A Constructive Wishlist for Vocal

I'd like to start this by saying that I love writing on Vocal. Writing is a hobby that I enjoy greatly and Vocal has given me the space to do that. I love looking at writing challenges for inspiration, the freedom to post about whatever I want, the bonus of money, and the chances for validation in earning a Top Story spot.

This platform is fun for me and I have some ideas on features that would enhance my experience. These are in addition to implied fixes from glitches from the latest update.

I apologize if these ideas are already spoken for, I am in no way trying to take credit or claim that I solely came up with them. These are just things that I've thought of while using the platform.

Categorizing My Own Stories

I would love the ability to organize my stories into custom folders on my profile. I write about so many different things, and while I do appreciate the filtering option for the communities, I'd like to title categories and put pieces into folders myself. I'd like to make a folder for many things, some examples being "Challenge Entries" or "Fiction." I have a series that I've recently started called "My Diary" that will contain posts for different communities and it would be nice to see them all together. Having everything in order of date is fine, but I would also like that option.

For example, I've done a few posts about Marvel. If I could make a Marvel folder, people who like my posts about Marvel can go to my Marvel folder and read my other pieces. Or, I could tag the catalog at the bottom of each story to intrigue readers to check out my related pieces. Additionally, allowing people to subscribe and then have the option to only receive notifications about new posts that belong in these folders would streamline this process as well.

I bet this would be helpful for people who write chapters of a story over long periods of time as well put their whole story in one place.

By allowing readers to easily find related chapters or specific topics via custom folders, it increases a reader's time onsite and overall page views, keeping external traffic on the platform longer.

A Place For Unofficial Challenges

I saw something like this suggested as a comment on someone else's post recently and it has stuck in my mind. I sincerely apologize that I cannot remember who it was, so if you know, please feel free to credit them in the comments.

I try to enter every official contest that Vocal has to offer because it makes me feel justified for spending money on my subscription. And sometimes it leaves me so inspired to write that I need more. I've been on Vocal for a while, on and off, and came back to it a couple of months ago only to barely find out that amazing writers host their own unofficial challenges. And it feels impossible to find them sometimes.

The commenter that inspired this idea suggested an Unofficial Challenge community be added. I love that idea, but my spin on it would be a section for it in the "Challenges" tab itself. Then, and perhaps this is a long shot, an option to enter a piece upon publishing (similar to how an official challenge works) could be implemented as well.

Statistics Filtering

I would love the ability to sort my statistics tab. Having to scroll by "most reads" every time demotivates me from checking out the stats from my recent stories. All of my highest read stories are around 6 years old, I believe. And that's great, I am very thankful for that.

But I am looking for a way to sort the list by most recently posted, lowest to highest, or even alphabetical so I can find certain stories easier.

Or, if the stats could be shown when I open one of my stories (this would be visible to the author only).

How Can Vocal Attract More Viewers to the Platform?

Part of the incentive to write on here is to get money from reads, and it is hard to do that when the majority of users on this platform are only here because they're writing, too. I for one, only found out this platform existed because I was Googling writing websites that will pay me. There needs to be outreach.

In my opinion, Vocal needs a social media manager. This person needs to run their Instagram, TikTok, and other social pages that they have. Looking at both their Instagram and TikTok accounts, neither have been active since 2024.

These days, the easiest and quickest way to get attention is social media. If feasible, hiring a marketing professional, or even just an experienced young person who scrolls TikTok during their free time to create trendy videos/posts that will gain traction. To be straightforward, and I apologize if this is crass, a lot of the posts currently look monotonous and not attention grabbing. And while I get maintaining the aesthetics, retaining a social media user's attention requires noise, eye catching visuals, and a hook to keep them interested. And that likely would involve a person.

I won't sit here and act like I understand or know Vocal's hiring process, org chart, or financial viability of hiring/transitioning/promoting new people. But, I would like to suggest that maybe ambassadors from certain communities pick topics to highlight, and one main person executes that on social media. I don't know logistics, but this suggestion is similar to my situation at my current job and it works fairly well for a smaller business with many departments.

Posts about writing challenges and advertising a cash prize is sure to intrigue people across the internet. Or, highlighting top stories. Even short witty videos about the writing process in general could do well with the right marketing strategies.

Or, if there are any authors on here who would like to use social media to their advantage and promote their stories without needing to get the Vocal team involved, that would work well, too.

The audience lives on social media, and that's how we can draw people to this platform to read our work. A team that is trained and understands social media would do wonders for marketing this platform.

Overall, a social media marketing rebrand would do numbers, in my opinion.

Conclusion

This piece was initially inspired by this unofficial challenge below. Although I spiraled and ended up writing much more than I thought that I would, I hope that at least one tidbit from here qualifies this as an entry.