IBM3205 SOCIAL, WEB & MOBILE ANALYTICS INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT Name : Yong Yi Lu Program : BBUS Section : 8AC1 Student ID : I20018762 Submission Date: 18/09/2020 Lecturer : Arasu Raman 1 Blog Review By Yong Yi Lu 2 Table of Content Cover Page...................................................................................................................2 Table of Content...........................................................................................................3 Main Contents of Blog Review.......................................................................................4-7 References.....................................................................................................................8 3 Based on the blog from the website of Voices of Youth, UNICEF which was published recently on March, 18, 2020, by Yeshna Dindoyal, the writer is trying to share her quarantine story, and her own opinion about the pandemic Covid 19.( Yeshna Dindoyal, 2020 March 18). The title of her blog which is Covid 19, Quarantine life and lessons for humanity expresses what she wants to tell to the blog readers. The genre of her blog post is about education. Yeshna Dindoyal is an international student who studies in the United Kingdom shares her quarantine story on her own blog and urges others to share their quarantine story and feelings too. The writer told the readers about her own thoughts on what happens to her during the pandemic, and she also emphasizes on humanity which can clearly be seen recently how people reacted towards the changes, and also the changes in nature since everyone starts to stay at home. Humanity, known as the quality or condition of human, human nature and also the quality of being humane, kindness and care towards others. Just a month before the Chinese New Year festival, in December 2019,increasing cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology and causes start to appear and initially occur in Wuhan, China and which then start to spread to the whole world. (Penghui Yang, Xiliang Wang, 2020 March 31). WHO, The World Health Organization announced the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, was classified as an international public health emergency on January 30, 2020. (AJMC Staff, 2020 July 4). The unprecedented increasing cases of COVID-19 cases not only in China, but also in many countries has triggered the alarm and awareness for public health to respond to emerging and re-emerging diseases. Many comprehensive strategies, including diagnostics, clinical treatment, research, prevention, and development of drugs and vaccines, are urgently needed to win and fight the battle against COVID-19 virus and also other infectious diseases. Thus, what Yeshna was trying to tell her readers was humanity in the age of COVID-19 where the whole world human beings are experiencing a new challenge in life. Yeshna Dindoyal also shares about the activities that people do during this quarantine life which many people start to make changes on themselves during this stay at home period. The writer, Yeshna wrote her blog really well and the quarantine story she wrote let anyone who are in the same boat with her which means they are in the same unpleasant situation and having the same problem. Many international students, foreign workers, and those who travel overseas cannot go back to their hometown and their country due to close country borders can exactly feel her. The feeling of missing home, family, home-cooked food and of course their friends. This pandemic has actually changed the normal routine of the world. The start of social 4 distancing, wearing masks and staying at home have been a routine in today’s world. No more excitement for Tokyo Olympic 2020, cancellation travelling trips, online classes, work from home, restaurant closure, postponed exam that was already prepared months ago, no graduation ceremony, no gathering, increase in divorce cases, and the most obvious is the whole world's economics were affected. (The World Bank, 2020 June 8). What happened in 2020? The writer wrote well on her blog about humanity during the pandemic. People start to panic buying tons of toilet papers, grocery, rice, canned food like World War or tsunami coming soon and what, those old people, and those who having low-income could not able to buy those daily groceries due to no more stock, and already finish due to those people who bought a lot and not considerate towards others. Luckily, there are humans that have humanity and care towards others. Those people and volunteers provide those who have trouble in living and those who are live-in hunger by distributing free meals, and free groceries for them such as rice, mask, biscuits and groceries to help them sustain their life during this serious crisis. The writer is trying to tell the readers we as humans should help each other no matter what races or religion during this pandemic, not just being greedy and being selfish. We should have the sense of humanity and empathy. Those who live far from home and uprooted from home should be careful because they don’t have any economic support. The writer understands well the pain of losing friends due to the coronavirus. She expressed the pain and suffering through her writing. We as readers can really get touched and understand what the writer, Yeshna Dindoyal is trying to express. During this world crisis, nature is healing, no more pollution done by humans, hence hoping for humans to heal their mindset and implement more humanity and kindness in themselves so that after this pandemic everything can restart and turn out better. Other than sharing about the humanity of the community, she also shares some positive motivational thoughts for her readers, so that they can be strong together to go through this tough year. The blog has many strengths that attract many readers to read the blog. First, the blog has a great and excellent content which are easily understood, informative and honest thoughts from the writer. The writer of the blog has outstanding copywriting skills which she creates a great content which she wrote on her own thoughts on the pandemic that occur currently and produce interest and shares from readers. This blog proves us text-based and excellent writers who don’t attach any image can create a great and interesting content. Next, this blog also interacts and communicates with one another which are the readers. The writers interact and reply with the comments from the readers. It can be seen on the comment section where there are a few readers 5 sharing their quarantine story and also their own personal views which are related to the blog's content. Some of the readers commented on the good reviews and keep encouraging and motivating the writers at the comment section. The writer interacts with her readers by replying to her readers comments and states her own point towards her readers story. She is friendly towards her readers where she welcomes her readers to direct message or private message her if there are any doubts or problems that they face. Readers from different edges of the world send their love and care to the writer and other readers, which could give a positive motivation for other people who scroll into this blog. This blog successfully attracts people to know what happens to those who leave far from home and are in a quarantine state besides knowing about the humanity of humans in different countries and can be role models for the others. Interacting with readers can help the writer to know what the readers are interested in and what they want. The writer can find some ideas for the content on the next blog post. The blog is thoughtprovoking which means the writer seeks to do what is regarded well to provoke thought in their readers. This can be seen when someone reads a blog post and reads till end of it, and really considers what they read, that is what made an excellent blogger apart from a run-of-the-mill one. In my own opinion, the most dominant strength of a great blog is being helpful to others. (Jay Baer). The writer shares some inspiration and motivational words to her readers to cheer them up during these anxious and frightening periods which seems helpful to her readers and she opens up a topic that can be shared and discussed freely and openly with her readers. Blogging formed around the idea of community might unintentionally help others. Moreover, the writer’s blog page theme is definitely nice and suitable. The headline is clear and the size is suitable and just nice to be seen. Headlines’ substance is definitely very important since it is the first view that the readers see after clicking into the blog. Furthermore, the length of the blog post is just sweet and short and not too wordy. People seem to easily get bored and disinterested to read up a long blog post. The blog is themed with a concrete topic and purpose which is on COVID-19. It could anchor the meaning and also purpose of the blog. Of course, every strength comes with trade offs. There are a few weaknesses of the blog by Yeshna Dindoyal. The blog can share more examples or real life events so that the readers can know more about what is happening in other countries. For instance, Yeshna Dindoyal could share what inspires her to write this blog post, what humanity events that occur in the place she lives. Apart from that, the blog post page is a bit boring and plain. The writer could attach or upload some photos or videos of her quarantine life which can make readers more interested to 6 know about the writer's life events during quarantine life or the life behaviour and the changes of lifestyle of the country. Of course many people would like to know more about what occurs in other countries other than just looking from the newspaper or Facebook or news everyday. The media that uploaded it might have different views from other people. She could also suggest some ways to improve the value of humanity in the community so that readers that read or view the post could take some action or share it with others so that people could start to give attention to the issue. Besides, the writer did not use any subheads for her blog. This made the blog have long blocks of text which readers easily get bored of if they did not read into the content although the content is good. Without subheads, the readers seem lost because subheads are used to guide them and the writer might miss engagement opportunities. Robin Sharma said “There’s a solution for every problem. You just need to be strong enough to find it”. There are a few ways that can be implemented to improve and make the blog better. First, adding a “Pin” button in the “Share this” menu can be more convenient for those casual users. The writer can also add a “tweet this” or “share this” option or button to instantly share the quotes from the blog post. The writer could use and attach some personal and intimate photos to tell the readers about her experience or her story. Many writers do not use photos because that little one piece of photo takes an extra bit of effort but if the writer attached a photo,it would definitely make the readers more interested to read on. Never underestimate your effort, no matter how little. Readers can tend to know the writer well and make little connection between each other. In addition, the writer could try to cross-link to related content. This is quite a new suggestion because currently, there are not many blogs that link to other websites. This will sure add value and the impression of the readers towards the writer thus affecting the bounce rate of the blog post. The writer could consider adding related links or write a numbered or bulleted list of related blog posts and linking to them using WordPress Plugin. By doing this, an opportunity for the readers to discover related content was created. On top of that, the writer should use the power of pictures or photos. Visual content has become the mainstay in content publicity or marketing no matter on any social media such as Twitter or Facebook and yes blog is included. Blog readers nowadays are not the old newspaper readers. They expect more storyline based blog posts or salient points from the pictures. 7 REFERENCES Yeshna Dindoyal. (2020, March 18). Covid 19, Quarantine life and lessons for humanity. Retrieved from https://www.voicesofyouth.org/blog/covid-19-quarantine-life-and-lessonshumanity#disqus_comments at 7.42 p.m., 2020 September 15. Jay Baer. Lifting the Fog of the Blog: 8 Strategic Questions Before You Write 1 Word. Retrieved from https://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-marketing/lifting-the-fogof-the-blog/ at 8.01 p.m., 2020 September 15. Penghui Yang, Xiliang Wang. (2020, March 31). COVID-19: a new challenge for human beings. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41423-020-0407 x#:~:text=Since%20December%202019%2C%20just%20a,Wuhan%2C%20Hubei%20Provi nce%2C%20China.&text=The%20new%20coronavirus%20disease%20caused,2019%20(CO VID%2D19). at 8.15 p.m., 2020 September 15. AJMC Staff. (2020, July 4). A Timeline of COVID-19 Developments in 2020. Retrieved from https://www.ajmc.com/view/a-timeline-of-covid19-developments-in-2020 at 8.15 p.m., 2020 September 15. The World Bank. (2020, June 8). The Global Economic Outlook During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Changed World. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2020/06/08/the-global- economic-outlook-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-a-changed-world at 8.17 p.m., 2020 September 15. 8
