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What does ‘impression’ and ‘reach’ mean on Instagram?

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  • 3 min read

Instagram is one of the most commonly used social networking platforms today. Depending upon whether you have a private account, creator account or business account, Instagram offers various features, some of which are specific to the type of account. When a business or a creator uploads a story or a post, they can view insights of their uploads, which helps measure the performance in terms of reach and impressions, which have been discussed in this article.

Reach

The total number of people who see your post determines the reach. In other words, it is the number of unique people who view your content. Suppose you have 100 followers and 50 unique followers see your post, the reach will be 50. This means that even if some of the followers see your post multiple times, only 50 of them are unique.

Reach is the best method to tell the number of active followers on an account. Moreover, according to Instagram’s algorithm, the posts are first shown to a small audience, and if it receives a positive response, the reach increases. This is the reason why some posts get more significant reach than others. The pages that have greater reach have more engagement — likes, comments, saves or shares — on their content.

Also read: Photography 101: Metering modes explained

Impressions

Impressions define the total number of times a post is displayed to users. It is the number of times your followers have seen your post. Suppose you have a total of 100 followers and 50 of them see your post; the impressions may not necessarily be equal to 50 and will be more than that in most cases.

Generally, impressions are more than reach because there may be a few followers who have viewed your posts multiple times. Impressions are the best way to find how your active followers like your posts. If what you put out there is being shared or seen multiple times by a follower, it merely means that they like it. This gives an idea to the account manager about what type of content is more likely to work with their audience.

Other than reach and impressions, the insights also tell us about the number of shares, saves, and other details but the engagement of an account is determined by the reach and impressions on their uploads.

Let us know if you’d like us to cover a particular Instagram tutorial in the comments below.

Also read: How to change your name on Instagram?


Featured image by Georgia de Lotz


Himanshu Nimje

Himanshu Nimje

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