The Local PR Glossary
The vocabulary of local press and AI visibility, defined the way we would explain it across a table.
- Pickup
- When an outlet actually publishes your story or release. The unit of success in PR, and the thing national wires do not report.
- Placement
- Agency language for a story successfully placed in an outlet. Roughly interchangeable with pickup.
- AI citation
- When an AI assistant names or links your business or a story about it while answering a question. The new currency of local visibility.
- AI Overview
- Google's AI-generated answer block at the top of search results, which cites a small set of sources instead of showing ten blue links.
- Earned media
- Coverage you earned editorially rather than paid for as advertising. The most trusted kind, by readers and by AI models.
- Press release
- A one-page news announcement written in journalistic format and sent to outlets in the hope they publish or cover it.
- Newswire
- A distribution service that pushes releases to many publications at once. National wires optimize for volume; we optimize for local pickups.
- Syndication
- The same content republished across many sites automatically. Google devalues links inside syndicated press releases, which is why blasts do little.
- Lede
- The first sentence of a news story, carrying who, what, where, and when. Spelled that way by newsroom tradition.
- Dateline
- The city and date tag at the start of a story, like SARASOTA, Fla., Nov. 7, 2026. It signals where the news is local to.
- Boilerplate
- The standing about-the-company paragraph at the bottom of every release. Write it once, keep it short, reuse it.
- Embargo
- A request that outlets hold your news until a set date and time. Useful for coordinated announcements; respected, not guaranteed.
- Hyperlocal
- Coverage focused on a neighborhood or single community rather than a region. Often the highest-trust, highest-pickup outlets on a route.
- Best-of list
- Editorial roundups like best brunch in Sarasota. Heavily cited by AI assistants, and earned through coverage and pitching, never bought honestly.
- Google Business Profile
- Your business listing on Google Maps and Search. Google's AI leans on it for buy-now queries, so it ships updated with every release we send.
- Media kit
- A folder of your logo, photos, boilerplate, and contact details that makes an editor's job easy. We ask for the essentials at intake.
- Exclusive
- Offering a story to one outlet before anyone else. A relationship play used sparingly for bigger stories.
- White label
- A service sold under another company's brand. Agencies resell our route and reports to their clients under their own logo.