Journalist Spotlight: Liz Jarvis

Liz Jarvis has been announced as the new editor of Cruise International, the UK’s only cruise-focused consumer travel magazine. Cruise International is a bimonthly newsstand title with high production values. As editor, Liz will be working across the magazine, the website cruise-international.com and the Cruise International Awards, which take place in September.

Liz has been a travel editor and editor for several consumer magazines, most recently Tesco Magazine. Liz’s new role will involve building relationships with both key travel PRs and also journalists and bloggers.

Cision: You’re a prolific tweeter, is there a difference between personal and work-based social media?

Liz: I think it’s important to remember that there is a high probability that some (if not all) of your work contacts will follow your personal account. You need to make it clear in your profile that views are your own – but at the same time, try not to tweet anything that could embarrass you (or your company) professionally. I have a few fairly high profile followers, so I’m always mindful of them too.

Cision: How do you see social media fitting in with your new role?

Liz: I managed the social media campaign for the Tesco Mum of the Year awards, which were a huge success, and have done a lot of blogger outreach, so I’ll be bringing all my digital knowledge and experience to my new role. We’re going to be working with new contributors on the website and the magazine already has a thriving Facebook group and Twitter account. I firmly believe that print should work in tandem with digital, driving readers/traffic to each other – I can’t understand editors who haven’t embraced social media.

Cision: How will your blog, www.themumblog.com, fit in around the new position?

Liz: The beauty of blogging is you can do it very early in the morning or late at night or at weekends and schedule your posts. I’ve been blogging for three years and have always worked full-time.

Cision: What do PRs do that you do not like?

Liz: I’m not a fan of non-personalised round robin invitations that start ‘hi there’, or those phone calls ‘to check you received the press release,’ when we both know they didn’t send one in the first place.

Cision: From your previous experience, what’s the best way to work with PRs?

Liz: I think it’s very important to be honest, because there’s no point in wasting someone’s valuable time, so I’ll always try to tell a PR as quickly as possible if a story idea isn’t going to work for me, and why. I also think face to face meetings to develop good working relationships are vital.