Singapore Blog Awards back for 7th year

SINGAPORE - The annual Singapore Blog Awards return for its seventh glorious year, celebrating the best of the Singapore blogging scene with new award categories, stronger social elements and over $30,000 worth of prizes, including a 5D4N trip to the beautiful islands of Cebu and Bohol (including airfare and accommodation) in The Philippines!

Organised by omy.sg (www.omy.sg), Singapore Press Holdings' (SPH) leading bilingual news and entertainment portal, the Singapore Blog Awards honour independent content producers who create and curate content that make for fun, informative, and insightful reads.

This year, there are a total of nine Editors'/Judges' Choice categories, including old favourites such as the Best Family Blog, Best Fashion Blog, and Best Food Blog. The Best What-the-Hell Blog category has been renamed to "Best Topical Blog" to better define the award selection criteria. Bloggers who are looking to contend in this renamed category should have a distinct topic or theme that is covered in the blog content, presented through the blog owner's unique personal voice.

A Best New Blog award category has also been introduced for the first time, looking to seek out up-and-coming bloggers who have started their blogs in the past year.

Lee Kuan Fung, Head, Chinese Newspapers Digital Strategy, SPH, said: "Since Singapore Blog Awards was launched in 2008, we have seen blogs that started out as small-scale online journals grow into well-developed content sites under the effort and management of their owners. With the "Best New Blog" category, we hope to identify and show recognition for new bloggers who have displayed potential to develop their blogs into informative and interesting online resources."

In addition to the Editors'/Judges' Choice categories, SBA 2014 also launches three brand new "Followers' Choice" awards, increasing the "social" element in this constantly-evolving digital environment. The three awards are: · Favourite Celebrity Instagram Account · Favourite YouTube Channel · Favourite Twitter Influencer

On these new categories, Lee Kuan Fung said: "Over the years, we have seen bloggers grow their reach by maximizing their usage of social media as content propagation tools, with some even progressing fully into specific platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter to house their content. Hence, we have also set up a new "Followers' Choice" category, allowing users of social media to give their favourite influencers a boost through the act of nomination, thereby also allowing more influencers to partake in one of Singapore's most prestigious social event."

Members of the public can nominate their favourite celebrity Instagrammers, as well as influencers from YouTube and Twitter. The 10 Finalists for each Followers' Choice category will be identified by the omy.sg editorial team, and winners of these categories will be determined entirely by public voting.

For the third year in a row, Singapore Blog Awards is proud to welcome Panasonic Singapore as its presenting sponsor, who is also sponsoring the "Best Beauty Blog" and "Best Cooking Blog" awards under the Advertisers' Choice category.

Ms Clarice Tan, Marketing Communication Manager, Panasonic Singapore, said: "At Panasonic, we believe the best ideas come from attentive observation of everyday living, careful listening to customers and a constant commitment to making lives easier, more comfortable, more fun. Panasonic is pleased to sponsor the Singapore Blog Awards for the third year running as the Awards have provided us with a strong platform where we can listen to and work closely with bloggers, a highly-integral group of stakeholders within our social media community. We have discovered many innovative ideas through the bloggers' content, and have also generated greater brand awareness for Panasonic through our engagement with bloggers via the Awards."

This year's Singapore Blog Awards will see a series of fun-filled activities leading to the grand award ceremony in August. Bloggers and members of the public can expect free workshops, social quizzes, as well as online contests.

Members of the public can now visit the official SBA site (http://sgblogawards.omy.sg) to nominate their favourite blogs, and bloggers can also register their own blogs for the Awards. Nomination and registration is now open till 19 June, followed by a voting and judging phase which will end in July.