Definition: Reach is the number of unique people who saw a post or account at least once in a given period.
Updated October 10, 2026
Reach counts people; impressions count views. If one person sees your post three times, that is one reach and three impressions. Impressions are always equal to or higher than reach.
Organic reach comes from feeds, search, shares and recommendations without paying. Paid reach comes from ads. Most platforms report them separately; mixing them hides whether your content is actually travelling on its own.
Posting consistently, early engagement in the first hour, shares and saves (which signal value to the algorithm), and formats each platform is currently pushing. Reposting the same text on every network rarely helps; tailored versions do.
An Instagram Reel is shown 9,500 times to 6,200 different accounts. Reach is 6,200 and impressions are 9,500, so on average each viewer saw it about 1.5 times.
Impressions are the total number of times a post was displayed on screen, counting repeat views by the same person.
Engagement rate is the percentage of people who interacted with a post (liked, commented, shared, saved or clicked) out of the people who saw it or follow the account.
The best time to post is the day and hour when your own followers are most likely to be online and engage, which differs by platform, audience and time zone.
Write once, tailor each version yourself or with optional AI, and schedule to 6 networks from one calendar.