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Social Media Reach (Pt.1) Demystified

23

May

Social Media Reach 

You’ve heard of it. You might even use it. But, do you know what it really means? The concept is fairly straightforward, yet reach usually gets misinterpreted to mean impressions. The confusion is understandable since both reach and impressions are generated when someone sees your social media posts.
So, what’s the difference between the two?

Reach vs. Impressions

Here’s the breakdown:

Reach is the number of unique individuals that have seen your post.

Impressions is the number of times a post has been “published” on someone’s feed.

If someone sees your post 10 times, the reach is of 1 and the impression count is of 10. It isn’t that this person has gone onto your profile to view your post 10 times. It means that they somehow ended up seeing your post at 10 different moments while exploring their social media pages.

So, what's the big deal with reach?

Reach can represent your potential audience size. And, in some cases – like for eCommerce – your real market size. It shows how many users your content interacts with once you post it. It can also reflect the maximum sales opportunity you can leverage. Remember, reach is the number of individual people who have viewed your content.

However, high reach is not always good. If your client conversions represent only a small fraction of your reach ( like it being below 1%), you might be sending out the wrong message to the wrong market. For instance, reaching out to 1 million lions is useless if you’re selling bananas. The best way to get the most out of your reach is to make sure that each of your posts create a memorable experience for each pair of eyes that sees your content.

Bottom line:

If your conversion rate is high, it’s time to increase your reach.

Stay tuned to learn how to gain a greater reach. Social Media Reach Pt.2 coming soon!

NOTE

Facebook & Instagram data analytics reports can provide your business page’s reach and impressions. Twitter, on the other hand, only provides impressions.

If you wish to gain a little more insight (like reach for your Twitter page) for your social media pages, there are various tools that exist. Such as: