If you have a social media presence, chances are you’ve run into the terms impression and reach. Both metrics provide vital insight into your success on a specific platform. Businesses can use this data to fine-tune their social media strategy, find new opportunities, and create next-level content that appeals to their target audience.
However, when looking at these two terms side by side, you may feel like they mean the same thing. We’re here to help you define the difference between impression and reach so you can gain an accurate pulse on the success of your social media presence.
Let’s dive in:
What Is Social Media Reach?
Social reach is how many individuals on a specific platform have seen your content. For example, if you have 30K followers, your potential reach would be 30K.
Any user that sees your social post likes it and follows you becomes part of your organic reach. For every individual that sees your content, it counts for one reach.
However, just because you have a potential reach of 30K followers doesn’t mean 30K will actually see every post you post.
There are a few factors that need to be taken into consideration that are out of your control, such as how active someone is on social media and what days of the week they are online. If you post in the afternoon, but they always get on at 8 AM, your content might never reach them, no matter how long they’ve been following you.
Your reach can also include individuals that don’t follow you. Your content could have popped up on their feed, or they may have found you through a hashtag.
The best way to measure reach is to use the analytics inside of the social platform. Once a post has been up for at least 2-3 days, you’ll have an accurate reading.
What are Social Media Impressions?
Let’s say you’re looking at the analytics for a recent Facebook post you created. You may notice that your social impressions are relatively higher than engagements and your reach.
Impressions are the number of times your content was shown to users. However, just because someone saw your post doesn’t necessarily mean they engaged with your content. It also accounts for every time there were eyes on your post, even from the same individual.
If you go to view a post on Instagram once, then it pops up on your timeline again later that day, and someone sent it to you in your messages: That counts as three impressions.
The Difference Between Impression vs Reach
The main difference between impressions and reach is the number of times it’s counted. Reach can only reach one individual. Impressions are higher than your reach because one person counts for several.
Both metrics provide key insight into the success of your content on any given platform. However, reach vs. impressions is slightly different. Reach will always be a lower metric that shows the direct impact of your content and the total number of unique views you received. While impressions are the total number of views your post ever received.
Which One is More Important?
This depends on your goals and what you’re using the metrics for. You’ll want to take time to ensure you choose the best marketing KPIs for your needs.
Impressions are going to show you insight into how often individuals are coming back to your content. If your main focus is to build a loyal fanbase that finds value in your content, you’ll want to pay attention to the impressions.
However, if you’re just starting to build your social media presence, you may want to focus on reach. Reach will tell you how many people are viewing your content in general. If your reach is low, you’ll want to focus on building your audience on this platform and optimizing your social media strategy.
What Can You Do With These Metrics?
Optimize Content Creation
If you notice your impressions are significantly higher on infographics, carousel posts, or statistics – you’ll want to find new ways to mimic these types of content. If you have high post impressions, individuals are saving your content, coming back to it, or being exposed to the post several times. These posts educate customers, improve brand recognition and help you gain awareness. One of the best ways to reach new customers online is with useful and engaging content.
Track Influencer Marketing Success
Reach and impressions will help you measure the success of an influencer marketing campaign and help you measure your ROI. Let’s say you’re interested in influencer marketing. You find an influencer with a solid following and like the content they create.
Once you solidify a relationship, you can request the analytics for social posts they did for you. While most companies focus on engagement metrics such as likes, shares, and comments. Impressions and reach can be just as valuable.
If this influencer has a new and different audience than your current one, you’ll want to focus on building awareness around your brand.
Reach and impressions will show how many individuals viewed the post and if people came back later to look at the product again. Reach will show you just how many individual eyes were on that post and help you decide if you want to keep doing business with that influencer.
Find Your Effective Frequency
As a general rule of thumb, your impressions will always be higher or equal to your reach. For every individual that views your post, it will count as one. However, most individuals will actually see your post more than once.
To find out your frequency, you want to take your impressions and divide them by your reach. This will give you an average number of impressions per user.
Understand the Effectiveness of Your Marketing Funnel
Impressions provide you with invaluable insight into the success of your digital marketing funnel. When you reach a new prospect, you increase your awareness and expose them to your brand. Your goal should be to continue to improve the impressions per user. The higher the frequency, the more your brand resonates with the individual, increasing your chances of turning a prospect into a paying customer.
Control Your Paid Social Budget
With social media paid to advertise, reach and impression are easier to control. Adding money to your social media posts is a way to get more eyes on your content than your following. You can narrow your audience by likes, interests, and location – which means you have more control over your reach and impressions.
Upgrade Your Social Media Strategy with Kanbar Digital
Impressions and reach are just two social metrics you should keep an eye on to improve your social media strategy. Engagement, conversions, and landing page views are three other vital metrics that will help you optimize your content and build your social media presence.
If you’re serious about improving your social media approach, lean on Kanbar Digital for help. Our team of social media gurus can help you develop a cutting-edge strategy that delivers results. We’ll help you understand the importance of your reach and impressions metrics and give you the guidance you need to succeed.
