Reach — Unique people reached
The number of unique people who saw your content or ad.
What it means
Reach tells you how many different people saw your post, reel, story or ad. Each person is counted only once, no matter how many times they saw it.
Impressions are different: they count every time your content was shown, including repeat views.
How it works
Reach = number of unique people who saw your content
Impressions = total number of times your content was shown
Most platforms show reach in their insights section. Reach can be organic (people who saw your post for free) or paid (people who saw it because you ran an ad).
If you divide impressions by reach, you get frequency, which is the average number of times each person saw your content.
A simple example
A café in Pune posts a reel about its new cold coffee. After three days, the insights show:
- Reach: 4,000 people
- Impressions: 6,000
This means 4,000 different people saw the reel, and some of them watched it more than once. The frequency is 6,000 divided by 4,000, which is 1.5.
Next week the café spends ₹1,000 promoting the reel locally, and paid reach adds 8,000 new people.
Why it matters
Reach shows how far your message is travelling. If nobody sees your content, it cannot bring likes, followers, enquiries or sales.
Reach also helps you judge other numbers fairly. Fifty likes from a reach of 500 is very different from fifty likes from a reach of 50,000.
Beginner tips
- Always check reach and impressions together, not just one of them.
- Compare the reach of different post formats, such as reels, carousels and single images, to see what travels furthest for you.
- Watch frequency on ads. If the same people see your ad too many times, they may get bored.
- Common mistake: chasing reach alone. Reaching the wrong people will not help your business, so check who you are reaching too.
Related: Impressions, Engagement rate, CPM