Reach vs. Impressions: What Are Media Impressions and Reach in PR?

How would it feel not to struggle with quantifying the impact of your PR actions?

Relying on vague metrics that often fail to capture true engagement may lead to missed opportunities, wasted resources, and a lack of strategic direction.

But there is a better way to do it. Enter media impressions and reach – two crucial metrics that provide clarity and insight into your PR campaign.

💡 Tip: You can measure all key metrics (beyond reach & impressions) and PR KPIs with an all-in-one PR tool like Prowly. It automatically gathers data and helps you present it effectively to your clients and stakeholders.

The best part?
You can try Prowly free for 7 days and see everything for yourself.

What is a media impression? Defining reach and impressions

Media impressions refer to the total number of times content is displayed on users' screens, with no regard to if it is viewed by the same user multiple times.

👉 For example, if a single post appears in a user's feed three times, that counts as three impressions. Even though it was the same user.

Reach reflects total number of users who see your content.

👉 So given the previous example, if a user sees your content three times, it still only counts as one to your reach score.

Types of media impressions

There are several types of impressions. Each of them plays a different role in media strategy:

• Earned impressions come from organic mentions
• Paid impressions originate form advertising
• Owned impressions come from brand-generated content

Media impressions vs. reach

One basic difference between impressions and reach is the number of users which viewed the content. Reach shows the number of unique users who viewed it. Impressions reflect the total number of content views, even from the same user.

To show it in an example, lets answer two questions:

💬 What is reach in social media?

💬 What is a social media impression?

Let's assume your post reached 5,000 unique users, meaning 5,000 different accounts saw it, while it generated a total of 15,000 impressions – the number of times the post was displayed across all users' feeds.

▪️ Impressions can exceed reach because one user may encounter the post multiple times.

▪️ For example, they might first see it, then go and check the comments, then come back and like it, and later have a friend tag them in the post, resulting in additional views.

= Thus, while 5,000 users viewed your post at least once, the 15,000 impressions reflect how many times people interacted with it across different occasions.

Paid vs. organic

Paid campaigns usually yield higher reach and impressions, since you put in some money to reach users who are interested in your content.

Organic efforts, meanwhile, foster authentic engagement. Both are important in a balanced PR strategy.

Reach vs. impressions: which should you track?

Reach  

Reach can be useful when evaluating popular media outlets or those with strong SEO rankings. However, they don't provide much insight into the actual impact on your target audience or the true value of the publications you've secured.

👉 Mention estimated reach is the estimated number of people who could have seen a particular article within the past month. The bigger the number, the higher the probability.

👉 Domain reach is also known as UVM (Unique Visitors per Month) in other platforms. It reflects the number of people who visit the the domain each month. Here's how UVPM is calculated:

💡 In modern PR, relying on UVPM—a so-called vanity metric—is not recommended. Instead, focus on more specific and actionable KPIs. To have a full overview of your efforts, always add quality metrics. In this article you can find more quality metrics that we encourage using instead tracking reach.

Impressions

Tracking media impressions is essential for several reasons that significantly impact your marketing strategy and overall brand awareness.

First, impressions measure how often your content is displayed to users, providing insights into your ability to reach your target audience effectively.

By monitoring impressions, you can gauge the visibility of your posts and understand how frequently users encounter your content, which is crucial for maximizing engagement.

💡Impressions fail to differentiate between the quality of exposure and mere visibility. Even a large number of visitors might not be valuable if they don't match your brand's ICP.
In this article, we delve into specific PR KPIs that truly showcase the value of your work.

Measuring reach and impressions on different platforms

To break down reach and impressions we should focus on measuring them across various platforms.

Social platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram) define and track reach and impressions differently, aligning with distinct goals like brand visibility and engagement.

So what are impressions on social media and how do we define reach in these platforms? Below you can find the answers.

How to measure media impressions and reach for PR?

Social media managers should measure reach and impressions to track how effectively their content matches their target audience.

• Impressions help understand how often content is being viewed, showing its visibility.
• Reach shows the number of unique users exposed to the content. This is crucial for assessing audience growth.
• Together, these metrics provide insights into content performance.

Such knowledge helps optimizing strategies, as well as enable PR managers to understand if their content is engaging the right people. Hence, it shows if the content achieves brand awareness objectives.

How to check reach vs impressions on social media?

Here's a quick guide on how to check reach vs. impressions on different platforms:

Facebook

Go to Page Insights, under Overview or Posts, to see reach and impressions for both organic and paid content.

Instagram

Firstly, to get more metrics, you should make sure you're using a Creator or Business profile. Then go to Instagram Insights on your business account. Under Posts or Stories, you’ll find reach and impression metrics.

P. S. Here's the official Instagram Guide to understanding your insights.

X (Twitter)

Access X Analytics to see impressions for each tweet, though reach isn't directly available.

LinkedIn

Visit LinkedIn Page Analytics for impressions and unique viewer data.

What to track instead of impressions and reach?

Remember that PR professionals should avoid relying solely on media impressions. Why?

Because impressions only measure the volume of exposure with no indication of engagement, sentiment, or content's true impact. Impressions don’t reflect whether people interacted with the content or if it positively influenced brand image.

Instead, PR professionals should track:

👉 Engagement metrics: Likes, shares, comments, and interactions.
👉 Sentiment analysis: How the audience feels about the coverage.
👉 Share of Voice: Your brand’s coverage compared to competitors.

Focus on actionable PR metrics, like sentiment and Share of Voice, when reporting to executives. Avoid vanity metrics that don’t offer real insights.

An all-in-one tool can make your life easier– at least in terms of tracking data that matters.

Here's how Prowly can support your efforts:

#1 Media Monitoring

Instead of manual monitoring, you can reliably track all key mentions 24/7 and immediately identify when a potential crisis is emerging, thanks to:

• one platform to track brand performance in all channels - online media, blogs, tv, radio, print and social media
• dashboards and widgets, nice and easy UI
• alerts to keep you (and other users) up to date

#2 PR Reports

Collecting the right data is one thing, but presenting it effectively is another. Reporting can be time-consuming, especially with all the copy-pasting and branding involved.

However, it becomes faster and easier when you manage everything in a single tool that gives you:

• automated process of creating coverage reports to save you time on creating Excel formulas and jumping between sheets & a presentation creator
• data visualization - various types of charts and timelines with the ability to compare charts from previous reports (for example month to month or year to year)

#3 Media Database

Allocating your PR budget to the right media placements requires proper research of the medium. Does it have enough traffic? Could its audience potentially be interested in your client's product? Does it actually drive engagement, or just deliver hollow impressions?

• Media database not only shows you data about journalists, but also gives you audience and traffic insights about various media outlets.

Which metrics should you track in PR?

There's no perfect set of metrics that fits every brand or campaign. It depends on your communication goals and business strategy.

But if you gather data that captures these three areas - you're doing great:

1. Brand performance
2. Quality of media
3. Quality of mentions

Having metrics from these three groups allows you to build statements like this:

In 2023 our share of voice in Tier 1 media increased to 25% and our key message was successfully delivered half of the time.

And demonstrate the real value of your work. Focus on these questions and find the answers with Prowly.

#1 Is your content in the media where your target group is?

Media tiers - track the number of mentions in each tier. Group all your media in to Tier1, Tier2, etc. based on your target group preferences. Moreover, you can set up top mentions according to your preferences.

👉 Example: you can generate a list of top mentions in articles from the “Advertising industry” category with positive/neutral sentiment, sorted by domain authority.

#2 Are you improving your brand visibility?

Track your brand's share of voice to see how it compares to competitors and ensure your message is being heard.

#3 Are you improving your SEO?

It may seem like a never-ending story, but SEO is worth the effort. Keep an eye on your number of backlinks - for example, presented on a timeline (line graph in MM/PRR).

Domain authority - a machine-learning-based score of the mention's domain measured on a scale from 0 to 100. As you may assume, the higher the score, the strongest authority the domain has (BTW, only a few domains have a 99 score).

This score reflects a web page's overall quality as well as SEO performance (calculated by Semrush).

Who will benefit from Prowly?

Prowly is best for small and medium PR teams. It's flexible, helps with day-to-day challenges and supports reaching KPIs.

▪️ It would be a perfect match for in-house comms teams for growing brands and medium-sized companies. One tool to cover all media and communication centred teams' needs.

▪️ Prowly would also fit perfectly for small to medium agencies where the unpredictability of changing client lists and projects is the bread and butter.

Where there is big-time pressure and a lack of time to learn new tools and incorporate them into the team.

But if you have specific requirements and need something completely tailored to you, you can request an enterprise plan. You don’t have to be a large corporation—your unique needs might simply require special attention.

Reach vs impressions – conclusions

Reach and impressions are two essential metrics in PR and marketing. Each of them offers unique insights into audience engagement.

• Reach is like counting how many different people saw your post.
• Impressions are like counting how many times your post was seen, even if it was by the same person.

• Reach is important for tracking when and how more people see your stuff.
• Impressions are important for making sure people remember your brand.

By looking at both reach and impressions, you can figure out how well your content is doing and make your marketing and PR even better.

So start analyzing and comparing these metrics. Add them to your monthly/quarterly reports and boost your strategy accordingly.