Reach vs impressions
Reach is how many different people saw your post, while impressions count every time it was shown, repeats included, so impressions are never lower than reach.
Why it matters when you post for yourself
Picture a poster on your office door. Reach is how many different people walked past it. Impressions are how many times it was seen, so a colleague who walks past three times adds one to reach and three to impressions.
The networks name them differently. LinkedIn Help calls them members reached, the distinct members and pages who viewed a post, and impressions, the number of times it was displayed. Instagram's Help Centre now calls them viewers, the unique accounts that saw your content at least once, and views, the number of times it was played or displayed.
If you post for yourself, reach is the more useful of the two. It tells you how many people a post got in front of, and whether that number is growing. When impressions climb faster than reach, the same people are seeing you again, which builds familiarity but doesn't bring new people in.
Example
300 people see your post. 100 of them scroll past it a second time. Reach is 300; impressions are 400.
Where it shows up in Postmosis
The account audit in Postmosis reads your last 30 public Instagram or TikTok posts and shows each one's views against your usual, so you can see which posts went further. See the account audit
Related terms
Sources
- LinkedIn Help: Combined post analytics, read 28 October 2026
- Instagram Help Centre: About Instagram insights, read 28 October 2026
Common questions
Start my weekWhich matters more, reach or impressions?
They answer different questions. Reach says how many people, impressions say how many times. Watch reach to see whether you're getting in front of new people.
Why are my impressions higher than my reach?
Because some people saw the post more than once. That's normal.
Does Instagram still show impressions?
Instagram's Help Centre now lists views, the number of times content was played or displayed, and viewers, the unique accounts that saw it.
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