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PR Glossary

Definition of terms in PR

ABC – Audit Bureau of Circulation

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) independently checks the circulation of the national newspapers.

ACE – Advertising Cost Equivalent

ACE is a comparison between the cost of an advertising space and an equivalent editorial piece. It makes it possible to measure the value of PR.

ACE PR Value

The ACE PR Value is an industry view that the value of PR is 2.5 times more than that of advertising taking into account the high editorial involvement and the story content.

Advertising

Advertising is paid-for space in media that intends to promote a company’s product or service within the area that the media targets.

Advertorial

An advertorial is a paid-for article that has the appearance of an editorial. Readers will be able to identify the piece as ‘promotion’ or as ‘advertorial’.

A company in the business of creating advertisements, packaging and names for products and services, as well as providing marketing and merchandising advice and general business and promotional counsel to its clients...

App

Also known as an application, an app is computer software designed to help a user perform specific tasks. Apps have become popular due to mobile devices such as the iPad, iPhone and Android hardware, and due to development for Facebook.

BARB – Broadcasters Audience Research Board

The BARB is a service providing information on television audience levels every minute. This information is available for ITV and BBC.

Blog/blogging

A blog is a weblog or web page entry, like an online diary, and is written using a simple text editor and posted online usually with a simple mouse ‘click’. By tagging a blog with keywords, the blog can appear in Google searches. As at February 2011 it wa

Blog post

A blog post is an entry made by someone on their blog. These can be read by the estimated 1.97 billion people connected to the internet, and so can be a valuable PR tool.

Byline

The byline is the name of the author or journalist written under the headline.

Circulation

Circulation is the number of copies distributed by a publication. Circulation figures are available for all major publications.

Cloud, The

The cloud refers to online computing services that are provided to users in a simple and easy to use format and that work without having to host files on a PC or mobile device. On-demand cloud services are therefore available from any location where an in

Collateral PR

Collateral PR is materials such as a brochure or printed information about a company. Often supports media or packs and therefore obtaining links with the primary source.

Column Inches

Column inches is a form of measuring PR success by multiplying the length of a piece of editorial by the number of columns.

Competitor Analysis

A comparison of PR success against competitors…

Composition

Composition is the different types of audiences that make up the target PR audience.

Conversation market

Conversation market refers to a style of marketing where a direct ‘do this’ message is negatively perceived. Companies no longer ‘own’ the conversation – but they can participate and so influence it.

Core Message

The core message is the angle taken in order to target the correct publications. Press releases contain the core message.

Coverage

Coverage refers to the amount of exposure given to a company in the media.

CPT – Cost Per Thousand

The CPT measures the cost-efficiency of publications. Calculated by dividing the rate or specific advertisement cost by the circulation or number of readers.

Crisis Management

A crisis can be described as a period of potential or actual damage to the perception and/or reputation of an organisation, individual or concept caused or started by an unexpected event. Forward planning can prevent a crisis or minimise the impact of one

Demographics

Information about the target audience. Such as age, gender, race etc.

DPS – Double Page Spread

A Double Page Spread (DPS) is two pages of the same article covering both pages of an open publication. The article becomes more eye-catching to the reader.

Duplication

Duplication is where a person consumes more than one media; i.e. they may read ‘The Times’ and ‘The Telegraph’.

Editorial

An editorial is a section of a publication written by a journalist such as an article or feature.

Executive Summary

An executive summary is a listing of key research findings, for example, of public relations audiences

Facebook

A social networking service launched in 2004 where users can create a personal profile and share text-based messages, photos, videos and links. Users network with others by connecting with one another and becoming ‘friends’…

Feature

An article of a detailed nature.

Forum

An online message board or discussion website where users can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. A forum is hierarchical in structure and can contain any number of subforums, each of which may have several topics.

Foursquare

A social network that uses the GPS signal on mobile devices to pinpoint a user’s location and display public places (such as restaurants, bars, historical monuments, museums, parks etc) in the vicinity. Users can then broadcast their location together wit

Frequency

Since people are exposed to more than one type of media, frequency is the average number of times that your audience could be exposed to your message.

IPR – Institute of Public Relations

The leading public relations industry professional body for the UK and Europe.

IPRA – International Public Relations Association

An organisation based on membership for professionals in up to 95 countries…

Keywords

Specific words or phrases often within a press release…

A business-oriented social network launched in 2003 that is used for professional networking.

Mechanical Data

The layout details of a publication including page size, width of the columns and number of columns.

Media Type

Such as broadcast, national papers, consumer magazines and local or regional newsletters.

NLA – Newspaper Licensing Agency

The NLA issues copyright licences to companies who wish to copy articles…

OTS - Opportunity To See (OTH - Opportunity To Hear)

The number of times the target audience is likely to see a marketing message.

Overlap

Houses that are able to obtain more than one ITV station due to living on the boundaries of regions.

Podcast

A podcast is an audio or video file recorded and used to deliver information to remote audiences via the internet.

PR – Public Relations

According to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), public relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you…

PR 2.0

The way in which communications professionals utilise social media tools to communicate directly and more effectively with a company’s publics.

Press Release (or ‘media release’ or ‘news release’)

A written announcement issued to the news media and other publications that seeks to draw the public attention of a company’s developments.

Proactive PR / Reactive PR

Editorials that appear as a direct result of the PR.

Publics

Publics' are audiences that are important to the organisation…

RAJAR – Radio Joint Audience Research

An independent research body which monitors the performance of all radio stations in the UK, whether BBC or commercial.

Rate Card

The cost published for advertising in any type of media.

Reach

The reach of a PR campaign is the total number of people within your target audience who may see your message…

Readership

A general term that refers to the number of people reading a particular publication…

ROI – Return on Investment

A measure of budget spent on a campaign, versus the income generated through the activity.

ROP – Run of Paper

It is an instruction to a publisher indicating that no special position is sought for an advertisement…

RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

SCC RATE – Single Column Centimetre Advertising Rate

How advertising rates are calculated…

Sector Analysis

The measure of an industry sector's media coverage.

SERIES – Regional Newspapers

A number of publications covering a geographical area represented by the same publisher.

Social media

Software tools that allow groups to generate content and engage in peer-to-peer conversations and exchange of content.

Social Media News Release

Also know as Social Media Press Release, an evolution in the traditional press release where the news is posted in specific format…

Syndicated Articles

The same article published across a series. The copy and layout can sometimes vary within the series.

Tagging

Selecting key words or phrases in a blog to ensure maximum chance of being picked up by a search engine.

Target Audience

This is the group of people you are trying to reach with your message.

Target Publications

Newspapers and magazines with a readership profile best matching a company's target market.

Tonal Bias

Whether an article takes a positive, neutral or negative angle.

Tone of the Media

An analysis tool that accurately reflects the mood of the press. Takes into account the amount of editorial bias.

TV Regions

The transmission areas of each of the ITV companies cover specific UK.

TVR – Television Rating

Percentage of specific demographic viewing a channel or programme…

A text-based message of 140 characters sent on the Twitter social network.

Twitter

A social network and microblogging service in which users can send text-based messages of up to 140 characters to each other…

Universe

The total number of people who read, listen to and watch a type of media.

Web 2.0

A mix of technology and business process that facilitates conversational marketing.

Web 3.0

Also known as the semantic web, the next stage in internet development where search engines and machines are able to create links between content by understanding the…

Wisdom of the Crowds

Concept that groups of people will give a better overall rating than a single individual…

WOM

Word-of-mouth/word-of-mouse marketing where ‘people networks’ promote the message without outside influence or management.

YouTube

A video-sharing social media website in which users can upload, share and view video content…