Facebook Reach Statistics: What Are They & How To Find Them?

Want to understand all those Facebook reach statistics? This article can guide you through that maze.

Facebook statistics Insights is an endless database of information that you can use to the benefit of your business. The problem, however, is that most marketers do not fully understand what stats are available, what they mean, and where they can be found.

This is the first in a series of posts that will act as a resource to help you master Facebook Insights. Today, we will focus on those metrics associated with Reach. I’ll show you everything you need to know regarding Reach data that can be found within web Insights, page-level exports, post-level exports, and within Agorapulse.

Total Reach

Definition: The number of unique people who have seen your post or content, whether organically or via paid advertising.

Why It Matters: This metric provides a clearer view of your true footprint on Facebook users. The value of this number, however, is up for debate. Such a number won’t accurately reflect the value of your content since it’s too easily manipulated with ads. And it’s the “quality” rather than “quantity” of your Reach that ultimately matters, leading to meaningful engagement.

In Web Insights: Within the Overview tab of web Insights, you can get an idea of the Reach for each of your most recent posts.

You can get the Page-level view within the Reach tab. Here, you can not only get a breakdown of Reach but also frequency per user. Note that the reach metrics displayed here are measured monthly. It represents the number of people reached, on any given day, during the preceding 28 days.

In Page Level Export:

Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Total Reach (Key Metrics – Columns O-Q)
Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Total Reach of Page Posts (Key Metrics – Columns AQ-AS)
Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Total Reach Frequency Distribution (tabs for each)
Weekly Total Reach by Age and Gender (Weekly Reach Demographics Tab)
Weekly Total Reach by User Country (Weekly Reach by Country Tab)
Weekly Total Reach by User City (Weekly Reach by City Tab)
Weekly Total Reach by User Language (Weekly Reach by Language Tab)

In Post Level Export:

Lifetime Post Total Reach (Key Metrics – Column H)

In Agorapulse: You can also view this data in Agorapulse, which provides the data in a friendlier, more graphical format.

To view page level Reach, just click on the Statistics tab. By default, you will be taken to the page-level data. Scroll down, and you’ll see a graph for Reach.

To view the post level Reach, click Posts from that Statistics tab and then select Reach from the second drop-down. Now, you’ll be able to view how each individual post performed. The first column is for Total Reach. The reach metrics will be displayed using percentages of fans, making it easy to compare the performance of one post against another. You’ll also see a convenient heatmap showing you at a glance the posts performing better than your average and the one performing below your average.

Organic Reach

Definition: The number of unique people who visited your Page or saw your Page or one of its posts in News Feed or Ticker. This includes people who have and haven’t liked your Page.

Why It Matters: Since this metric omits paid Reach, this gives you a better idea of the number of people you reached organically (without the aid of advertising) with your content. Otherwise, the amount you spend can distort your results.

In Web Insights: Web Insights don’t provide Organic Reach on a post level basis (you’ll need to export your data for that), but you can view a graph of Organic Reach by visiting the Reach tab. An example of that tab is above in the Reach section.

In-Page Level Export:

Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Organic Reach (Key Metrics – Columns R-T)
Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Organic Reach of Page Posts (Key Metrics – Columns AT-AV)

In Post Level Export:

Lifetime Post Organic Reach (Key Metrics – Column I)

In Agorapulse: You can also view post level Organic Reach in Agorapulse. It can be found in the same manner that post level Total Reach is found above. The second column is for Organic Reach.

There is not a way to view page level Organic Reach within AgoraPulse.

Fan Reach

Definition: The unique number of Facebook Fans reached by your content.

Why it Matters: Your fans are the people who matter most. How many of them are you reaching? Does the day of the week, time of day or type of content matter? This is very important for strategically creating content that reaches the people who want to see it most.

This is an often-overlooked metric that is not easily tracked. In fact, many Facebook admins misunderstood some of the stats they see as actually being Fan Reach when they are instead looking at Total Reach or Organic Reach.

The truth is that you can’t view this within web Insights. You can’t view it within the page level export. You can only view it in two places: The post level export and within Agorapulse.

In Post Level Export:

Lifetime Post Reach by People Who Like Your Page (Key Metrics – Column X)

In Agorapulse: To view Fan Reach within Agorapulse, look to the third column within the post level table mentioned in the graphics above.

Paid Reach

Definition: The number of unique people who saw a Sponsored Story or ad pointing to your post or Page.

Why It Matters: By analyzing data that does and doesn’t include Paid Reach, marketers can start to determine the return on their ad spend. Did reaching X more people with your ads return a result equal to the cost? Accounting for Paid Reach can also help you determine the value of your Reach naturally, without the boost of advertising.

In Web Insights: Within the Overview tab, you can view whether or not a given recent post has been promoted, though there is no indication of how many people were reached with ads. (If you want to find out how your Facebook Ads are doing, you can check out our free tool AdsReport.)

Posts being promoted are marked with a green dot in the final column…

Once again, there is a page-level graph that includes all of the main reach metrics within the Reach tab.

In-Page Level Export:

Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Paid Reach (Key Metrics – Columns U-W)
Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Paid Reach of Page Posts (Key Metrics – Columns AW-AY)

In Post Level Export:

Lifetime Post Paid Reach (Key Metrics – Column J)
Lifetime Post Paid Reach by People Who Like Your Page (Key Metrics – Column Z)

In Agorapulse: To view Post level Paid Reach within Agorapulse, look to the fifth column in the table described in the other metrics above. Note that you can also view Paid Fan Reach.

There is not a way to view page level Paid Reach within Agorapulse.

Viral Reach

Definition: The number of unique people who saw your Page or one of its posts from a story shared by a friend. These stories include liking your Page, posting to your Page’s timeline, liking, commenting on or sharing one of your Page posts, answering a question you posted, responding to one of your events, mentioning your Page, tagging your Page in a photo or checking in at your location.

Why It Matters: If you have a high Viral Reach, it’s because there are many people (Fans and non-Fans) sharing and interacting with your content. This is obviously good. Keep in mind, of course, that Facebook doesn’t surface Page interaction with non-fans as often as they once did, so you’ll often see a very low number of users reached per story generated.

In Web Insights: There are actually three different places you can view viral reach-related stats and graphs within the web version of Facebook Insights.

First, when viewing individual posts from the Overview tab, there is a column for “Virality.” This is slightly different than Viral Reach in that it is the percentage of people who have created a story about your post over the total number of people who have seen your post.

There are two places to view the Virality of your Page within web Insights (the graphs represent essentially the same thing). First, within the Reach tab:

And then within the Talking About This tab:

In-Page Level Export:

Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Viral Reach (Key Metrics – Columns X-Z)
Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Viral Reach of Page Posts (Key Metrics – Columns AZ-BB)
Daily, Weekly and 28 Days Viral Reach Frequency Distribution (tabs for each)

In Post Level Export:

Lifetime Post Viral Reach (Key Metrics – Column K)

In Agorapulse: To view Post level Viral Reach within Agorapulse, look to the fourth column in the table mentioned earlier. See the graphic for Paid Reach above for an example.

On page level, you can view what AgoraPulse calls a “Viral Bonus” that is within that same graphic shown above for Total Reach. A Viral Bonus is…

(Number of people who saw your posts thanks to a friend’s activity / Total number of Fans) X 100