Proud moment: The Star Online journalist Michelle Tam and Vengadesan showing the trophy at the World Bloggers and Social Media Awards at Zebra Square, Kuala Lumpur.
KUALA LUMPUR: With its quality content and engagement efforts, The Star Online emerged as the winner of the Social Media Excellence Award.
The portal won for the Online News (English) section at the launch of the World Bloggers and Social Media Awards here last night.
Held at Zebra Square, the ceremony was organised by the Malaysia Social Media Chambers (SMC) and My Events International to honour the best use of social media across various industries.
“It’s awesome that The Star Online has won the award. It shows that our social media efforts has been effective in engaging social media audience,” said The Star Online editor Philip Golingai.
“We plan to increase our reach to tap into the growing social media community to distribute our news and also to feel the pulse of what’s happening out there,” he added.
As of yesterday, The Star Online had over 523,000 Twitter followers.
The site enjoys over 413,000 Likes on Facebook, reaching more than three million users and engaging over 434,000 content consumers per week on that platform alone.
Thousands of readers respond to articles, polls, live Twitter sessions and campaigns posted on the portal’s various social media platforms.
The award was presented by Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
Young Malaysians should harness and channel the power of social media to create a positive change for the community, he said.
“You are all leaders in your own fields and industries when it comes to engaging your followers on social media,” he said in his speech before presenting the awards.
The Star Online news editor Martin Vengadesan said the team was happy to be acknowledged in such a competitive market.
“We look forward to meeting the challenge of constant evolution,” he added.
The Star Online incorporates multimedia elements like video, photography and mood meters into its articles to better benefit the reader and elevate the user experience.
Many subsites such as Automania, Star SMEBiz, StarProperty.my, mStar and R.AGE are interlinked on the main site and are just one click away.
The Star Online, which is one of the most read English language news portals in Malaysia, also celebrates its 20th anniversary on June 23.
The awards event was held in conjunction with the fourth edition of the Malaysia Social Media Week, which will run until Saturday.
MSMC founder and president Shahul Hameed Dawood said the selection of winners took into account online votes and the opinions of a panel of judges from around the world.
