post and I post a lot (though recently reads have been really down but that is probably because of the holiday season) , but I hope you can make your Vocal Facebook Mantra this:

My Facebook Vocal Post is paid for By Two Facebook Vocal Reads With Comments.

As I have been mentioning pay it forward we will go with the Elvis Costello song “Pay It Back” .