Reach

Output

number of social media users reached by the communicated content

The indicator measures how many social media users were reached by the communicated content. It shows how widely the content was distributed. Reach does not show whether people paid attention to the content, understood it or acted on it. It should therefore be used together with other indicators, such as engagement, clicks or measures of the intended communication outcome.

Determine the indicator’s value using the following methodology:

1) Decide what you want to measure. Specify the social media platform, account, content and reporting period. If relevant, also decide whether you will include paid content, organic content, or both.

2) Use the platform’s own analytics and check its current definition of “reach”. Reach should refer to a unique audience, not the total number of times the content was shown. Be aware that reach may be measured differently across platforms.

3) If the platform gives you one reach figure for the selected campaign or content during the reporting period, use this figure. Do not add together the reach of individual posts, because the same person may have seen several posts and would then be counted more than once.

4) If the platform only gives reach for individual posts, report the figures for each post separately. Do not add them together to estimate the number of people reached by the whole campaign, because the same user may be counted more than once. If a donor or reporting system requires a summed figure, label it clearly as summed post-level reach and explain that some users may be counted more than once.

5) If you use several social media platforms, report the reach for each platform separately. The same person may use more than one platform, so adding the figures together can count some people more than once. Only report a unique total across platforms if you have a reliable way to identify and remove this overlap.

This data can be disaggregated by social media channel, and, if relevant and feasible, also by paid versus organic distribution, content type, geography, age group or gender where these breakdowns are provided by the platform.

1) Adding the reach of individual posts can count the same person several times. The same problem can occur when adding reach across different social media platforms. If the platform provides a unique reach figure for the whole campaign, use that figure instead of adding post-level reach. Report results for each platform separately.

2) Higher reach means that the content was distributed more widely. It does not necessarily mean that the communication was more successful. Reach can be affected by factors such as paid promotion, platform algorithms, audience size, timing and content format. Interpret reach together with indicators that reflect the campaign objective, such as engagement, clicks or changes in behaviour.

3) Platform-reported reach is usually an estimate rather than an exact count of people. Platforms may use accounts, devices and other data to estimate unique users. Their methods can also change over time. Do not interpret reach as the exact number of people who received, noticed or understood the message.

4) When comparing reach over time, use the same platform, reporting period and type of reach where possible. Note any important changes in how the platform measures or reports reach.

Also consider using the following indicators:

• Impressions (shows total exposures, including repeated exposures, and therefore complements unique reach)

• Engagement Rate (assesses interaction relative to audience exposure rather than distribution alone)

• Click-through Rate (useful where the communication objective is to prompt people to follow a link rather than simply see content)