Social media reach

Example of an analytic dashboard on Facebook that looks at the reach of a post.

Facebook has their own analytic platform which allows the user to see how other users are interacting with their posts, with the use of multiple metrics.[2] This is not something the average user uses, but rather a tool that is used by pages or public figures for example. For example, Facebook pages that represent a business often look at the activity their posts have generated. There are three types of reach that can be looked at on the Facebook analytic platform.

Twitter gives access to any of their users to analytics of their tweets as well as their followers.[3] Their dashboard is user friendly, which allows anyone to take a look at the analytics behind their Twitter account.[4] This open access is useful for both the average user and companies as it can provide a quick glance or general outlook of who has seen their tweets. The way that Twitter works is slightly different than the way Facebook in terms of the reach. On Twitter, especially for users with a higher profile, they are not only engaging with the people who follow them, but also with the followers of their own followers.[5] The reach metric on Twitter looks at the quantity of Twitter users who have been engaged, but also the number of users that follow them as well.[5] This metric is useful to see the if the tweets/content being shared on Twitter are contributing to the growth of audience on this platform.

Instagram gives their users access to their reach, in the Instagram Insights section. Instagram insights can be used to learn more about an account’s followers and performance. [6] Reach indicates the total number of unique Instagram accounts that have seen your Instagram post or story. You can find this data by looking at each individual post insights. [7]

The reach can be a useful metric to analyze for marketers and advertisers. Social media is a platform that is used by marketers to directly target their intended audience with ease.[8] These platforms not only allow marketers to get a better understanding of their audience, but also allow advertisers to insert their ads onto the timelines of specific users to later be able to conduct research to see the reach of their posts/content.[8]

The basic goal of marketers is to increase their reach as much as possible to impact bigger audiences of their dream customers and, in the end, make more sales. When doing organic social media marketing, using paid methods like ads or doing influencer marketing whether it is paid or free, it allows marketers to track the performance of their strategy and tweak it based on what works and what does not.

Social analytics looks at the data collected based on the interactions of users on social media platforms.[9] A lot of information can be gathered which can provide intel based on user activities on social media.[9] When looking into analytics in regard to social media, each company or group has a different goal in mind to engage their audience. At a glance, the three might seem as if they are very similar, however the differences between them are significant.[2] There are many aspects that can be analyzed from the data gathered from social media platforms, depending on what is being observed, the correct metric would then be selected to further analyze.

One example of the many metrics that can be used through social analytics is the reach.

To calculate social media reach one can use the following formula:

${\displaystyle R={\frac {I}{\bar {f}}}}$

where ${\displaystyle R}$ — is social media reach, ${\displaystyle I}$ stands for the number of impressions, ${\displaystyle {\bar {f}}}$ is the average frequency of impressions per user. ${\displaystyle {\bar {f}}}$ represents the number of events when the ad is shown to a particular user. The average value should be calculated over the time period with stable settings of advertisement campaign.

• Reach (advertising)
• Metric (disambiguation)
• Data Analytics