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Friday, June 4, 2010

PR terms glossary

PR terms glossary
Here's a list of some commonly used terms in the public relations industry.

A
Abstract: a condensed version of a longer piece of writing that highlights the major points covered, concisely describes the content and scope of the writing, and reviews the writing's contents in abbreviated form.
Advertorial: an advertisement written in the form of an objective opinion editorial, and presented in a printed publication—usually designed to look like a legitimate and independent news story.
Agency pitch: a full presentation of a recommended public relations program, researched and costed, which usually takes at least four weeks to prepare and few hours to present. Some consultancies reserve the right to charge a fee if not subsequently appointed.

B
B2B: stands for “Business to Business.” A business that markets its services or products to other businesses.
B2C: stands for “Business to Consumer.” A business that markets its services or products to consumers.
Blog: a shared online journal in which people post items on a regular basis. Postings are displayed in reverse chronological order.
Boilerplate: a template of text that can be used repeatedly, without modification.
Brand Messaging: creative messaging that presents and maintains a consistent corporate image across all media channels, including search.
Brand Reputation: the position a company brand occupies.
Branding Strategy: the attempt to develop a strong brand reputation on the web to increase brand recognition and create a significant volume of impressions.
Brief: the instructions from a client to a consultancy, or directions communicated within a PR agency.
Briefing Book: a book of information preparing the client for an interview with a journalist or interviews at a tradeshow or conference. Commonly contains bios, articles written by the journalist, schedules, messaging and general information the executive might want to have on hand during an interview.
Broadcast: the dissemination of programs or messages through the media of radio, Internet or television.
Buzz Monitoring Services: services that will email a client regarding their status in an industry. Most buzz or publicity monitoring services will email anytime a company’s name, executives, products, services or other keyword-based information on them are mentioned on the web. Some services charge a fee; others, such as Yahoo! and Google Alerts, are free.
Buzz Opportunities: topics popular in the media and with specific audiences that receive news coverage or pass along recommendations that help increase exposure for a brand. Ways to uncover potential buzz opportunities include reviewing incoming traffic to a web site from organic links and developing new keywords to reach those visitors, or scanning special interest blogs and social media sites to learn what new topics attract rising interest, also to develop new keywords and messages.
Byline: text including information about the author that is placed between the headline and the text of an article.

C
Calendar Listing: a listing in a publication’s or website’s calendar of events.
Contributed Article: an article that a person writes and submits to a publication interested in the topic. Sometimes referred to as a guest article.
Copy: the text produced by a consultancy for a press release or article. Journalists also refer to their news stories or features as copy.
Corporate Communications: public relations for a corporation, integrated as part of the company's strategic objectives.
Corporate Social/Environmental Responsibility (CSR): taking positive action to show an organization has a responsible attitude to the people and environment it impacts on. Community relations may take the form of social outreach programmes designed to build relations and foster understanding of the role of business in the local community. The role of PR in CSR is to communicate effectively in order to build corporate accountability and transparency.
Crisis Management: having a communications plan in place that can be effectively put into action when something goes wrong for a company or organization. For instance, how a product recall will be handled.
Clipping or Clip: an extract from a newspaper, magazine or website news sources that makes reference to the organization.

D
Dateline: a short piece of text that describes where and when the story or press release was written, filed and/or distributed.
Directory listing: a listing of a websites or businesses information, organized in a hierarchy or interconnected list of categories.

E
e-PR: also known as online PR, this involves communications using the Internet/new technology to communicate with stakeholders. This could include tactics from using the company website effectively, to a "word-of-mouth" campaign using email (known as viral marketing).
Editor: a person responsible for the editorial aspects of a publication and determines the final content of a text.
Editorial: written materials composed to communicate key messages to the various audiences via the media.
Editorial Calendar: shows the dates of major editorial features planned for forthcoming issues of a publication.
Embargo: a warning to the media not to publish a news item until the date specified on the release.
Evaluation: the continuous process of measuring the impact of a PR campaign from start to finish.
Exclusive: a news story offered to a single newspaper title, radio, website, or TV station.
Exposure: the extent to which the target audience becomes aware of a person, message, activity, theme or organization through the efforts of PR.

F
FAQ: stands for frequently asked questions and is a text file that is created to answer common questions that a user or newcomer to a website might have.
Feature Article: a broad or in-depth newspaper, magazine, Internet, radio or TV article that discusses, analyzes or interprets an issue, subject or trend. A feature generally takes longer to research and produce than a news story.
Financial Analyst: someone who studies the financial performance of corporations or a market sector by analyzing available information such as accounts, strategy and management methods.

H
Hyperlink: a graphic or text on a web page that when clicked on takes the user to a new web page or another part of the same page.

I
Industry Analyst: someone who performs primary and secondary market research within a particular segment of an industry to determine what conditions are affecting that industry.
Integrated Campaign: a multidisciplinary approach which uses a number of marketing communication techniques in order to deliver a consistent set of messages. The aim is to achieve seamless communication with the audience.
Internal Communications: communicating with employees and shareholders to inform them of change (for instance during a company merger or a new CEO), keep them up to date with company news and developments, or to help achieve corporate objectives.
Inverted Pyramid: a metaphor used to illustrate a method of writing in which parts of a story are presented in descending order of importance.

K
Keyword: words relating to a specific topic that are entered into a search field in an attempt to retrieve information about that topic.

L
Lead: the first sentence of a story that briefly states the essential facts. Often includes the 5 was: who, what, where, when, why.
Logo: a graphic or symbol owned by and representing a company or brand.

M
Managing Editor: the editor in charge of all editorial activities of a publication including gathering, writing, editing, and placement of stories.
Media Advisory: a concise announcement to the media about a particular event or news item. It is typically more urgent in tone and contains detail in an easy to read format.
Media Contact: an individual who represents a part of the mass media, such as an editor of a publication.
Media Relations: dealing with journalists and building good working relationships with the broadcast, print and online media.
Media Pitch: sometimes referred to as a “pitch.” This is a direct communication to a writer, reporter, blogger or editor via email or telephone in an effort to persuade them to cover your news. Pitches are usually brief and offer information that is customized to the news outlet and editor.
Messages: agreed words or statements that an organization wants to convey to third parties, such as the media, customers, partners or shareholders, for example.
Media: channel for the communication of information including newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, mobile phones and the Internet.

N
News Conference: the live dissemination of news information by an organization to invited media. The format is usually a presentation of information by the organization followed by a question and answer session. Also known as a press conference.

O
Opinion Editorial or OpEd: an article that expresses the opinion of the writer. Can either be written by the editor of a publication or by an outside writer. If written by an outside writer the article is often in response to an editorial piece and appears on the opposite page.

P
Press Kit or Media Kit: a branded packet or collection of materials handed out to the media by an organization and typically available on an organization’s website. It typically contains a fact sheet, biographies, background material, photographs, milestones, illustrations, an FAQ and news releases, or a combination of these.
Press Release: an announcement of news written in an editorial style and sent to the news media. Also known as a news release.
Public Affairs: the process of communicating an organization's point of view on issues or causes to political audiences.

S
SEM: search engine marketing (SEM) describes acts associated with researching, submitting and positioning a Web site within search engines to achieve maximum exposure of your Web site.
SEO: search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website by ranking high in the search results of a search engine.
SMS: (Short Message System): the transmission of short text messages to and from a mobile phone, fax machine and/or IP address
Social Networking: social networking websites function as a virtual online community of internet users. People use these websites to communicate and connect with others who share common interests and activities.
Social Media Release: a new format of writing press releases that incorporates web-based tools for people to share and discuss the information of the release with one another,

T
Talking Points: briefing notes to help a spokesman prepare for an interview with a journalist. The cues should cover the issues that are likely to arise in the interview and approach that should be taken on these issues.
Teaser: a promotion that is intended to arouse interest in the main campaign which follows.
Trade Press: the media relevant to specific audiences. This includes special interest websites and magazines.
Transcript: written outline of a radio or broadcast about an organization.

V
Vertical Media: media relating to different market sectors for a product or service. For example, you can promote a barcode printer in the printing media, packaging media and food retailing media.
Viral Campaign: a communications campaign designed to spread messages rapidly – typically via the Internet. The audience is encouraged to pass a message or video or link on to all of their email contacts.