Reach for the most impressions

You’re active on social media, putting together creative posts and interacting with your fans.

But how do you know your efforts are paying off?

It’s important to look at impressions, reach, and engagement when evaluating the impact of your social media marketing effort.

Impressions and reach are often are confused or misunderstood.

Impressions measure how many times your content is displayed.

Reach refers to the number of unique people who see your content. In other words, it’s the number of users that have been exposed to your message, regardless of how many times they’ve seen it.

Social media marketing reports usually show more impressions than reach because each person you are targeting (reaching) tends to see your post (impression) more than once.

For example, if 50 followers each see one message twice, you have achieved 100 impressions and a reach of 50 people.

Some social media marketing platforms offer a deeper level of reporting. For example, Facebook reports impressions and reach in three categories:

• Organic — unpaid posts in your news feed
• Paid — Facebook ads or boosted posts
• Viral — Pots that were liked, shared or commented on

Tracking impressions and reach can help you better understand how well your social media effort is working.

Increased reach leads to increased awareness because it means more people are seeing your posts.

Increased impressions mean your posts are finding their way into users’ feeds more often, which can build your brand with greater message retention and lead more people to respond by liking, commenting on or sharing your posts, which further spreads your message.

Don’t extend your reach by expanding your targeting into groups that are not ideal prospects. Likewise don’t plow too many impressions in front of the same people over and over again. 5-10 repetitions is usually enough to get your content noticed at least a few times, without being spammy.

If your ads are experiencing high impressions but limited reach, it could be an indication that your audience is experiencing ad fatigue, meaning they are getting tired of seeing the same ad repeatedly. If this is the case, it’s time to start updating ads.

If you’d like some insights on building, managing and optimizing an effective social media marketing and advertising campaign, feel free to Contact Us here at AdEdge at (203) 682-4585 or email us at info@adedgemarketing.com.