Reach vs Impressions: What’s the Difference

Reach vs impressions—crucial social media marketing metrics, but what do they mean? Why bother knowing their differences?

Understanding reach helps determine if your clients are expanding their audience, and impressions tell you how often their content gets viewed. 

The two metrics can give you a clearer view of the effectiveness of your clients’ social media content. 

So, what exactly are these two metrics, and why do you need to compare them?

This guide covers the nitty-gritty of reach and impressions, why they matter, and how and why you should compare them to gain actionable insights. 

What you will learn

• Reach vs. Impressions: What does it mean?
• Reach vs. Impressions: What is the difference?
• What does Reach vs. Impressions mean on various social media platforms?
• What is the best tool to track reach vs. impressions?
• What are the Reach vs. Impressions FAQs?
• Ready to turn reach vs. impressions insights into actions?

Reach vs. Impressions: What does it mean?

Before diving into the difference between reach and impressions, let’s go over each metric. 

What is reach?

Reach is the number of users who viewed your clients’ content—the number of various people the content reached.

Understanding reach helps you determine the visibility of your clients’ social media content. It can tell you whether your clients are attracting new viewers or engaging current followers. 

Tracking reach helps you assess if your clients’ social media content is amplifying their brands’ online presence.

In-platform analytics tools and dedicated platforms such as Vista Social can track the number of unique accounts (users) who saw your clients’ content, including ads, at least once.  

What are impressions?

Impressions are the number of times your clients’ content was viewed, including multiple views from individual accounts.

Generally, impressions are calculated by monitoring the total number of times your clients’ content was displayed across a social media platform, such as the search results or a user’s feed. 

Overall impressions can be calculated for your client’s content to determine the total for a single post. 

Higher impressions compared to reach usually means that users are looking at your clients’ posts repeatedly. 

Reach vs. Impressions: What is the difference?

Reach is the total number of users who see your client’s content, while impressions are the total number of times the content was displayed, regardless of whether users click on it. 

One user could have multiple impressions for your client’s single post. 

For instance, if a user saw your client’s post four times, that is counted as four impressions. However, the reach is considered one since it’s the same user. 

What does Reach vs. Impressions mean on various social media platforms?

Various social media platforms define reach and impressions differently. 

Let’s break down what they mean for each social network. 

What is reach vs. impressions on Instagram?

Reach on Instagram is the accounts reached, which includes the total number of unique accounts that viewed your clients’ content, such as Stories and posts, at least once. 

Accounts reached for Instagram Reels include the number of unique accounts that viewed your client’s video at least once, regardless of whether it was played.

[Must read: Instagram Reels Analytics Ultimate Guide: Tips & Examples]

Impressions on Instagram measure the total number of times your client’s content was viewed, including multiple views from the same user. 

What is reach vs. impressions on Facebook?

Facebook reach is categorized into the following:

• Paid reach refers to the number of unique users who saw your client’s paid content, including Facebook Ads
• Organic reach is the number of unique users who viewed your client’s content through non-paid ways, such as through their feeds or shared by friends
• Viral reach is the number of unique users who saw your client’s post or when their Facebook page was mentioned in a Story published by another user. 

Facebook impressions are broken down into the following categories:

• Paid impressions are the number of times your client’s paid content was displayed
• Organic impressions are the number of times your client’s content was displayed on their Page or Feed
• Viral reach is the number of times content associated with your client’s Page was displayed in a Facebook Story posted by another user

What is reach vs. impressions on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn doesn’t have a specific metric for reach, but the platform’s analytics feature can show you the number of accounts that have viewed your client’s profile for the past month. 

Impressions on LinkedIn include the number of times your client’s post, article, update, or video appeared in a user’s feed.

While LinkedIn will count impressions even if users don’t engage with the post, content with higher engagement, such as comments, reposts, shares, and likes, will likely get more impressions.

[Must read: Ultimate Guide: How to Track Engagement on Social Media]

What is reach vs. impressions on TikTok?

TikTok reach is the total number of unique accounts that viewed your client’s video. 

Important note: TikTok’s native analytics considers reach an estimated metric, so it’s not an exact figure. 

Impressions on the platform cover all content exposure, including unique accounts that have already seen the post. 

Essentially, impressions are the total video views. 

What is reach vs. impressions on YouTube?

YouTube reach helps you understand how users find your client’s content based on metrics such as watch time, click-throughs, views, and more. 

It can show you which traffic source types, external sites or apps, suggested content, and other factors helped viewers find your clients’ videos.  

YouTube impressions track and measure the number of times that at least 50% of your clients’ video thumbnails were viewed on screen for at least a second. 

You can examine impression click-through rates to determine how often users view your clients’ videos after seeing the thumbnails.  

What is the best tool to track reach vs. impressions?

Vista Social is one of the best social media management platforms to help you stay on top of your clients’ reach and impressions.

The platform’s social media analytics feature can track and measure reach and impressions from your clients’ connected social media profiles, such as Instagram.

The platform also lets you customize and save reports as templates to help you drill down on your clients’ social media reach and impressions. 

[Must read: Mastering Social Media Analytics: How to Create Custom Reports]

You can replace or hide sections, modify metrics and labels, add text, etc.

You can also schedule your reports to generate and share with other users and clients automatically.

Additionally, you can view a post’s stats, including comments, likes, impressions, and reach after publishing.

Don’t miss out on Vista Social’s other awesome social media management features, including the following:

• A social media publishing tool that lets you customize and schedule posts for auto-posting
• A centralized content calendar for seamless content planning, development, and management
• An AI Assistant for quickly generating and refining post descriptions and taglines
• Automated approval workflows
• Social media engagement tool that features a unified Social Inbox that centralizes all your clients’ messages, mentions, comments, and reviews in one place
• Etc.

[Must read: Social Media Mentions: How to Track And Manage Them Easily]

What are the Reach vs. Impressions FAQs?

Is it better to track reach or impressions?

It depends on your clients’ social media marketing goals. 

Tracking reach is your best bet if your clients want to expand their reach and get their content in front of new audiences.

On the other hand, you’re better off tracking impressions if your clients want to know how often their content is seen, including repeated views by the same users.

However, it’s best to track both to get an overall view of your clients’ social media performance.

Why are my views higher than my impressions?

Impressions are almost always higher than views. 

Higher views compared to impressions can mean data interpretation or reporting errors. 

You may also be comparing different metric types, such as post impressions vs. video views, resulting in higher views over impressions.

Double-check your tool or platform and the metrics you compare to ensure accurate data and analysis.

What insights can you get from comparing reach and impressions?

Comparing social media reach and impressions can tell you how effectively your clients’ content engages audiences. 

High impression-to-reach ratios can mean your clients’ content appeals strongly to audiences, with users viewing it multiple times.

On the other hand, a high reach and low impressions can indicate that your clients’ content needs refining to be more engaging and encourage repeat interactions.

Ready to turn reach vs. impressions insights into actions?

Understanding the difference between reach and impressions is just a piece of the puzzle. 

What you do with the insights from these metrics can elevate your clients’ social media marketing game. 

Use Vista Social to easily track, measure, and actionable insights into your clients’ social media content performance.

Create your Vista Social account now.