EXPLAINER: Talk of the Sound for Newcomers

Our readership has grown exponentially over the past year, in particular on Meta (Facebook, Instagram), from a few hundred thousand views a month to about 3 million views a month. With 90% of our readership being new we wanted to offer our new readers a primer on how to follow our reporting.

WordPress

Talk of the Sound runs on WordPress, an open-source content management system that powers over 40% of websites worldwide. including high-profile web sites such as Time Magazine,

Bloomberg, Forbes, CNN Press Room, BBC America, New York Post, TechCrunch, NASA, Mercedes-Benz, IBM and many more.

RSS

We have RSS enabled with WordPress. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a standardized web feed format that allows users and applications to receive automated updates from websites without needing to visit each site manually (it’s how podcasts show up in podcast apps). To subscribe to RSS feeds you need a RSS Reader (I use Inoreader) but Apple News, Outlook, or Firefox’s have an RSS reader view. As an approved news outlet on NextDoor, they pull our RSS feed so the NextDoor App is another way to receive our RSS feed.

Copy/paste our RSS Feed (https://talkofthesound.com/feed/) into the “Subscribe” or “Add Feed” button.

Jetpack Email Subscriptions

We use the Jetpack Module within WordPress to offer direct email subscriptions to Talk of the Sound, every post published on TalkoftheSound.com is sent via email to subscribers. We have thousands of subscribers who get about 300 such alerts a month. Given the volume of inbound emails, we recommend setting up a filter/folder so the alerts skip the inbox and accumulate in a designated folder to skim/read at your convenience. If you enable email notifications on your mobile phone the alerts will appear on your phones home page. To sign up just visit TalkoftheSound.com and click the “Subscribe” button in the lower right corner.

Social Media

We publish on a number of social media platforms. Give us a follow and our posts will appear in your preferred social media app

X: @talkofthesound

Facebook: facebook.com/talkofthesound

Instagram: @talkofthesound

LinkedIN: linkedin.com/in/mediablogger

Bluesky: @talkofthesound.bsky.social

NextDoor: https://nextdoor.com/page/talk-of-the-sound

Facebook Comment Moderation

Facebook does not allow pre-moderation of comments, a content moderation practice where user-submitted comments are reviewed and approved by human or automated moderators before they are published or visible to the audience. This proactive approach helps prevent harmful, spam, or inappropriate content from appearing, though it can delay posting and increase operational costs.

Facebook does offer Moderation Assist,,an automated tool for Facebook Pages that hides potentially offensive or spammy comments until an admin reviews them. Hidden comments are not visible to the general public or other viewers of the post. However, they are visible to the person who posted the comment, that person’s Facebook friends (in the comment section), page admins and moderators.

Facebook Monetization

To monetize a Facebook Page. Meta requires 10,000+ followers. We are at about 6,600 followers so getting above 10,000 followers is a big deal.

For now, we are allowed to do a few things before reaching 10,000 followers:

Facebook Subscriptions offer subscribers exclusive content, a subscriber badge for recognition, and potential perks.

Facebook Stars allows fans to purchase packs of Stars to send as tips or gifts, often with animated effects for engagement, during live streams, videos, or Reels.

Video

We have 2 video channels.,YouTube is free, targets a broad, consumer-driven audience for entertainment and viral content. Vimeo focuses on professionals, creatives, and businesses seeking high-quality, controlled distribution. We pay for Vimeo so there are no ads. We use video primarily to support our reporting (like embedded video of council meetings) and are not aiming to publish viral videos. We abandoned YouTube a few years ago because YouTube censors content. You can subscribe to both but Vimeo is our only active video channel.

Vimeo: vimeo.com/robertcox

YouTube: youtube.com/c/talkofthesound

Words in Edgewise ($)

Words in Edgewise is hosted on Ghost.io and resides at robertcox.ie. Unlike Talk of the Sound and its related socials, Words in Edgewise / robertcox.ie is a personal newsletter written by Robert Cox where he publishes his opinion, commentary, essays, and long-form/investigative journalism. In short, it is personal not straight news reporting.

Why is Words in Edgewise Paywalled?

Articles published on Words in Edgewise typically involve significant, time-consuming reporting that involves a great deal of work — interviews with sources including confidential sources, Freedom of Information requests, in-depth research, drafting and editing, and more. The work involved in a single article might take days but often involves weeks or months of work. The newsletter is paywalled because it’s the best, most-involved reporting and charging a fee is a way for readers to pledge financial support. The cost is $7.00 a month or $70.00 a year (2 months free with annual subscriptions). Subscribers should understand they are not buying a newsletter like a magazine subscription in the olden days where you (or your dentist) paid a fee so once a week or once a month a magazine arrives, but rather supporting his work., The more subscribers he gets the more investigating, reporting, and publishing he can do.