Can impressions be higher than reach?

But at times, you may need to give preference to one over the other as part of your social media strategy.

Given that they are closely linked on social media platforms, it can be difficult to make a choice.

While they are often grouped together, both of these social media metrics have their own definitions. And both make a significant impact on your overall social media engagement, search results, and brand awareness.

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Curious to find out how they differ?

Keep reading to find out the difference between reach vs impressions.

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Facebook states that reach is the number of people who viewed your ads at least once. It is categorized into the following three headings:

• Organic reach is the people who see your ad or content on their timeline for free. 
• Paid reach is referred to as the number of people who saw your content being promoted in ad space on their feed.
•  Viral reach is users who saw your content because it was shared multiple times by some else or because someone in your network engaged with it. 

Impressions are differentiated from reach as the times your ads were on screen. If an individual user saw your post three times during your campaign, then that counts as three impressions. Neither one indicates if a user engaged with your content or clicked on it actually saw it. 

According to Facebook, a video doesn’t have to be played in order for it to be counted as an impression. So to know if reach and impressions you are getting are real, Facebook has divided them into further two categories:

• Served: means that the ad you have paid for the ad and the system will deliver it somewhere. Served ads do not need to materialize on screen for them to be counted as an impression.
• Viewed: these ads do not count unless a user sees them on their feed. If the user navigated away from the page before the ad loads or didn’t scroll to see it, then it does not count as ‘viewed.’

Twitter impressions vs. Twitter reach

The Twitter app doesn’t record your reach but tracks only impressions. An impression on Twitter is defined as when a Twitter views your Tweet. Imagine an impression as a Tweet that shows up on someone’s mobile or computer screen. However, the Twitter app only counts impressions as those Tweets that show up on search results or a user’s feed. 

In case you have 100 followers, and all of them see your tweet, then that means you have 100 impressions. If you reply to a comment under the same tweet and your followers view the original tweet again to follow the conversation, then that gets you 200 impressions. It’s integral to use the platform in a way that will affect the number of impressions per tweet efficiently. If you reply to other people’s tweets, then that will get you far fewer impressions than publishing onto your follower’s feeds. So your numbers may be skewed downwards if you spend too much time replying to people on Twitter. 

Impressions vs. Reach on Instagram

Since Facebook owns Instagram, it works exactly in the same way as Facebook does. Impressions are the combined number of users that have seen your story or posts, while reach is the unique accounts that have viewed your story or post. 

LinkedIn Reach vs. LinkedIn Impressions

LinkedIn has plenty of key performance indicators that help businesses measure their organic presence on the platform. These include reach and impressions: where reach is defined as the number of times your content is seen by other LinkedIn users on their feed, while impressions refer to the number of times your content was visible for more than 300 milliseconds. 

For instance, if a user saw your post twice, then the number of impressions would be two, but the unique viewing would count as one.
LinkedIn marketing works on a totally different strategy from that of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It demands more polished and professional content along with a unique set of metrics. 

Which is better for business – Reach or Impressions?

Reach vs. impressions: which matters more?
This dilemma isn’t new for social media marketers and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
The question is, which one, either reach or impressions, is central for your social media marketing campaign?
There is no straight answer to it, and it all depends on the marketing goals set by the business. Higher impressions mean that your ads are being seen by a larger audience, whereas more reach means people are interacting with your content. By viewing these results, you can change your target audience or repurpose your content.
Your engagement strategy cannot be improved by building on both reach and engagement. It is here that the line between reach vs. engagement gets blurry. So it is established that both are important, and one cannot be treated in isolation. 

Frequently Asked Questions: Reach vs. Impressions

1. What is a good impression rate?

 There is no writer’s rule about what makes a good impression rate, but anything less than 0.2 is considered ‘not good.’ 

2. Why are impressions higher than reach?

Impressions count the same user many times when exposed to the same content. In contrast, reach counts each user only once and includes instances where they engaged with your content. This is why impressions are always higher than reach. 

Why are my impressions higher than reach?

Can impressions be lower than reach?

Why is reach lower than impressions?

Is reach equal to impressions?