Buzzscribed Terminology

Read time 8 min Level Beginner Prerequisites An active Buzzscribed login

In a nutshell: Buzzscribed runs on a handful of clear words. The work you do is a Story. The deal behind it is an Engagement. Both attach to a Client. Coverage is scored through CQI; the whole Story's performance is scored through the Success Score. Learn these and the rest of the platform reads itself.

What you will learn

The vocabulary Buzzscribed uses for the things you work on every day.
How a Story, an Engagement and a Client connect -- and what each one is for.
The two measurement words that quantify your results: CQI and the Success Score.
The supporting furniture: THE HIVE, AskRalph, and the three external portals you can share with clients, talent and journalists.

The mental model

Buzzscribed splits PR cleanly into two streams: the work and the deal. Both hang off the same Client.

The work is a Story -- one media moment you are running. A launch, a report drop, an announcement, a thought-leadership push. You build it in Campaign Builder, where it picks up a brief, objectives, a strategy, media releases, talent, a media pack and a public newswire page.

The deal is an Engagement -- the agreement you have with that client. Dates, fees, scope, line items, e-signature. Engagements live in Account Management. A retainer is one shape an Engagement can take; a one-off project is another. Either way, an Engagement is the commercial wrapper, and Stories are the work delivered against it.

Two parallel things on one Client. That is the spine of the product.

The core nouns

Story: The unit of PR work -- one media moment. Built in Campaign Builder, where it carries tabs for ACTIVITY, BRIEF, SMART, OUTCOMES, STRATEGY, MEDIA RELEASES, TALENT, MEDIA PACK and NEWSWIRE. "Story" and "campaign" are used interchangeably across the product.
Story workflow status: How a Story is tracking as a piece of work. Three values: To Do, In Progress, Done. The Story Selector at the top of pitching and coverage pages can show or hide Done Stories with the "Include Completed" toggle, so finished work stays out of your way until you want it.
Engagement: The commercial container for the work you do for a client. Engagements move through a lifecycle: Forward Planning (a provisional, not-yet-committed sandbox) → Draft → Pending Signature → Active → Closed. Where you see "Audience Engagement" elsewhere in the platform, that is a measurement term (likes, comments, shares) and always carries the "Audience" prefix to keep it distinct.
Retainer: An Engagement billed on a recurring basis -- ongoing client work, as opposed to a one-off project. Same lifecycle and same Account Management page; the difference is in the billing pattern.
Account Management: The page where Engagements live: dates, fees, scope, line items, purchase orders, e-signature. You will find it under the CAMPAIGN and BUSINESS menus.
Client & Brand: Who you do PR for. The CRM page is labelled Clients & Brands. A Client can carry multiple Brands beneath it; logos cascade Brand then Client, so a Brand's logo wins and the Client's logo fills in where a Brand has none.
Talent / Spokesperson: The people you put forward for interviews -- a CEO, an expert, a case-study contact. Talent live in the Talent Directory and attach to a Story on its TALENT tab. Publish the ones you want journalists to find directly through TheNewsWire.
TheNewsWire: Buzzscribed's public-facing asset hub. Every Story has its own NewsWire page where journalists download the release, images and media pack. Each download is fingerprinted, so coverage maps back to the exact pickup that produced it -- that is the evidence trail under ProofScore.
Media Pack: The bundle of assets that goes out with a Story: the release plus images, fact sheets and graphics. Assembled on the MEDIA PACK tab in Campaign Builder.
Media Release: The press release itself. A Story can carry more than one -- a Primary and a Secondary release, or several labelled releases (Release 1, Release 2, and so on) -- so a national angle and a regional angle live as two releases on the same Story.
Outreach group: A reusable distribution list. Managed under Mail Management. Build it once and reuse it across every Story that targets the same audience.
Pitch list: The set of journalists and outlets you are targeting for a particular pitch on the Email Pitching page -- built from your media contacts, tiered, and sent in waves.
Reception level: A five-step scale -- Hot, Warm, Luke Warm, Cold, Ice Cold -- for recording how a journalist or outlet responded. Update it after each conversation so your call list keeps reflecting reality.

The measurement words

Buzzscribed automates the AMEC Barcelona framework, which measures outcomes (what changed) rather than outputs (what you sent). Two scores power it.

CQI -- Coverage Quality Index: A single score for how good the coverage was. Weighted 35% outlet tier, 35% sentiment, 30% message pull-through. Every piece of coverage gets one, so you can see at a glance whether what landed actually moved the needle.
Success Score: The whole-Story performance score. Weighted 25% CQI, 25% Coverage, 25% KPIs, 25% Completion. CQI feeds in as one quarter; KPIs reflect the SMART objectives you set on the Story; Completion reflects how much of the plan landed. One number, four equal pillars.
Barcelona: The AMEC framework that underpins CQI, Success Score and Buzzscribed's reporting layer. Outcomes over outputs -- the principle every score rests on.

The supporting furniture

THE HIVE: Top-right of every page. Three tabs: PREFERENCES (your display and notification settings), ASK SUPPORT (raise and track support requests), and LEARNING CENTRE (these articles). Admin and Power users also see a link out to Tenant Admin from here.
AskRalph: Buzzscribed's in-app AI assistant. Available as a panel inside Campaign Builder, Account Management and other working pages -- helps with drafting, suggestions and answering questions about what you are looking at right now.
The three portals: Three scoped, external-facing surfaces you can share without giving anyone a Buzzscribed login. The Client portal lets a client watch their own campaigns, scores and reports. The Schedule portal lets a spokesperson see and confirm their interview schedule. TheNewsWire lets journalists pick up your assets -- every download tracked back to the Story that produced it.

Worked example: one launch, the words in order

Acme PR Corp runs an ongoing retainer for Globex Industries. Here is how the vocabulary maps to the work on this year's flagship Story, the Globex Wellbeing Index 2026.

Globex Industries is the Client, sitting in Clients & Brands.
The retainer is an Engagement. Its agreement -- dates, monthly fee, scope, line items, e-sign -- lives in Account Management. State moved Draft → Pending Signature → Active five years ago.
For the Q2 launch the team creates a Story in Campaign Builder: "Globex Wellbeing Index 2026". Workflow status: To Do.
Olivia fills the BRIEF, SMART and OUTCOMES tabs, writes the national release plus a regional and a trade angle on MEDIA RELEASES, assembles the infographics on MEDIA PACK, and adds Mark Chen (CEO) and Dr Helen Ashworth (CPO) on TALENT.
On Email Pitching, Acme PR builds a tiered pitch list via Smart Match and sends it embargoed. Phone follow-ups update each journalist's reception level.
Journalists pick up the release from the Story's NewsWire page -- every download tracked, so the team knows exactly who took the assets.
Dr Helen Ashworth confirms a BBC Radio interview through the Schedule portal. Globex's marketing lead watches it land in real time through the Client portal.
As coverage comes in, the CQI builds (final read 7.2) and the Success Score rounds out at 84. When the long tail is logged, Olivia moves the Story to Done. The Engagement stays Active -- ready for next year's Index.

Frequently asked

Are "Story" and "campaign" the same thing?: Yes. The product uses both words for the same object. You build a Story in Campaign Builder; some menus and reports still say campaign.
What is the relationship between a Story and an Engagement?: Both attach to a Client. A Story is one piece of work; an Engagement is the commercial agreement that work is delivered against. A single Engagement -- a retainer, say -- will usually carry many Stories over its life.
What is the difference between a Story being Done and an Engagement being Closed?: Different objects, different axes. Done means the piece of work is finished. Closed means the commercial agreement has ended. An Engagement can be Active for months while Stories under it move from To Do to Done as you deliver them.
Can one Story carry more than one press release?: Yes. Add a Primary and a Secondary, or label them Release 1, Release 2 and so on. A national angle and a regional angle are two releases on one Story.
Where do journalists actually pick up my release and images?: From the Story's NewsWire page. Every link is fingerprinted, so every pickup is captured back to the campaign -- the evidence that makes ProofScore possible.
Is AskRalph a separate page?: No -- it is a panel that opens inside the page you are already on (Campaign Builder, Account Management and others). The AI sees the context you are working in.
Where do I change my settings?: THE HIVE (top-right) > PREFERENCES.

Key takeaways

The work is a Story; the deal is an Engagement. Both attach to a Client. Retainer is a kind of Engagement.
Story workflow (To Do / In Progress / Done) and Engagement lifecycle (Forward Planning / Draft / Pending Signature / Active / Closed) move on different axes.
One Story can carry several labelled media releases -- a regional angle is a release, not a separate Story.
CQI = 35% tier + 35% sentiment + 30% message. Success Score = 25/25/25/25 across CQI / Coverage / KPIs / Completion.
THE HIVE = preferences, support and learning. AskRalph is the in-app AI. Three portals: Client, Schedule, TheNewsWire.