A plain-language glossary of the public relations vocabulary you will encounter working with an agency or an in-house team. Two sections: the terms worth knowing, and the terms used to make routine work sound more sophisticated than it is. If an agency uses one from the second list without explanation, ask what they mean.
The terms worth knowing
Beat — the subject a journalist covers. The most important word in this glossary, because pitching outside someone's beat is the most common reason outreach fails.
Boilerplate — the standard paragraph about the company at the end of a press release. Rarely read.
Bridging — moving from a question you were asked to a point you wanted to make. A legitimate technique, used at most twice per interview. Beyond that it reads as evasion.
Byline / contributed article — an article published under your executive's name. Valuable in a publication your buyers read, worthless in one that publishes anything submitted.
Deskside — an informal meeting between a spokesperson and a journalist with no specific story attached. Relationship-building.
Earned media — coverage a journalist chose to write. As distinct from paid (advertising) and owned (your own channels). The distinction matters and gets blurred deliberately.
Embargo — an agreement that reporters may prepare a story now and publish at an agreed time. Requires three weeks' notice to be meaningful. A day's notice is not an embargo.
Exclusive — giving one publication the story before anyone else. Buys depth and placement, costs breadth.
Hard news / soft news — time-sensitive versus evergreen. Determines how fast you need to move.
Holding statement — a short, pre-approved paragraph issued early in an incident, confirming what is known without speculating. The most valuable single document in crisis preparation.
Media list — the set of journalists you intend to pitch. Its quality determines almost everything.
News peg — the reason a story is happening now rather than any other week. A pitch without one is asking a reporter to invent the timing for you.
Off the record — not for publication, agreed before it is said and agreed by both parties. Saying it afterwards has no effect.
On background — usable but not attributable to you by name. Terms vary; agree them explicitly.
Pitch — the email proposing a story. Under 150 words if it is any good.
Press kit / media kit — assets a journalist might need: images, bios, boilerplate, product detail.
Syndication — automatic republication of a release across other sites. Produces mentions, not coverage. Counting it as coverage is the most common self-deception in PR reporting.
Trade press — publications serving a specific industry. Usually more valuable to B2B companies than national media, and consistently undervalued because the names are less impressive.
Terms used to make ordinary work sound complicated
Advertising value equivalency (AVE) — assigning coverage the notional cost of buying equivalent advertising. Discouraged by the industry's own professional bodies for years. It persists because it produces a large dollar figure. If it appears in a report, ask why.
Amplification — sharing something. Usually on social media.
Earned media value (EMV) — AVE with a new name.
Impressions / reach — a publication's total audience, not the number of people who saw your story. Adding these across outlets produces numbers exceeding national populations.
Integrated communications — using more than one channel.
Narrative architecture / messaging framework — deciding what you want to say. Genuinely useful work; the terminology is inflated.
Share of voice — how much of the category's coverage mentions you rather than competitors. Legitimate when measured within a defined outlet set. Meaningless when measured across everything, because syndication dominates.
Storytelling — writing.
Thought leadership — having a public opinion. Real when the opinion is specific and contestable, filler when it is not.
360 campaign — doing several things at once.
Terms that changed meaning recently
AI Overview — the summary Google now places above search results. Relevant to PR because it changes what coverage is worth: fewer clicks, but citation in the summary itself now carries value.
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) — making content more likely to be cited by AI answers. The measured tactics are unglamorous: include statistics, direct quotes and cited sources. A peer-reviewed study of generative-engine optimisation (KDD 2024) found that adding direct quotations, statistics and cited sources measurably improved how often a page was surfaced in generative answers — by up to 40% on the authors' benchmark, with the size of the effect varying by subject area.
Zero-click — a search where the user gets their answer without visiting any site. Now the majority outcome for informational queries, which is why coverage should be judged on citation and credibility rather than referral traffic.
Two terms worth being sceptical of
Guaranteed placement. In earned media there is no such thing. If it is guaranteed, it is paid, and it should be disclosed as such.
Media impressions delivered. A number that sounds like a result and is not.
The short version
- Beat, news peg, embargo and media list are the four terms that actually affect outcomes.
- Syndication is not coverage. Mentions are not readers.
- AVE, EMV and impressions exist to produce big numbers. Treat them accordingly.
- "Off the record" only counts if agreed beforehand, by both people.
- Guaranteed placement means paid placement.
Salient PR runs earned media programmes for technology companies.
Sources
- Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD
If you want to talk to someone who does not use any of this language — Salient PR is a technology PR agency working with technology companies. See how we work or start a conversation.
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A working glossary of public relations terms, including the ones agencies use to make ordinary work sound complicated and what they actually mean.
