Vocal.media… Oh boy.

When I started writing on Medium in 2021, Vocal was mentioned a lot here. As a Medium alternative, as a competitor, as an additional source of income. Things like that.

I was hyped to try it…

And then I was very underwhelmed. 

Vocal wasn’t nearly as interesting or productive as some of Medium’s writing gurus made it out to be back then in 2021.

Nevertheless, I sort of enjoyed the idea of the platform. The payment for external views, the simplicity of the website, the communities, the challenges, the content moderation, all that stuff. 

I used Vocal for quite a while. As a Vocal+ member even. And I found some ways to make use of Vocal’s unique attributes, like the pay for external views. But over the months, I went there less and less.

Stories about Vocal died down. Hype seemed gone. 

Until recently, I hadn’t heard much about Vocal. Then, some stories kept popping up again. Stories about Vocal earnings, challenges, and some tips and tricks. 

Fascinating, I thought. Is Vocal back? 

Well, no. Not really. But I’ve tried it again, and more thoroughly. I am a Vocal+ member again. And I’ve tried my methods to redirect external traffic to Vocal stories again. With some success. After all, it’s great to have a platform that actually pays for any kind of views. As little as it may be. 

But what I’ve noticed along the way is that engagement seems to be higher than it used to be on Vocal. 

Back in 2021, I was getting no views when I didn’t share or promote my content. Vocal’s distribution was… non-existent. Some top stories would get internal views, but that was it.

Now, though, even my neglected repurposed stories get some internal traffic there. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still miniscule compared to Medium or Substack in terms of numbers of views and reads, but it’s more than it used to be. 

That has kept me kind of hopeful. 

Maybe Vocal is having a comeback. Perhaps it’s getting better. 

I’d be happy to see that!