Vocal.Media Can be a Good Medium Alternative If You Do This
Bonus: Tips for new writers to turn Vocal.Media into a viable income stream.
Bonus: Tips for new writers to turn Vocal.Media into a viable income stream.
Over the past few days, several writers have asked me if Vocal.Media is a potential alternative to Medium.
The answer is a little complicated because there are some very different parameters for success on both platforms.
But if there's one thing for sure, it’s this: simply reposting your Medium stories on Vocal won’t make you much money, especially if you write about topics like self-improvement, psychology, or personal stories.
So what is Vocal.Media and why are writers all over the world so excited about it? This article explores exactly that. It also addresses some important questions most beginners would have and lays down a strategy you can use to turn Vocal.Media into a viable income stream.
Before we get started, if you don’t have an account, you can join Vocal.Media here. If you’d like to watch this in video format, here’s a link:
How to Get Paid on Vocal.Media?
On Vocal.Media, you can get paid in three different ways:
Based on the number of views
Unlike Medium, where writers are paid based on the read-time of their articles, on Vocal.Media, you’re paid based on the number of times your story has been read.
A read is counted when some user interacts with your story in the following ways:
- Either when they leave a “love” on the story,
- Or when they scroll until the end of the story.
If you have a Vocal+ membership of $9.99 dollars per month, you can get paid $6 dollars for every 1000 views. If you’re not a Vocal+ member, you can get a fixed pay of $3.8 for every read.
Tips from other readers
Vocal has this interesting feature when a reader can send you a “tip” if they like your story.
Usually, readers offer small amounts of $1, $2, or $5. The maximum amount that can be sent as a tip for one user is $20.
Participate in challenges
Vocal.Media has these amazing challenges where you can participate if you are a Vocal+ member.
Currently, they have some really crazy fiction challenges coming up that pay up to $5000. If you can’t win the grand prize, there are also some consolation prizes, which include gift cards starting from $250 and can go up to $2500.
Sounds interesting? Join Vocal.Media today to participate and start earning money.
What Does It Take To Earn From Vocal.Media?
The challenges and tips are some cool additions, but the most consistent way to earn money on Vocal.Media is by leveraging your views.
The more reads you have, the better your earnings will be. This is why it’s so important to share your stories on other social media platforms like Quora, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and even Medium (by linking a Vocal.Media story at a relevant place in your Medium article).
The more you share, the more people will read your story, and the more income you’ll get from Vocal.Media.
Aside from that, here are a few additional tips to get more views.
1. Focus on the titles
You need to work on your title so your article ends up in the search engine results for a similar query. Pro tip: make sure your title is about 55 to 60 characters long.
For example, if you’re writing an article about why every writer should have a newsletter, then if your article appears on the first page of the results whenever someone searches this query, you can get a lot of views.
So, make sure you write titles and articles that are search-engine-optimized (SEO). If you have no clue what SEO is and how to master it, you can watch this interview I did with an SEO expert:
2. Write longer articles
Write articles that are 2000 words or even longer.
There’s very little chance of the article being ranked on search engines if it’s only 600 words long. Aside from that, longer articles tend to be featured higher than shorter articles.
As a survey has established, “The first result typically has 2,416 words and the 10th result has 2,032 words. This shows that Google prefers content-rich sites.”
3. Make sure your article is the best on the internet on that topic
This is true for every platform, not just Vocal.Media.
If your article is great, more people will share and recommend it to their friends, bringing you even more views and income.
4. Be consistent
To be successful on Vocal.Media, you need to write frequently and write quality articles.
Be patient in the beginning, because, just like any other platform, it takes time to grow on Vocal. It takes even longer to earn a lot. But if you keep writing and showing up consistently on the platform, then there’s no way you will not get money for writing on Vocal.Media.
Is Vocal.Media Better than Medium?
Isn’t this the question everyone wants to know the answer to!
The truth is that it depends on what kind of articles you’re hoping to write.
If you write about topics like technology, freelancing, social media, or any other topic people are likely to search on Google, Vocal.Media is a great place to share your articles, especially if you do proper SEO.
But if you write personal stories or articles about psychology, understand that these are niches very few people search on Google. Such articles will do a lot better on Medium. On Vocal.Media, your article might be lost.
Aside from that, the payment on Medium is a bit better than Vocal Media. On average, a thousand views on Medium can earn you up to $50 or maybe even more (given that all of those views are from paying members. In other words, they are internal views).
But external views are pointless on Medium. 20k external views will make you $0 on Medium, whereas on Vocal.Media, 20k external views can make you a whopping $120 if you’re a Vocal+ member.
This brings us to the end of this article. If you have any further questions, please let me know in the comments. Also, if there are any other platforms that you’d like me to talk about, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to cover that for you.
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