The Power of New Media: Sharing Experiences as an Online Writer

Online entertainment portal is an alternative to update yourself with latest gossip and news on your favorite celebrity. I was lucky to have a chance working as a writer, reporter as well as TV host for Malaysia’s hottest entertainment and lifestyle portal, GUA.com. GUA.com served as one of the major online portal that offers lots of entertainment and fashion content.

My job scope not only covers on entertainment side, but also fashion and lifestyle. The most important thing for you to attract people visiting your online portal would be your fastest updates on certain issues. Do you remember the Erykah Badu’s incident of her concert being cancelled by the government due to the controversial promotional photo published by The Star? I was there at the press conference and I have to update my editor the news on that particular time. In fact, GUA.com is the first online portal that published full news and coverage on that issue.

Article written by me on the Erykah Badu’s issue.

The needs for me to write and update the issue as soon as possible is very important because we have to compete with other entertainment portals such as Murai.com and Rotikaya.com. In online portal’s business, the early bird would get the biggest worm. High page views would attract more advertisers to come in and increase readership values from our loyal and new readers.

In this entertainment style of writing, it requires us to have very catchy and sensational headline to attract people to continue reading our articles. The use of bombastic words would give greater impact to the audience.

I’ve been written fashion article as well. To know who is your potential readers would help you in creating the mood and appeal to the article itself. You need lots of visual content if the article is talking on fashion. Last article I wrote on MimpiKita’s Raya collection was a major hit. Highest page views of the month with more people sharing it on social networking site such as Facebook and Twitter, it proves the power of new media as a marketing tool as well.

To talk about the power of social media would be a never ending story. As a conclusion, it is important for us as a PR practitioner to know how to use new media at a right time, for a right purpose.