An Update on Vocal & Community Building
Empowering creators with new features and engaging community resources.
Vocal has always been committed to providing a platform for creators to share their stories and connect with audiences worldwide. In our constant effort to help creators reach new heights and grow their readership, we are excited to introduce a few updates we’ve been working on.
Product Updates
In the past few months, we've put in a lot of effort to bring you the latest features, such as Activity Feed, Comments, and our first mobile reader apps.
We're excited to announce that we’re introducing push notifications on both iOS/Android in the coming days, ensuring that you never miss an Activity Feed update again. To see this feature in action, make sure to download the app (Apple / Google Play) or update your existing app to the latest version.
What's coming?
Our team has been working hard behind the scenes on a feature that we think will revolutionize the way you experience Vocal: Exclusive Stories.
Available soon to Vocal+ members only, Exclusive Stories will enable you to publish stories straight to your profile (no community needed), solely viewable to your paying subscribers.
With this update, we will merge Pledging into the Subscribe feature, providing you with the option of offering a free or paid subscription to your supporters.
In the upcoming weeks, we'll reveal more details on the roll out of Exclusive Stories, and we're excited to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.
Community Updates
After introducing Comments, we've been amazed by the way the Vocal community has come together to encourage and uplift fellow creators through impactful discussions. We've also noticed the influence of the community that has emerged beyond Vocal, including the incredible Facebook Groups that endorse Vocal creators. As a result, we're initiating two new weekly resources, the Vocal Community Chat and the Raise Your Voice Thread.
In an effort to foster open communication and offer valuable insights, the Vocal team and community will come together every Tuesday at 12 PM ET for the Vocal Community Chat. This chat will enable us to share tips, exchange insights, and address any questions that arise. Our inaugural chat will launch on April 11th, next Tuesday, so be sure to add it to your calendar:
We'll also be hosting a Raise Your Voice Thread every Thursday at 12 PM ET. This new resource is designed to provide creators with more avenues to explore exceptional stories on Vocal. As we are constantly on the lookout for emerging and inspiring creators, we hope that this thread will offer a space for us to discuss and exchange the stories that have moved and motivated us on Vocal, together. Add Raise Your Voice Thread to your calendar so you don’t miss out:
We want to keep Challenges fresh and exciting, and we know that the best ideas come from you. That's why we're inviting you to share your Challenge ideas in the comments section of this resource: Share Your Ideas to Shape the Future of Vocal Challenges. We deeply value your ideas and suggestions. If we choose your Challenge idea, we'll send you a bonus as a thank you for your creativity and input.
We also are going to be testing a few things over the next few weeks, including free Challenges for non-Vocal+ members. Think daily writing prompts with smaller cash prizes.
We look forward to engaging with you in the new resource threads, and we’re excited to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
About the Creator
Justin @ Vocal
Founder of Vocal. COO/President of Creatd ($VOCL), the parent company of the Vocal platform.
Reader insights
Nice work
Very well written. Keep up the good work!
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Easy to read and follow
Well-structured & engaging content
Heartfelt and relatable
The story invoked strong personal emotions
Eye opening
Niche topic & fresh perspectives
Masterful proofreading
Zero grammar & spelling mistakes
Compelling and original writing
Creative use of language & vocab
On-point and relevant
Writing reflected the title & theme
Excellent storytelling
Original narrative & well developed characters
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More stories from Justin @ Vocal and writers in Vocal and other communities.
Introducing Activity Feed Notifications
In the evolving world of online content creation, we know it's imperative for creators to stay up to date on the latest tools and features that can help them best reach their audiences, and it's our responsibility to build this technology into our platform.
By Justin @ Vocalabout a year ago in Resources
Vocal Bonus Leaderboard: 04/24/2024
Welcome to the weekly update of the Leaderboard! We're thrilled to showcase Vocal's most discussed stories, popular picks, and rising stars. Let's dive into this past week's standout contributors and their remarkable achievements.
By Vocal Team2 days ago in Resources
The Dangling Bead
My life is splashing before my eyes, as I precariously suspend and prepare for the end, the consumption of my Self and identity. I know that gravity will be the victor in this struggle. Like a pendant, slipping from the chain, the tension has caught me in this moment, bestowing one last gift of reflection. I cling desperately, questioning my purpose. Searching for comfort. And I remember…
By Leslie Staven5 days ago in Fiction
The Fish Song
The room didn’t smell like disinfectants. Its fragrance seemed light and not overbearing. A soft mixture of lavender and mint permeated the space. No beeping machines or any tubes hooked up to four-year-old Kaleeka. Her cacao skin seemed to glow from the light over her head. The family, save for one and the doctors and nurses exited the room like a trail of saints showing their last vestiges of regard.
By Skyler Saunders7 days ago in Fiction
Comments (66)
https://vocal.media/poets/the-little-rabbit-and-the-fox
A pity that the Creator Chats have been dropped, I assume because virtually no suggestions were deemed worth Vocal's time
I think something that might be helpful too is a way to organize your own stories! Like a method of subheadings or collections within your own profile, based on different genres or categories (customizable by user) to organize the stories on their profile, as many users have more than one niche on here. 🥰
I really appreciate the vocal site for allowing people to explore their stories.
Justin @Vocal: I have a post in limbo for about a week. No explanation given. No editing allowed, no follow-up, no CS. It's the last post I published. Nothing controversial, so I can't understand the reason why it hasn't been posted. The last thing I heard was that Remy is finally going to publish it. But, that was another misfire for no action ensued. Very disappointing.
Thank you for your support
Justin: Could you please tell me why my post won't get published? Remy has the ticket number. How could it be spam if I created it myself with nothing but plain text from my experience trekking in the Amazon jungle?
Thank you for your support, Justin - I love being a part of this writing platform with other very talented writers
Nice
Vocal media best for writers 👍🏻
Love the way Vocal is evolving and growing! Keep it up!
Thanks for your support Justin. That's a big deal to me! Glad to see you're continued innovation also.
Hey sir How to tip someone my card is getting declined why is it
Thank you Justin, I appreciate the update and to know that Vocal is always improving.
Thank you, Justin. This is helpful information which was clearly stated. I appreciate the update!
You have a gift for creating vivid imagery with your words
I'm so excited for the exclusive stories! I already have a few people in mind that I will defintely be subscribing to. Also, thank you for the opportunity to share our thoughts on challenges.
Thanks for the first Raise Your Voice thread. The hour went by quickly and I found several new writers with talented content. Now back to the day-job..... lunch is over.
And soon, can you Please please please please make the website and app more writer friendly? This is a writing site, is it not? Yet I am still not able to post or paste stories using my android phone unless I change to "desktop site" and it's still riddled with headaches even when I do that. I was hoping the app would make things easier, but it's only for readers and you can't even post stories at all. I'm kind of amazed by this, I just expect tech stuff on websites to be up to date. I write everything on my phone, the only thing I really use a computer for these days is gaming, so this is extremely frustrating to me and almost turned me away from using this site at all. It doesn't seem like it should be a hard thing to fix either, seems like it should be easy and fast to fix the website and add posting ability to the app. Or maybe you guys have your hands full with all the spam, idk.....
Good job
So the daily challenges with smaller prize amounts will be open to both members and non-members?
It's always nice to be inform of the coming up changes and why they are necessary . ☺️Giving us a day in them .❤️
sound good
Thank you, Vocal! Also, to piggyback on Cendrine's suggestion below...can we also make it so that the Vocal story drafts accept the formatting from our word processors? For example, whenever I copy/paste my story into the Vocal platform, I have to go back and add ALL italics, bolds, etc. It would be really helpful if we could update this! ❤️
Exciting news 😊