Wednesday 19 February 2014

What Makes a Good Digital Media Writer?

We received requests from our readers write a post on ‘what makes a good digital media writer’. Since had lessons for the past 15 weeks on how to be a better digital media writer, we hope that we could pass on this knowledge.


Objectives


It is important that the writer is clear with their objectives. Who is your target audience? What purpose does your blog serve? What kind of personality do you want your blog to wear? Some might wonder why is it essential for us to consider these questions. Why do we need to have a clear objective?

Here’s why clear objectives are important:

  • Ensures your post is on track
  • Ensures that the post has an appropriate angle to focus on
  • Ensures that our post relates back to our target audience

Formatting

After coming up with the objectives, the second point to be a good digital writer is how you format your blog post. One cannot just type a whole chunk of words, one should also consider how their target audience would read their blog post.

Hence, here are some points to consider:

  • Post should be 300-500 words (Keep your sentences short by using bulleted points)
  • Have a constant writing styles (e.g. Standardized fonts)
  • Headlines needs to precise (Less than 7 words)
  • Have Subheads


  • Make use of hyperlinks





Social Networks & Multimedia

With two items in place, it is now time to attract/bring your audience to your blog. The best way to do so is to use social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Choose a multimedia that suits your target audience and  use it to draw their attention.

Here are some points to consider:

  • Place social media badges/ widgets at the side of your blog.

  • Add visuals such as pictures, videos and slideshows into your blog to make it more visually pleasing
  • Make sure they (pictures, videos and etc.) are of high quality
  • Have caption for your pictures
     
  • Use your social media to publicise blog
  • The purpose of social media is interactivity,so interact with your audience. Make use of various multimedia tools available.
     
     


Credibility

Now that you have attracted your audience to your blog, it is time to gain credibility. Credibility actually helps to establish yourself as an ‘expert’ and this would help retain the audience you attracted. Though it may take time and effort, it will build a sense of trust in your readers. Also, if you want to be a source of authority and have a position in the community, credibility is the key.

Here are some points to consider:

  • Attribute sources
     

  • Hyperlink to external sources
  • Include a byline in posts
     


Partnership

With credibility in check and your blog is set to take of, it is time to make friends with other bloggers! How does partnership contribute to becoming a good writer you may ask.

Partnership helps to build better content. Working with them allows you to see different ways to write your post. Also, having a partnership means that you will have more platforms to attract your target audience from.

Here are some points to consider:

  • How relevant is your blog to your partnering blog?
  • How are you related to them?
  • Consider your target audience before selecting a partner
  • Is your blog compatible to the other?


Remembering these tips and suggestions helps blog post writing clearer and precise. We hope that they are useful in helping you to start out.

Wednesday 12 February 2014

PRESS RELEASE








Biggest Mission Accomplished - Project Zero To Hero




Project Zero To Hero is a blog with big heart, putting smiles on others’ face week after week through our missions.


12 February 2014 - Singapore For more than 13 weeks, Project Zero To Hero have been competing with 18 other teams in the 2014 RP Blogger Challenge.This challenge aims to promote excellence in digital writing and recognise the hard work of students under M312 Writing for Digital Media.


The blogs are judged on criteria consisting of
  • original content
  • creativity
  • visual appeal
  • engagement with the audience.


About Project Zero To Hero


With interesting content that revolves around doing missions to bring a smile on other’s faces, Project Zero To Hero approaches this challenge in a different method. We have done a total of 7 missions to achieve our objective.



With the RP Blogger Challenge coming to an end, the team is sprinting through its last week  and wrapping up the blog slowly. The award ceremony for the RP Blogger Challenge will be held on the 19th of  February 2014. Do come down to support Project Zero to Hero in this event. Also, visit our blog and facebook for more details about our blog.



Quotes


“It was fun and great to get to know the RP students and to bring some smiles to the elderly living at Redhill together. Their enthusiasm lightens up the atmosphere and all of us had a good time giving the elderly red packets, two oranges, wishing them “Happy Chinese New Year” and also having dinner together.
Their blog is nicely done up and the videos of their missions were very fresh  and interesting.” - Bella Lee, youth volunteer from FCBC

The enthusiasm of the  students has added much joy to our collaboration! Despite their busy schedule, they have shown commitment and sincerity and have indeed contributed to the success of this community outreach! - Tan Enn Mee, Event Organiser

 

Contact us



Lee Jia MIn
Email: leemichelle728@gmail.com

Reflection Post on Mission #7 Gong Xi Fa Cai Redhill

                            


We carried out our last but definitely not least mission last Saturday! We were pumped up for this event because we have been working closely with En Mee, the organiser, since December 2013. We even designed a poster to promote the event! 

For this mission, we worked with the a group of leaders and youths from Faith Community Baptist Church. We went to block 71 and 72 opposite Redhill MRT Station to give out oranges and angpaos to the elderly at these blocks. In conjunction with Chinese New Year this year, the angpaos actually has words of blessings inside such as Joyful, Peace, Love, Wisdom, Grace, Faith, Hope, Strength and Goodness to bless the elderly (our team helped to print and cut out a total of 90 pieces of these words of blessing). At first we were nervous because we did not know how these elderly were going to react to our offering but they were really flabbergasted at our kind gesture and accepted it with a smile on their faces. 


The objectives of this mission was do something out of our comfort zone (Republic Polytechnic) and to reach out to a target audience that we usually cannot reach out to. In this case, it's the elderly. This experience was an eye-opener for our team because we came across elderly who lived on their own because their loved one just passed away or because their loved ones are simply too busy with their own individual lives to take care of them. We became humbled by this experience and we learnt how to appreciate the elderly around us more. We also made many new friends thanks to this event.




"This mission was quite an experience for me. Honestly, I’ve also done something similar during my Secondary school days. When I was in secondary school, the school would make us students to give out mandarin oranges to the neighbouring blocks during the Chinese New Year season. However, this mission is different as our intended audience are the elderly, and it was quite an eye-opener for me. The people who received the oranges looked really happy to receive them, and I too, am happy that they were" - Lee Jia Min (Project Zero to Hero)


Friday 7 February 2014

What's going on for Mission #7?


Hey guys!!
So, before we start explaining the gist of this post,
why don't we back track a little bit about us.
Its been almost over 2 months since we, project zero to hero started this blog.
We crafted and executed 6 missions so far.

And as much as we enjoy doing what we do,
'All good things must come to an end'.
Yes, Project zero to hero would be carrying out their last mission in two days time.
And yes we highlighted it a little bit in our last video but we are going out with a big BANG.
It is going to be one of the biggest mission we have planned and we are not doing this mission alone.

In the spirit of Chinese New Year, we are teaming up with one of our partners to bring the new year party to the people that should enjoy it the most -the elderly.
As new year comes around, not everyone are able to celebrate it with their family. Hence we decided to hop onto a mission that would bring a smile to the elders.

So stay tuned to our blog as we will update you about the mission.

Cheers!


Which is your favorite Mission?
Mission #1: Good Morning RP
Mission #2: Raising Awareness for World Aids Day
Mission #3: Celebrating Christmas @ Christmas 'round the corner'
Mission #4: Complimenting is no crime
Mission #5: The Last Photo
Mission #6: Cookies giveaway for Chinese New Year
free poll maker

Wednesday 5 February 2014

#Mission 6 Cookies Giveaway for Chinese New Year

In partnership with Weekend Ventures!



Hey guys! How are your Chinese New Year celebrations so far? For our 6th mission, we worked together with Weekend Ventures whereby we baked 200 cookies to give to the people in Republic Polytechnic! We baked cookies because we thought that everyone should be given a treat on this festive occasion :)


We went to Quraisha's (our Editor) house to bake the cookies! Click on the video (Part 1) to see how we made the cookies. On our mission day itself (30th January), we gave out the cookies around South Entrance to students, facilitators and helpers. The people who received our cookies were really surprised and thankful to our kind gesture. The cookies were given out in less than 10 minutes, so it's a mission success! We hope that we managed to spread the Chinese New Year festive mood around school.

During Chinese New Year, we give out titbits to our guests as a sign of gratitude for their presence in our lives, be it family or friends. Similarly to this tradition, our team, Project Zero to Hero wanted to give back to the people who have been following and supporting our blog.

We hope that you guys will continue supporting our blog and we hope you like our cookies! 

 



"Project  Zero to Hero were so fun to work with! We were able to click well and they were patient to guide us through the whole baking process. I'm so glad the cookies weren't over burnt.. they were delicious!" Naadiah (Weekend Ventures)

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Voice for the animals

21 year old, Debbie Tan, studying in Republic Polytechnic under Diploma of Healthcare Administration. Her passion for animals is what drives her to volunteer at a young age.

For today’s post we sat down with Debbie Tan ; a Year 2 student studying in Republic Polytechnic who spends her time to be the voice for animals. Having volunteered at animal shelters such as Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), she shares with us her story on why she started volunteering there on top of her busy schedule as a polytechnic student.

Q: We hear that you release birds every month , so when did you start releasing birds?

DEBBIE: When I was young, my dad brought me to the SPCA, so every time he would encourage me to contribute to the society.

Q: Why did you like to help animals?

DEBBIE: I feel that birds cannot be kept in cages, they should be freed, although there are pros and cons to it. Although you set the birds free, they might be hurt, but it’s their nature, so you should let nature take it’s course.

Q: So how do you set the birds free, like what do you do?

DEBBIE: We will go to the nearby house, or maybe go to SPCA, like Geylang area, they’re selling birds, but then now it’s illegal already, I heard some laws enforcing this rule. So, we would go nearby my house, near Jurong East there, there’s a place selling birds. We would buy the birds, $10 each, then we would release it.

Q: So, just release one?

DEBBIE: My dad says that one bird signifies luck, and something like doing good deed.

Q: Other than birds, what other types of animals do you like to help?

DEBBIE: Cats. They are my favourite animals, so I will feed cats near my block, but there will be others scolding me, saying that we’re polluting the neighbourhood. But I will still do it, but I will clean up after that.

Q: So do you have any significant memory of helping animals?

DEBBIE: When I was young my dad would drive me to the SPCA, so he would bring me to the cats, that I like, and dogs. I’m allergic to cats, unfortunately, because I love cats. Despite my allergy, my dad will still bring me there. I can’t bring the cats home, but, I would still carry the cat around, help out, volunteer at the SPCA.

I used to have a cat, but my mum chased it away cause she brought a dog home. She was helping her friend to take care of the dog, so my cat ran away. Actually my cat, her name is Grey Grey, she’s very smart. I would let her free, she would go down the staircase, go down to the market and she would still come back by herself. Because I live at the tenth storey, so it’s quite smart for the cat to do that. And I’m quite a quiet person, so I would usually talk to my cat.

"If you can’t keep pets, don’t even start to buy it. you have to be prepared to take the responsibility. If you are not prepared, forget the idea of keeping pets. -Debbie"

Debbie's shares with us that it is her family culture that has shaped
her into the person she is today.
 

Wednesday 15 January 2014

Mission #5: The Last Photo

By: Team Project Zero to Hero

For our latest class assignment, the team has to think about fresh ways to write blog entry to attract readers to visit and read the post. We research through for ideas and decided to do a photo collage for this special mission after being inspired by the photo spreads found from the website, Where Cool Things Happen.

The mission theme “The Last Photo” is to get random people we met around school to share with us what is the latest photo that they have taken with their hand phone and the reasons as to why they would take that photo. 

During the mission, we are amazed with the photos gathered from the 17 individuals we have approached. Some of them are rather silly as they are mostly taken out of boredom. For example, we had a ‘last photo’ of a 6P, and also a ‘last photo’ of a silly selfie taken to entertain oneself. 

Through today’s event, we realized how hand phones play an important part to our everyday lives. It is not only a tool for communications anymore but also for, personal memories and entertainment purposes. So, what is the latest photo you have taken today? Do share with us through our Facebook and Twitter.


projectzerotohero zero's Slidely by Slidely Slideshow

Saturday 11 January 2014

Reflection Post on Mission #4 Complimenting Is No Crime

                                 
As some of you may have noticed, we carried out our 4th mission on monday with the theme of complimenting a stranger.

We went to places like lawn and south entrance to give out little sweet notes to people whom we do not know. This mission was plan with the motive to improve the relationship between people and also, to let youths be more open minded with what they want to say.

Notes like,"pass this note to someone who you think is beautiful ' and 'pass this note to someone who you want to have a game match with ' was passed around.

In this mission, we faced a huge challenge as people were not open to this kind of event as some of them were too shy. Thus, we did not manage to pass the note to many people. However, we did give some of the post it notes out eventually and here are some of the photos taken that day.







Although the outcome was not as successful as we planned for it to be, it was a fun mission to carry out! See you guys in our next mission and look out for our video tomorrow!!