Social media analytics, explained in plain language
Reach, impressions, engagement and clicks — what they mean, and which ones deserve your attention.
Reach counts unique people who saw a post. Impressions count views, so one person seeing a post twice counts twice. Both matter, but they answer different questions.
Engagement counts interactions: likes, comments, shares, saves and clicks. Engagement rate divides those interactions by reach, so you can compare a post seen by 500 people with one seen by 5,000.
Clicks are the closest metric to action. If a post's job is to send people to a page, judge it on clicks, not likes — a pretty post that nobody clicks has not done its job.
Pick one primary metric per post before you publish. When you know the job, the report becomes a clear answer instead of a confusing pile of numbers.