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)