The Workhorses

Editor: Zurien Onn
Digital Manager: Alea Adzhar
Writers: Izzat Nizar & Izzat Haziq
Video Producer: Khalid Amir Hamzah
Designer: Atiqah Sairan
Programmer: Sofiah Shafiruddin

Project Time Frame :

Obstacles

The editorial team encountered these challenges in our effort to ensure that the published content is high in quality:

1. Busy Bee Celebrities
   It’s definitely not easy to meet up with travellers! But we enjoyed the challenge. For the Traveller’s Tales section, the Editorial team had to interview celebrities and influencers on their travel experience. Setting an appropriate timing for both parties to conduct the interview is not as easy as it seems. Why? Often times, an interview had to be postponed due to the unavailability of celebrities.
2. Many Events Got Cancelled
   2020 has been a challenging year for all. Many events had to be rescheduled too. Majority of 2020 events were cancelled and most events were organised online. The team sure went through a tough time to find suitable events to be featured under the ‘Happenings’ section.
3. Limited Crew Members
   Restricted movements and physical contact = limited production crew. But that’s okay since we also relied on other means such as stock footage – make do of other available resources. We got to make it work!
4. Content Management System Ain’t User-friendly
   Prior to the CMS enhancement proposed by CODIUM, the initial system was not as user-friendly as it currently is. Articles and photos could only be uploaded by programmers as it requires certain coding to ensure that the layout could be published as per design. This means that only programmers are able to publish the articles when the system should actually be accessible to all. The system sure is user-friendly now! So, it’s all good.

The Game Plan

1. Content Creation
   Each article is tailored to readers’ preferences. The length of each article was set at 700 words with its main theme and tone being lifestyle. All articles were written by our in-house and freelance writers combined, and edited by our Editor in Chief.

   

   

2. Content Partnership and Community Engagement
   We collaborated with various travel writers as a way to attract new audiences. As travel writers attract audiences’ interest, our main target was to establish Convergence as a relevant e-magazine about the travel industry through their influence. All published articles relating to these travel writers were shared on their social media platforms as a method to increase engagements among the community.

   

   

3. Collab with Celebrities
   For Traveller’s Tales section, we conducted interview sessions with Malaysian celebrities such as Deborah Henry, Sharifah Sakinah and Alif Satar. We had a chat about their travel experience as well as their experience using the airports’ facilities. The interviews were then transcribed into interesting articles describing their experiences, travel quirks, and opinions. There’s more, we also conducted a fun rapid-fire video segment to encourage more readers to check out the articles.

   

   

4. Electronic Direct Email
   To encourage more viewers through emails, we sent weekly newsletters through MailChimp to highlight new articles and to ensure that the audiences are constantly updated with current happenings and travel stories.
   
5. CMS Improvements
   We contributed ideas to enhance Convergence’s Content Management System (CMS) to maximise the effectiveness of the website. We designed new layouts for content and ensure that the system is user-friendly.
6. Advertising
   Once the articles have been published, we will run Instagram, Facebook and MailChimp advertisements by featuring top performing articles. This is done so that we could reach a broader target audience by boosting each article and in the end, increase engagements and readership.

Our Accomplishments

1. Increase in Page Views
   The page views for Convergence e-magazine has increased tremendously within the period of 1 year and the KPI has been met.
2. Enhanced Content Management System
   We managed to enhance Convergence’s CMS by implementing new layout designs. The enhancement allowed us to create a variety of layout designs and functions to give a fresh look to each page.
3. Improve Brand Awareness
   The digital marketing efforts such as influencers and celebrities collab as well as social media advertisements have assisted in improving Convergence’s brand awareness. When articles are shared on influencers/celebrities’ social media platforms, more people will end up visiting the e-magazine and they’ll eventually know more about the brand.