The glossary of PR terms that you never knew you needed

Jelly baby sweets on a white background.

Rose Media Group have been at the forefront of the PR scene for many years, and we know (and use) a wide range of PR terms, buzzwords, key phrases and calls to action. We specialise in providing the ultimate B2B PR service for our select group of clients, and we know what we are talking about. So, for the uninitiated, those who think a pitch is something you play football on, here’s a less than serious look at some of the things your friendly, door to door PR specialist might say.

Boilerplate

Let’s ease you into this gently with a little quiz. Is boilerplate:

  1. A phrase for a generic section of written text?
  2. A humorous anagram of Liberal Poet?
  3. A name for overlapping slabs of rock?

The answer is….all of them. Now, while you’re reeling from the shock of being correct, here’s what it means in PR terms. Boilerplate usually refers to the standardised section at the end of a press release, the part that tells you what the company does in the greater scheme of things.

Earned media

You can probably be forgiven for thinking earned media refers to an article you managed to get published in the East Dymchurch Observer after bribing the editor with a pub lunch and a box of After Eight mints. In fact, it refers to media coverage that your PR specialist got on your behalf via a good working relationship with print, online or broadcast media outlets. This is one of those occasions when the truth is nowhere near as interesting as the erroneous assumption.

Influencer

If you’re the sort of person who would eat a botulism burger just because Kylie Jenner told you to (not that she would, of course), then you’ll already know what an influencer is. If your only exposure to the powers of an influencer was at school when the naughtiest kid in the class told you to throw a jelly baby at the teacher, then you need to wake up to the power these people hold in the 21st century. PR influencers can reach out to the whole world, a whole world that’s actually listening. Tapping into that potential can be extremely rewarding.

White paper

You already know about the white paper, don’t you? You know you can buy it at Staples, that it comes in a pack of 500 sheets known as a ream, and that you can use it in the office printer. That’s all there is to know, right? WRONG! In PR terms, a white paper is an influential (there’s that word again) report that’s used to educate a given audience and, hopefully, to promote a specific product. The ream does have white paper in it, of course, so we can see why you might be confused.

TLAs

You may not have heard of TLAs, but we at Rose Media Group know all about them. Put simply, a TLA is a Three Letter Acronym, and in PR (itself a Two Letter Acronym) we have more than we can shake a stick at: ROI (Return of Investment), SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), RNR (Radio News Release), DMA (Designated Marketing Area), SMT (Satellite Media Tour), B2B (Business to Business) and, our personal favourite, CAC (Cake and Coffee). This is just a small cross-section that we have at, er, RMG.

David Showell

David Showell

David Showell is Chief Copywriter for Rose Media Group, creating content for clients across a range of industry sectors.

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