Student Hotspots the Final Package

I present to you my final Student Hotspots package.

The project takes the form of a student blog, known as Student Hotspots, which highlights the best restaurants, bars, clubs, gigs etc in London. As a Public Relations student, I have taken the stance that this blog is on behalf of a student based organisation, such as NUS who are looking to push the London lifestyle.

The blog is targeted at both students who are currently studying in London as well as potential London-based University students. The blog includes a number of promotional, online features, such as viral videos, Audioboo interviews, Googlemaps and images. Such content are from varied perspectives, for example, students, bands, club managers as well as reviews from myself. Such diverse perspectives have been used in order to make the content exciting and to ensure that each post does not simply follow the monotonous style of the previous post.

Blog- http://studenthotspots.wordpress.com/

The Student Hotspot blog is also accompanied by a Student Hotspots twitter account and Audioboo that you can access below- 

Twitter- https://twitter.com/#!/Student_Hotspot

Audioboo- http://audioboo.fm/Student_Hotspots

Building Traffic

I have encountered a problem!!!!
I have been solely concentrating on the content of the Student Hotspot blog, that I have neglected any thought regarding how I will drive audiences to the blog. Of course, it is vital that the content captures the interest of audiences and is easily shared online, however, it is just as important for content to be targeted and easily found.

As a result, I have created Student Hotspot twitter page with will accompany the blog feed.
This is what it looks like:

I have used this blog as a means of communicating directly to my student based target audience, therefore I have followed a number of students in the hope that they follow me back. Moreover, I have also followed a number of student party organisers, restaurants, clubs etc. Essentially, I will use this feed to update students about new posts on the blog as well as new Audioboo clips.Furthermore, I can also use this feed to re-tweet events that other clubs have tweeted, so it is an ongoing feed of information for the audience. This continuity between the blog and the twitter, will ensure users that the Student Hotspot community is strong and reliable.

iMovie- Editing Viral Videos

In order to make the content on my blog exciting I have decided to include a variety of content formats, such as viral videos. (This can be viewed at using the links)-

• http://studenthotspots.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/anas-top-student-hotspots/
•  http://studenthotspots.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/marcelinas-top-3-student-hotspots/

In order to maintain some form of continuity, these videos will be regularly posted under the title of “_______’s Top Hotspots” and will  include different students showing the audience around their favourite student hotspots. Hopefully, this will which will broaden the range of perspectives that are  presented to ensure that audiences are always gaining something new. Furthermore, I believe that this is especially important because I think that students will accept advice from other students with more acceptance, rather than being sold to by an organisation.

When creating the videos there are a few things that I believe are important to consider, for example:
- Videos cannot be too long, since I feel that it is more appealing if the content on the blog is short, snappy and therefore more memorable.
- Furthermore, considering that mobile devices are becoming more common, it is important that the content is appropriately made to suit such devices.
- Each video must provide information regarding; where the student hotspot is, why it is good, why does it suit the student lifestyle.

http://studenthotspots.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/anas-top-student-hotspots/

http://studenthotspots.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/marcelinas-top-3-student-hotspots/

Using iMovie

Although in class we used Final Cut to practice video editing, I have decided to use iMovie in order to create my viral videos. This is simply because during my Alevel media course a group and I had to create a music video using this software, so I understand the ins and outs of it in more depth.

Here’s the video that I made for my Final Alevel project- don’t laugh!

Creating ‘What makes a good night GREAT’ soundclip.

I just thought I would show some of the work that went into creating the ‘What makes a good night, GREAT’ soundclip. The programme that I used was Audacity, and it easily allowed me to trim and rearrange the sound bites.
In order to create this, I asked a few students between the ages of 19-25, what they expected on a night out, and what could make their nights out better.

To view the sound bite visit the link on Student Hotspot website- http://studenthotspots.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/what-makes-a-good-night-out-great/

Student Hotspots has an AudioBoo account! Booya!

Although Tim showed us a little bit about AudioBoo earlier in the year, I thought that now was the right time to start using it as it fits perfectly into my assignment 2! Basically, this is just my test trial showing really how easy it is to upload an audio clip.
Literally, I found it brilliant! It took me 1 and a half minutes to record the audio then about 1 minute to upload it.

I think this will really be brilliant when I am out interviewing on-the-go. I can catch bands on stage and upload it to my profile, for Student Hotspots’ followers to always know what hotspots are hot by the minute!Furthermore, this is a great platform for me to upload the sound clips that I create on Audacity, since it can easily be embedded onto the Student Hotspot blog. Furthermore, considering that more recently online users have the ability to share content, I believe that it is most important that Audioboo allows for content to be embedded and shared easily!
However, I have noticed that clips uploaded onto Audioboo must be a maximum of 3 minutes long. Although this can be seen as a disadvantage, I think this is in fact beneficial since it ensures that the clips are short and snappy and therefore are interesting for the blog’s audience.

Setting up my Blog

Yeyy I’ve set up my blog!!!!
The URL is- http://studenthotspots.wordpress.com/ , but I’ve only just set it up so there isn’t much on it apart from a lovely blog theme and and image!

Enjoy!