How Impressions Work in Social Media

So, you are a public information officer who has to post content to your agency social media accounts. Your supervisors might say to post a picture or put the press release as a cut and post an image or screenshot. But they either do not know or most likely do not care about how the content appears. However, as the PIO has a working knowledge of social media metrics and how they work, it provides insight into your content’s type, style, and format. Know that impressions are a key metric in social media analytics, providing insights into how often your content is displayed on a user’s screen. Unlike reach, which measures how many unique users saw your content, impressions measure the total number of times the content appeared, regardless of whether it was seen by the same person more than once.

Here’s a breakdown of how impressions work:

1. What Are Impressions?

• Definition: Impressions refer to the total number of times your content (post, image, video, or ad) is shown on a screen, regardless of whether the viewer interacts with it.
• Example: If a post appears on a user’s feed and they scroll past it, that counts as one impression. If the same post shows up on their feed again, that’s another impression.

2. Impressions vs. Reach

• Reach measures how many unique users have seen your content.
• Impressions count all occurrences of your content being displayed. This means if a single user sees your post 10 times, that will count as 10 impressions but only 1 reach.

Example:

• If a post has 500 impressions and 200 reach, it means some users saw it multiple times.

3. How Impressions Are Tracked

Impressions are typically counted when:

• The content appears in a user’s feed (organic or paid).
• The content is visible in a story, video, or ad.
• A user loads a page with your content on it.

The key point is that impressions are about visibility, not interaction.

4. Why Impressions Matter

• Content Visibility: High impressions indicate that your content is being seen, which is a good sign of visibility and reach, even if people aren’t engaging.
• Brand Awareness: Frequent impressions can increase brand awareness, even if the audience doesn’t immediately interact with your content.
• Paid Campaigns: For paid ads, impressions help measure how often your ad is being displayed to users, which is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of your targeting.

5. Impressions in Paid Advertising

• For paid campaigns, impressions measure how often your ad is shown, regardless of whether the user clicks. If you pay based on Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM), you’re paying for every 1,000 impressions your ad gets.
• The more impressions your ad gets, the higher the potential for user engagement, though it doesn’t guarantee clicks or conversions.

6. Factors Influencing Impressions

• Content Frequency: Posting more frequently or running ads multiple times increases the number of impressions.
• Algorithmic Exposure: Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter use algorithms to determine how often your content appears on people’s feeds. Engagement and relevance to your audience are key to gaining more impressions.
• Paid Ads: Ads typically generate more impressions because they are promoted and shown to a larger audience, often beyond your followers.

7. Why Impressions Alone Aren’t Enough

Impressions tell you how many times your content was displayed, but they don’t tell you much about the quality of that interaction. High impressions with low engagement (likes, shares, comments) might mean your content is not resonating with your audience. Therefore, impressions should be analyzed alongside metrics like engagement rate, CTR, or conversion rate to give you a fuller picture.

8. How to Improve Impressions

• Use Hashtags: Relevant hashtags help your posts appear in search results and reach a wider audience, increasing impressions.
• Post at Optimal Times: Posting when your audience is active helps maximize visibility and impressions.
• Engage Your Audience: The more engagement your post gets, the more likely the platform’s algorithm will show it to a larger audience, thus increasing impressions.

Let’s say you posted a video on Instagram. The video appears on 1,000 unique user feeds, but some users saw it multiple times. By the end of the day, the video has 4,000 impressions. This means the video was displayed 4,000 times, whether it was by the same or different users.

Impressions provide a crucial metric for understanding how often your content is displayed to users. While they don’t directly measure engagement, they help you gauge the visibility of your posts and ads. To get the most out of impressions, focus on combining them with engagement metrics to assess the effectiveness of your social media strategy.

As the PIO for your agency, posting on social media is demanding and requires strategy and planning. Having a working knowledge of social media metrics, what you post when you post, and how well that post is received can mean the difference between solving a crime, helping a community member, or providing entertaining content to your followers.