One of the main reasons why it is difficult to measure public relations strategy results is because, previously, the business goals are not clearly established, but also because the tools and vocabulary used in this area are unknown.
In this case, the agency role very important to understand all of these terms and to able to apply and translate them into concrete actions, not only during the strategy planning but also during the results presentation.
We'll leave you a glossary that will surely be useful to start planning your communication:
A
Advertising Equivalence Value: Amount that would cost a story if it appeared as advertising. It is determined by multiplying the size of the story by the advertising rate of a relevant publication, radio or TV station.
Agenda setting: The ability of the news media to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda.
Almanaque organizacional: Organizational Portfolio: Document that provides the history of an organization, including its achievements, activities, and goals achieved.
Angle: The viewpoint from which a story is told. Publicists, reporters, and journalists all use a specific angle, or approach, to communicate their story to a targeted audience.
B
Benchmarking: A measurement of the quality of an organization's policies, products, programs, strategies, etc., and their comparison with standard measurements, or similar measurements of its peers.
Boilerplate: Often found in press releases, a boilerplate is standard verbiage that gives a brief history of the organization(s) and is located at the bottom of all company-issued releases.
Brand Identity: The outward expression of the brand, which is the symbolic embodiment of all information connected with a product or service, including its name and visual appearance.
Branding: The process of creating and/or disseminating the brand name. Branding can be applied to the entire corporate identity as well as to individual product and service names.
B-roll: Previously recorded video footage, often shown in the background, which can be used to bolster a news story about your client.
Business Process Reingeniering (BPR): The analysis and redesign of workflows within and between enterprises in order to optimize end-to-end processes and automate non-value-added tasks.
Byline: Articles or tips that are authored by a thought leader at a company (or the company itself) about a topic in which they are influential.
C
Circulation: In the media industry, circulation typically refers to the number of copies a print publication sells or distributes.
Collateral Materials: A wide range of documents including catalogs, brochures, counter displays and sell sheets that companies use to promote themselves to their target audience.
Communications Audit: The systematic appraisal of all of an organization’s communications. A communications audit analyzes all messages sent out by the organization and may also study messages received by audiences about the organization.
Community relations: An area of public relations with responsibilities for building relationships with constituent publics such as schools, charities, clubs and activist interests of the neighborhoods or metropolitan area(s) where an organization operates.
Concept Story: Feature story designed to pique the interest of a particular demographic audience.
Content marketing: The process of developing, publishing, and distributing useful information that engages prospective customers and propels them toward purchase. Do not confuse with advertisement.
Controlled communication channels: Tipo de canales que no están bajo el control directo de la compañía, por ejemplo, periódicos, revistas, radio y televisión.
Conversation: Measures study online conversations (tweets, blog posts and comments, linkbacks, etc.) related to an organization, issue, etc. The conversation may be measured by quantity, tone/sentiment, message fidelity, etc.
Conversation Metrics: Analyze online conversations (tweets, links, posts, comments etc.) related to an organization. Some of them are quantity, feeling, tone, message fidelity, etc.
Co-op Advertising: A joint advertising program by which ad costs are shared between two or more parties.
Corporate fact sheet: A document describing a company’s principles, services, philosophy, and fees, along with all company contact information, like: address, telephone, fax, and e-mail.
Corporate Identity: The company personality, composed of its ethics, philosophy, history, behaviors and standards with which it is identified from others.
Corporate Image: Refers to what a company means or how it is perceived. It is created through the public relations strategy and also the journalists and media are involved.
Corporate Personality: This is what distinguishes one company from the others, and is composed of beliefs, values, mission, goals, and attitude.
Corporate Social Responsibility: Combination of several activities integrated into the strategy that an organization uses.
Coverage/hits: An article, story, blog or segment that mentions your client. Also refers to the physical copy of that mention that can be given to clients.
Crisis Communication: Communication that organizations use when experiencing a crisis. It is differentiated from the standard messages communicated by the organization.
D
Daypart: Different time segments of the day utilized by broadcast media to sell advertising. Advertising costs vary by the daypart selected.
Digital Rights Management (DRM): Refers to access control methods that limit usage of digital content to protect publishers and copyright holders.
E
Earned media: Refers to publicity gained through promotional efforts other than paid media advertising, which refers to publicity gained through advertising, or owned media, which refers to branding.
Embargo: The sharing of unannounced, relevant information between a PR pro and the media that cannot be published before an agreed upon time and date.
Engagement: A measurement of the nature and extent of audience engagement through two-way conversations, the sharing of information, and other interactions such as subscribership.
F
Feature: Informative text that includes news items, statements, and illustrative descriptions.
Frequency: Measures the number of times (within a specific period) an audience potentially receives a message.
G
Ghostwritter: As a writer with no byline, ghostwriters usually work without the recognition that credited authors receive.
I
Impressions: Tally the total number of times the potential audience (including duplications) was exposed to a message within a specific period.
Insertion Order: A formal authorization to place an ad campaign, which identifies the specific print publication, run dates, and associated fees. This serves as a contract between the publisher selling the advertising space and the media buyer.
Inserto: Formato de publicidad en un medio impreso que se mete en las páginas de periódicos, revistas o catálogos. Puede ir pegado al cuerpo de la publicación o no.
Inventario de públicos: Lista de audiencias a las que se dirigen los mensajes de una compañía o individuo. Éstas pueden ser, por ejemplo, accionistas, otras empresas o público en general. Generalmente, los públicos se dividen según sus intereses o preocupaciones en común, demográfica o psicográficamente, por decir algunos ejemplos.
L
Lobbying: The specialized area of public relations that fosters and maintains relations with a government or its officials for the primary purpose of influencing legislation and regulation.
Lobbyist: Professional who uses the information to obtain specific favorable results for he/she's client.
M
Media advisory: A written document sent to local media outlets about an upcoming press conference, briefing, or other event. A media advisory usually includes the basic details about the event and its schedule and location.
Media Plan: A plan designed to target the proper demographics for an advertising campaign through the use of specific media outlets.
Media planning & buying: The role of an advertising agency in finding the most appropriate media products for each client and negotiating/buying ‘space’ based upon a predetermined budget.
Media policy: Organizational instructions as to how company representatives will communicate with the media.
Media Relations: A practice in which people converse with the press in the hopes of securing interviews, placing quotes, and fostering relationships between individuals and organizations and the media.
Media Relevance: The criteria that determine the relevance of a specific medium to the organization’s target audience. This can be assessed by how closely the composition of the media audience.
Media tour: A series of engagements, or a single event to promote a certain organization, product, or service to members of the public press. Common resources for a media tour include a press kit, presentation material, and a representative (internal or external) to interact with the press.
Media training: Providing individuals with guidelines, strategies, and skills to work efficiently and effectively with media for public relations purposes.
Message fidelity: Delivers information on how well the message conveyed by the media matched the message or messages the organization wanted to communicate.
News Conference: A meeting at which government or business officials make a public statement and reporters can ask questions.
News or cable service: Press releases distribution service that allows the agency to send news about its clients to many media in a short time.
O
Omnibus: Issues monitoring/analysis is undertaken by a group of non competing organizations who share the cost of gathering media intelligence on a situation or issue.
Opinion Leader: Person who consciously or unconsciously influences the opinion of others on a certain topic.
Outcomes: Measures are used to evaluate how content measures correlate with outcome objectives.
Outputs: Communication materials to make them reach the target audience, the consumer or the client. Some examples are communications, blogposts, web pages information, downloadable value content, etc.
Outtakes: Once we send the messages to the audience, the outtakes will help us to know what reactions have caused among the public. Examples of outtakes are shares, likes, retweets, responses, engagements, increased visits to a website, etc.
Owned Media: Content created by you and your client, such as company blogs, company website and corporate social media profiles.
P
Paid Media: Not just your traditional advertising, this can encompass Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter ads that can work as part of an integrated PR and social media strategy.
Pass-along rate: The number of times a received document (article, newsletter, brochure, report, etc.) is shared with other individuals. This number is higher than the circulation numbers because it is an estimate of how many readers view the same copy rather than how many copies are distributed.
Pitch: A highly targeted note that is crafted and sent to an editor to gauge their interest in your client. Can also incorporate photos and videos, and ends with a call to action.
Placement: where the story was placed in the media. In print, it could range from the front page to page 52 or in the sports or world news section. In broadcast, placement is where the story was aired in the newscast (lead story, story number five, etc.). In new media, it could refer to the space it occupies on a blog, the number of mentions on Twitter, etc.
Podcasting: The method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet using a syndication format and for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term podcast, like ‘radio’, can mean both the content and the method of delivery.
Positioning Strategy: When a company chooses one or two important key areas to concentrate on and excels in those areas.
Press agentry: Creating newsworthy stories and events to attract media attention and gain public notice (although not all this attention may be positive).
Press Clipping: News compendium appeared on a certain product, service or on the company itself in the written press.
Press kit: A set of documents given to media, usually containing press releases, fact sheets, photos, videos and other relevant material to them about your client or their product/service.
Press Release: A press release or news release is a concise written statement distributed to targeted publications for the purpose of announcing something of news value.
Print media: A medium consisting of paper and ink, including newspapers, magazines, classifieds, circulars, journals, yellow pages, billboards, posters, brochures, and catalogs.
Product differentiation: Establishing clear distinction between products serving the same market segment. This is typically accomplished through effective positioning, packaging, and pricing strategies.
Production Times: Time a reporter needs to gather information for he/her story. Generally, print media requires more production time than digital media.
Prominence: Refers to the attention a story on an organization, brand, issue, message, etc. gets in the media.
Proof: A paper rendering for the purpose of checking the quality and accuracy of the material to be printed.
Propaganda: Series of messages launched that seeks to influence the behavior and value system of people. Generally, this term is associated with political aspects.
Proposición única de compra: Características y beneficios que diferencian al producto o servicio de una compañía de su competencia.
Publicaciones horizontales: Publicaciones de negocios que tienen como objetivo llegar a gente de intereses similares en una variedad de compañías o industrias.
Public Affairs Administration: Anticipating proactive process identifying, evaluating and responding to public policy issues that affect organizations and their audience.
Publicity: A component of the promotional mix, the deliberate attempt to manage the public’s perception of a subject; Whereas public relations is the management of all communication between the client and selected target audiences, publicity is the management of product- or brand-related communications between the firm and the general public.
Public relations: Considered both an art and a science, public relations is the management of communications between an organization and its key public to build, manage, and sustain its positive image.
R
Reach: The geographical area the media reach, including national, provincial, regional, and specifically defined and selected areas.
Reactive public relations: Response to crises and putting out fires defensively rather than initiating programs.
Readership: The total number of primary and pass-along readers of a publication.
Reputation Management – The practice of correcting and/or enhancing the perception of a brand, individual, organization or business. Reputation Management programs are often executed following crises.
Return on Investment (ROI): Seeks to find the actual or perceived future value of a marketing campaign. It is calculated as the ratio of the amount gained or lost, relative to the initial investment.
Round-up: A story that highlights several products/services that apply to a certain topic, which can range from Valentine’s Day gifts to best products from a trade show.
S
Sending over the wire/wire service: A distribution service for press releases that allows you to get news out about your client to several media outlets across the country in a short amount of time. Since there is a cost associated with wire services, they are usually only used in the event of big company news or breaking news. Businesswire and PR Newswire are examples of this service.
Shot: Publication printed copies number in only one direction. For graphic media, the copies publication total number, including subscriptions and sale at kiosks and discounting returns.
Social Marketing: Activities involved in the program creation and implementation designed to promote the acceptance of a social practice or idea, for example, stop smoking or campaigns against the use of alcohol.
Speaker bureau: Search for conferences or fairs spaces for managers or spokespersons of the company.
Specialized Publication: Content focused on a specific industry and people working on it.
Spot: Brief advertising video.
Supplement: Printed accompanying a publication. Generally, it has certain periodicity.
Syndication/syndicate: A news service that takes a single story and places it on several websites or in several outlets nation/worldwide – Associated Press is an example of a syndicate.
T
Tanda: TV or radio advertising space, which is transmitted between shows.
Target: People to whom the communication is directed. Target audiences.
Tear sheets: A page sent to the advertiser that serves as proof of the ad insertion.
Titling: Process by which titles and expressive resources are added to journalistic materials. This includes bullets, headlines, highlighted textual citations, epigraphs, etc.
Traction: A term to denote interest in your client from a media outlet – this could be a request for more information or actual coverage.
Turn around: It literally means to "turn around" the company. It is the company extreme makeover.
Z
Zapping: Changing between 2 or 3 TV channels using the remote control without paying much attention to one program in specific.
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The task of public relations, communication and advertising is very broad, but if you incorporate this glossary little by little into your daily activities, you will be able to put together a strategy that will help you meet your business goals.
Fuentes:
http://www.rrppnet.com.ar/diccionariodecomunicacion.htm
http://www.relacionadorpublico.com/2008/05/en-construccin-relaciones-pblicas.html
https://www.blastmedia.com/2013/03/24/pr-terms/
http://www.cocommunications.com/news/prmarketing-glossary/
https://www.prsa.org/about/about-pr/glossary-of-terms/
https://www.agilitypr.com/resources/pr-glossary/media-monitoring-analysis/