“What is the difference between ‘impressions’ and ‘reach’? And is that different to ‘engagement’?”
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So you’re getting all social savvy and paying attention to your Instagram Insights but suddenly realise you have a lot of questions like these ones.
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This should help:
▪️Reach is the number of individuals who actually SEE your post.
▪️Impressions are the number of times your post is DISPLAYED. (A viewer doesn’t have to engage with your post for it to count as an impression. And if one person sees your post three times, this is counted as 1 reach and 3 impressions. Got it? )
▪️Engagement is the number of times your post is LIKED, saved or commented on. Engagement rate is the percentage of followers that engage (like, save, or comment) with your posts.
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I know—it all sounds really overwhelming and confusing. If you want to pay attention to just ONE thing, make it ENGAGEMENT. Your engagement rate gives you an idea of how interested (or ‘engaged’) the users who saw your posts were.
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So what’s a good engagement rate, you ask? Well this changes all of the time depending on a bajillion factors… somewhere around 3-6% seems to be the going rate for decent engagement on social media account under 5K followers, and then 1-3% once you’re hitting 10K followers, and down to 1.5-2% after that. (The fewer followers you have the higher your engagement rate is going to be, so don’t hit the panic button if your engagement rate drops as your followers grow.)
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But truthfully, my advice?

STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE NUMBERS!

Ever heard of “paralysis by analysis”… where you overthink a situation to the point that a decision or action is never taken? It’s true and oh so common.
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So, instead of spending hours analyzing stats, focus your efforts and brain power on making valuable, helpful, and enjoyable content for your audience.
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That is what will encourage people to start engaging with your account and lead them to invest in your service / product / business in the future.
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