Vocal Media Has Just Added One Key Feature For Community Building
And there will be more
My third story about Vocal Media in about two weeks. Who would have thought that?
This time, it’s a great update though. And just the start of a few more coming in the near future.
Listening to feedback
I’ve got to give major props to Vocal Media for listening to user feedback. One of the most discussed missing features was undoubtedly the lack of community functionality within their platform.
No, I don’t mean their communities (the pendant to publications here). I’m talking about community building with the audience, the readers. Until now Vocal Media has lacked a follow function.
Follow the game
This is history now. Just this morning as a looked at my Vocal profile, I noticed a new menu option called “Subscription”. This leads to a page with two tabs at the top “Creators” and “Your Feed”. There you’ll find all the creators you follow and the feed with their posts.
A simple, yet powerful tool for writers. Now everyone on Vocal who enjoys your stories can follow you with a single click. This has two main advantages.
Firstly, you will get more exposure as a writer. Vocal members will find your stories more quickly and easily.
Secondly, this might lead to more sign-ups for Vocal. Since Vocal pays for external views and lacks a paywall, everyone can read your stories for free. To follow you, however, they’d have to sign up for an account. A win-win situation for Vocal and us, writers.
The future
This is a welcomed and frankly long overdue feature addition by Vocal. I like it. And it’s not all.
Within the coming months, Vocal will also introduce another long-awaited feature on the platform: comments.
Together with subscriptions, this will turn Vocal into a much more engaging platform for writers and readers alike. I love that. How about you?