We have been living online for a long time. We read and follow news, use social networks, make phone calls, etc. We see a lot of photos that we evaluate. We create an image of people we don’t know.

Photography as the key to building a personal brand

With well-selected photos, you can improve your professional profile or act trustworthy. Invest time and attention with this form of visual communication that can “add a few more points”

1. Show your face

As the main photo, use the one where you can see the whole face. Profile photography should be simple, unobtrusive and professional.

2. Natural and simple background

The selected background can also enhance the photo. If you want to be trustworthy, use your natural background in which you are. For example, if you work as an ophthalmologist, prepare photos directly from the outpatient clinic, use the props you have on hand – instruments, reading wall and the like. If you want to look less formal, use a simple background that will not disturb. Don’t forget to choose suitable clothes, ideally contrasting, which will not disappear in the photo.

3. With or without a smile

Have several types of photos in your profile. A gentle smile will help you look more sympathetic and pleasant. But be careful. A smile doesn’t always fit. We recommend uploading photos with or without a smile. The journalist chooses a photo that fits his article.

4. What format is appropriate?

Take the opportunity to upload more pictures so that the journalist can choose exactly what he needs. Prepare a photo in both portrait and landscape. A simple profile and a photo from practice. Upload photos in their original high resolution.

Our supertip: Use a professional photographer

If you entrust your visual promotion to professionals, you will get quality material that you can use for several years. Prepare several types of clothes for photography, change the background and try photos with or without a smile. Take a picture of the whole, but also the detail.

We continue our blog interview series with Andrew Rosenbaum, an important figure in the Cypriot journalism.

Hi Andrew! Thank you for accepting to do this interview. First things first, let us know more about yourself!

I am currently the Business Editor and publisher at the Cyprus Mail newspaper, the largest news website and newspaper on the island ( cyprus-mail.com )

I was born in New York, but have spent more than thirty years in Europe – I speak French, Dutch, German, Italian and Russian. I’ve been working as a journalist and copywriter in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Cyprus. As a journalist, I’ve worked for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, The Telegraph, Time magazine and many other more specialised publications in finance and technology.  I’m an expert at targeting copy to specific audiences, and in making complex ideas understandable to a broad readership.

 2.What are you working on right now? 

Currently, I manage the Business Portal of the Cyprus Mail. I launched the portal and have built it up into the go-to website for Cyprus business, with more than 50,000 regular viewers. I’ve also done a number of specialised web projects on Cyprus business. These are also getting significant advertising support.

3.We are living hard times nowadays. Did the pandemic affect your work in any way? How?

The pandemic has made it impossible to hold live events, and thus our virtual work has had to compete hard with other sites. But we are winning the numbers game, with 18 million website views per month.

 4.What does a normal work day look like to you?

I start at 6 a.m. and work online and in live meetings until about 19:00.

5.What project did you take part at that you are most proud of?

The creation, launch and management of our Cyprus in the 4^th Industrial Revolution series, which has highlighted the robust business community here, has been both a critical and commercial success.

6. What is the most challenging part regarding your career?

Working at several startups over the years, and taking them from scratch to success.

7.What are your future plans regarding your career? 

I plan to continue creating business projects and making them successful. I am entirely results and deadline driven.

Travelling while working: sounds like the perfect job, doesn’t it? Lieze Neven explains to us today what does a travel blog consist of, how much work do you have to put in it and how is it to have a travel blog during a pandemic.

Thank you for accepting to do this interview! First, could you tell us a bit about yourself?  (where are you from, what did you study etc.?)

My name is Lieze and I am originally from Belgium. I studied history at the University of Antwerp but later on decided that marketing was more up my street after doing marketing for a new art gallery in Antwerp for two years. Before I could finish my studies in marketing I made a decision to move to the United Kingdom as I met my future husband that winter and I could not be without him. He is British and was living in London at the time so I took the plunge. With my knowledge and experience in marketing I was able to secure a job as a marketing executive in London. 

As a European it became clear that my future in London would be difficult. This is why Josh and I made the decision to move abroad. We got married in April and moved to Dubai in August where Josh started a job as a history teacher in an international school. We decided that we wanted to travel the world for the rest of our lives, which was also the main reason why I started my travel blog.

My husband and I are currently living in Kathmandu, Nepal and are looking forward to travelling in the area, exploring more of South-East Asia, and trekking and hiking in the himalayas! 

I see that you have a travel blog. Where did you get the inspiration to create one? 

As a ‘’trailing spouse’’, I had to try and find a way to entertain myself, to do something and maybe even to earn money, while my husband and I were living abroad. As I had been writing for music e-zines and online magazines about pop culture from the age of 17, a blog seemed like an obvious choice. I was able to combine my knowledge about digital marketing, blogging, and SEO in order to build a website that would eventually allow me to make a bit of an income – which is a goal I have now smashed. 

What are you working on right now? 

Nothing special really. I am keeping my head down, creating content, waiting for more countries to come out of lockdown to see what will happen to my traffic and my income. Most of the data we bloggers are seeing is heavily skewed. You won’t know what will work, what will earn you money in the long run, until travel is back to normal. 

We are living hard times nowadays. Did the pandemic affect your work in any way? How?

I started taking my blog seriously at the end of March of 2021 ( I was working for my husband’s school for two years before that) and was able to grow my audience and my income. My time as a marketing executive taught me that any articles, any changes you make when it comes to SEO, will need at least 6 months to ‘’ripen’’. This meant that I was able to motivate myself to get the content out just because I would reap the rewards after 6 months – and that was the case! 

What does a normal work day look like to you?

I normally would get up with my husband at 7 AM after which I do about 20 minutes of Yoga. I used to think yoga was a fad – until I was quarantined here in Kathmandu and tried it because I was bored. 

Then I go down and make myself a large french press full of coffee after which I start my day. Before noon I do all the things that can bring in money – most of the days this will be freelancing. In the afternoon I do things for me – working on my blog mosty. I tend to work until 8pm or 9pm depending on how I feel. The problem with a blog is that there is always more to do, there is always more to learn, and there is always more to write. 

What is the most challenging part regarding your career?

Explaining other people what I do. Which is why I call it travel writing rather than travel blogging. I am not a blogger in the way that I do not share a lot of personal stories. I try to write travel articles. 

Most people think blogging is just a hobby, while it actually is not only incredibly difficult, it is also a viable career. Some bloggers earn more by blogging full time than they did in their day jobs. But by the time I get to explain this, people have already made up their mind. 

Any advice you’d give to someone who wants to start a career like yours?  

Decide whether you want to do this as a hobby or as a career. Sure, you can start your blog out as a hobby and then build it into a career, but you will feel as if you wasted time, effort and money as most of the blog posts you wrote for your hobby blog will need to be reworked or even deleted. 

Second of all it is important to do keyword research for every single article. Don’t just write articles because you ‘’think’’ people will want to read them. Base everything you do on your blog on hard evidence, on the data from your keyword research, and the findings from looking at Google Analytics. 

Third and final – work with medium term and long term goals. SEO takes time to have an effect. Your articles will only really start to rank after 5 to 6 months. It is important you understand this and don’t expect articles to receive views and visits within the first few days. Use short term goals for things you want to achieve on your blog like ‘’I want to post 5 blogs this month’’ and medium to long term goals for anything you really do care about such as visits or income or rankings. 

What are your future plans regarding your career? 

I want to try and launch a niche site about a destination every year while working on my main blog. I launched exploringuae.com this year as a test to see what works and what doesn’t. So far all seems good!

With the advent of GDPR legislation, cookie banners have appeared on almost all websites. In most cases, you must also pay for the “prepare all cookies” formulation, which you make to most visitors.

Let’s take a look at what you actually agree with and how much text you would have to read in order to make an informed decision about your personal information.

For a better understanding, let’s take www.theguardian.com as a popular news medium.

One of the best ways to build consumer confidence in a brand is to make a positive mention in the media space. In addition to traditional advertising, there are several ways to communicate with the media. One of the ways is our platform, which offers a journalistic list of experts ready to answer their questions.

At the very beginning of the whole process is a journalist who has an idea of ​​the topics. If he lacks the opinion of an expert, he can address a group of specialists through medializuj.sk. Create a call out, that automatically travels to the mailboxes of registered users.

How to respond to a statement?

The question you are about to answer has been delivered to your inbox. How to increase your chances?

1. Completed profile with references

You can also increase your interest in yourself by having a professional profile ready. Fill in all the information, add photos (ideal profile, along with photos from your practice) and references.

OUR TIP: If you haven’t commented on the media yet, it doesn’t matter. Prepare a test report or article with an opinion to add to your references.

2. Respond quickly and meet deadlines

The work of a journalist is dynamic and fast. Many of our calls have exact dates. You usually have less than 48 hours to respond. Therefore, try to react promptly and within the set deadline.

3. Be respectful and helpful

Show interest in the report you send to the journalist. Be respectful, patient and willing to answer other questions.

4. Follow the journalist’s instructions

In the call out, you will often find the exact instruction on what the journalist is expecting – the scope, form and structure of the answer. Follow his instructions and prepare an answer when asked.

5. Is your answer interesting?

Imagine that many experts respond to the call out. Why should your answer be interesting? If the situation allows, bring the topic as specific as possible. Add interest from your own practice or experience.

A new service ‘Suggestions from experts’ has been added to the Publito application. Do you have a topic you would like to talk about or would you like to hear about it from the media? Add your ideas to the app, which will be automatically displayed to registered journalists.

Why write suggestions?

Even journalists often look for topics that would interest readers, listeners and viewers. Some interesting reports can be created on your initiative. The media thus have a chance to get real stories, news from science and technology, successful projects, problems that are looking for solutions or extraordinary destinies. It’s up to you.

Do you know an interesting topic that would interest journalists?

You can add your suggestions by logging in to your profile. In the left part you will find the section – Suggestions for journalists.

Our TIP: Journalists like to welcome specific topics. Get as close to the topic as possible, add your experiences, opinions and observations.

For example: ‘In 2020, honey production in England fell by 40%. In our practice, we observe a decrease in bees and pollinating insects. What is behind this decline? I will be happy to answer these and similar questions concerning English beekeeping.’

Publito.co.uk is part of the Media Platform project, founded by three young Slovak entrepreneurs: Jana Beer, Miroslava Korytko and Zsolt Szabó.

The reason behind the project is journalistic passion and the belief that only controlled information should be published in the media. The main goal of the project is to create a platform through which journalists can find a reliable source of information for their articles. The project is currently being carried out in several European countries, for example Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and of course, England.

In both Romania and England, Cosmina-Catina Cobzaru is the media coordinator. Cosmina studied Journalism and Media Production at Solent University in Southampton, England. She chose to join the Publito platform in December 2020.