Reach and impressions: what is more important to track in 2023?
All social media marketers share the important goal of getting our content seen by as many people as possible. This is how we measure our success with metrics like reach and impressions.
Both of these important social media metrics track how many views your content has, so you can understand your social media growth, but they do it in different ways.
Today we give you answers about what reach and impressions are, why they matter, and how they differ.
Reach and impressions show how many views your content has on social media. The difference between the two is subtle but important – and not every platform defines them the same way.
- Reach measures how many users have seen your content.
- Impressions show how many times your content has been viewed.
Embarrassed? This is fine. Let’s bring some clarity.
What is coverage?
In social media, reach refers to the number of users who saw your content, i.e. how many people it reached.
Many platforms allow you to track both the overall reach of all your content and the number of people who have viewed your individual posts, such as a video or story.
For example, your last Instagram story was seen by 3,250 different accounts, or a total of 12,861 users saw your TikTok this month.
What is an impression?
On social media, impressions are the number of times your content has been viewed, including multiple views by individual users.
Impressions are calculated by tracking the total number of times your content has been shown on the platform, such as in a user’s feed or search results. As with reach, you can calculate total impressions for all of your content, or see how many you received in a single post.
If you’re getting more impressions than reach, it probably means people are viewing your post over and over again. This is a good thing! This shows that your target audience finds your content memorable.
Not every platform defines them the same way. Let’s break down what reach and impressions mean on different social networks.
On Facebook, Reach measures how many people have seen content from or about your Facebook Page (for example, the post you’ve been tagged in).
Impressions is the number of times content from or about your Page has appeared on someone’s screen. It could be in their news feed, through search, or because they intentionally landed on your Page.
If you’re running Facebook ads, you’ll also be able to split impressions into paid and organic.
Instagram defines account reach as the number of unique accounts that have seen your content onscreen at least once.
Impressions on Instagram are pretty standard – the number of times your content has been viewed, including multiple views by the same user.
In the Instagram app, you can view reach and impressions for the last 7 days, the last 30 days, the previous month, or the last 90 days. You can also break it down by audience demographics such as gender, location, and age.
TikTok
On TikTok, audience reach is the number of unique users who have viewed your videos.
The TikTok term for Impressions is “Total Video Views.”This tells you how many times each of your TikTok has been viewed.
For each tweet, Twitter shows the total number of impressions, that is, how many times it appears in the user’s feed or search results.
If you turn on Twitter’s built-in analytics, you can see total impressions for the last 7 days, 28 days, or a specific month.
Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t count reach.
On LinkedIn, you can see how many impressions you’ve received for each post. While there is no dedicated reach metric on the platform, you can see how many people have viewed your profile in the last 28 days.
LinkedIn also gives you limited information about who has seen your posts based on metrics such as company, location, and job title.
YouTube
YouTube Analytics does not offer a reach metric.
However, Impressions shows you how many times your video thumbnail has been shown in user feeds. You can also track how many clicks and how much watch time resulted in those impressions.
You can also track the total number of views of your content.
On Pinterest, Impressions describes the number of times your Pin has been shown on a user’s homepage, board, or search.
“Global Audience” is the equivalent of reach on Pinterest. You can view the total audience for each Pin, or for all of your content combined, by month, or for all time.
Snapchat
In native analytics, Snapchat Reach shows you how many followers have seen your Snapchat content in the last week.
If you run paid Snapchat ads, you will also be able to see their paid and earned impressions.
The strategic importance of reach and impressions
Typically, reach and impressions are top-of-the-funnel metrics.
By focusing on these metrics, you are trying to draw as much attention as possible to your content, rather than persuading viewers to take an action (like make a purchase). This means that reach and impressions are closely related to goals such as brand awareness and audience building.
If your goal is to build strong customer relationships, you might want to focus on impressions over reach. When users view your content multiple times, it shows that you’ve made a lasting impression (pun intended).
On the other hand, reach may be more important if ongoing relationships and repeat purchases are not as important to your business model as building a wide network and scaling your followers.
Reach and impressions always matter, but they can be even more important at the start of your social media journey. Once your content is seen by a large number of people, you can focus on the middle and bottom of the funnel metrics. These include engagement, clicks, or conversions.
How to track reach and impressions
All social media platforms offer basic built-in analytics to track performance. Typically, you can view both total reach and impressions for all of your content and for each specific post.
Learn more about platform-specific analytics tools in our dedicated blog posts:
- Facebook Analytics
- Instagram analytics
- Analytics TikTok
- Twitter Analytics
- Analytics LinkedIn
- YouTube Analytics
- Pinterest Analytics
- Snapchat analytics
Tracking reach and impressions in Hootsuite
Some users will be satisfied with their own analytics capabilities. For example, an individual Instagram-only creator might want the Instagram Insights built into the app.
But if you’re part of a larger team posting to multiple accounts on different networks, you’ll save a lot of time and effort by using a centralized analytics dashboard like Hootsuite.
Here’s how Hootsuite Analytics can help you track reach, impressions, and more—across all your social media channels.
Cross-platform analytics
Hootsuite Analytics collects data from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok and displays it as easy-to-read graphs in customizable dashboards. You can mix and match statistics to create reports that really fit your needs and those of your boss.
Hootsuite also transforms these metrics into more detailed and actionable insights. For example, the Best Time to Post feature analyzes your past performance to recommend when you should post to meet certain goals, including expanding your reach.
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Industry benchmarking
Tracking reach and impressions is great, but it can be difficult for marketers to put the original numbers in perspective.
Is reaching 200 people a good or average story for a skincare brand? If a body shop gets 450 views on a tweet, is that something to be happy about?
Hootsuite offers social quizzes that show you how others in your industry are doing, including reach and impressions. You’ll be able to select the industry that best suits your business and then view average reach, impressions, and other metrics for selected time periods.
Whether you’re just starting out in social media or you’re already an industry leader, these quizzes will help you figure out what looks good and how you’re doing.
Reach and Impressions: Quick Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
You have a TL moment; DR? Here are some quick answers to your burning questions about impressions and reach.
What is the difference between reach and impressions?
Typically, reach measures the total number of people who have viewed your content. Impressions measure how many times they viewed it. But these definitions may vary depending on the platform.
Which is better, reach or impressions?
If you care about growing your audience as much as possible, your reach may be better. But if you want your content to be memorable, you may need higher impressions. It all depends on your goals!
What does it mean when there are more impressions than reach?
This usually means that users view your content multiple times. That’s good – it means your post is stuck with them!
What is the difference between clicks and reach?
Clicks refer to how people clicked on your post or link – it’s a form of engagement or conversion. Reach means how many people have seen your content anywhere on their screen.
Whether your focus is on reach, impressions, or conversions, Hootsuite Analytics will help you reach your social media goals. Easily track the performance of all your social media channels in one place. Double what works, get better results, and create custom reports to share your hard work with your team!
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