Update: Vocal's New Features

Do you spend countless hours refreshing your Vocal page to see if your stats have updated or your new story was published?

Today, I picked up my phone like I do every morning and tapped my way through my daily routine: I collected my crowns on Draftkings, signed in to Sofi to earn points, and then refreshed my Vocal page to check my submitted stories and stats.

For the past few days, I have unsuccessfully staved off my obsession to know when my most recent submitted story will be published. Sure, I could wait for the e-mail to arrive saying, Your story has been approved. Or I could incessantly refresh my vocal page.

All articles are supposed to be reviewed within 24 hours after they are submitted. If there is an issue, you are supposed to receive an e-mail. My story says it was submitted three days ago, and I have not received an e-mail explaining any issues. So why has it not been published? Who knows...

As I proceed to click on my stats, I immediately notice something looks different.

There is a new stat to drive me mad: Subscribers.

SUBSCRIBERS

On my Vocal Stats tab in bright blue sits a big fat zero under Subscribers.

This new feature allows anyone to click on Subscribe to receive stories in their feed. You can find the Subscribe button at the top of every story and on the public profile of each Creator.

My first subscription: Kathryn Milewski

Kathryn was one of the first Creators that I started (manually) "following" on Vocal. Although I did not have to search too hard or too often—Kathryn has had multiple top stories and has won eight challenges, sometimes, I would use the Vocal search function to see if she had a new article that did not make Vocal's front page. The subscription feature will make following Kathryn and other Creators much more efficient.

FEED

Feed? Yes, there is also a new page called Subscriptions. Go to the subscriptions page by clicking on the toggle menu under your profile name, and it is right under Settings.

The Subscriptions page has two tabs: Creators and Feed. The Creators tab shows the Creators (aka Vocal authors) that you are subscribed to on Vocal. You can unsubscribe at any time by going to the Creator's profile and clicking on Subscribed. Your Feed shows your subscribed Creator's stories in chronological order.

Sounds great, right? There is one catch, you have to have a Vocal account to subscribe to a Creator. Fortunately, Vocal offers a free no-frills membership that allows you to create a Vocal account and subscribe to your favorite Creators without a monthly fee.

But wait, Vocal snuck in one more great feature that has me even more excited than subscriptions: social media sharing.

SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING

At the top of each story, there are two new button icons: Twitter and Facebook. These two little buttons allow anyone to post a story link to their Twitter or Facebook.

Just click on the Twitter or Facebook icon and it automatically redirects you to the social media website and auto-populates a post with a link to the story.

With just a couple of clicks or taps, anyone can now share our stories and our favorite Creator's stories on Twitter and Facebook.

During the composition of this article, I refreshed my Vocal Submitted Stories a few dozen times, hoping that I would jinx my story into being submitted. It did not work. I am still waiting for an update...

But the good news is with Vocal's newest features: Subscribe, all Vocal Creators can easily subscribe to their favorite Creators and read all their stories in Your Feed. And Vocal stories can now also be easily shared to Twitter and Facebook by Vocal Creator's and hopefully, soon-to-be new Vocal subscribers.

Let the wait end.

If you enjoyed this article, click below to subscribe or find out more about catchafrisbie.

Click here to subscribe or find out more.