Social media 'reach' is consistent with reach in a television context and measures the range of influence of event related content i.e. the number of unique users that viewed event related social media activity. It can be measured relatively easily according to the number of likes, followers and connections that an event's social media accounts achieve. This reach can be broken down into three categories:
- Organic reach - the number of unique users that viewed a post on their newsfeed;
- Viral reach - the number of unique users that viewed a post shared by a friend; and
- Paid reach - the number of unique users that viewed a post through an advertisement.
Media analytics tools can provide the above information for event organisers and marketing departments. Simple aggregation across the main social media platforms will provide an indication of an event's online community or organic reach, for example:
Total Facebook fans + Twitter followers + Pinterest followers + LinkedIn followers + Instagram followers + Google+ followers
It is possible to keep track of these statistics manually, using the built in analytics provided by each social network. Alternatively, web analytics packages can be used or media evaluation consultants can design bespoke solutions for larger events.
The most common metric applied to reach data is Audience Growth Rate which measures the change in an event's following across various social media networks during two points in time, i.e. pre and post event, to identify additions to the audience during the event which may reflect the strength of any social media campaigns that were run. A hypothetical example of how Audience Growth might look based on reach data pre, during and immediately post event is presented below with YouTube exhibiting the largest growth rate across the various platforms.
Example of Social Media Reach Metric (Audience Growth Rate)
|
Platform
|
2 weeks
pre-event
|
1 week
pre-event
|
Event week
|
1 week
post-event
|
Change (%)
|
|
Instagram
|
5,000
|
5,500
|
6,200
|
6,300
|
26
|
|
Twitter
|
8,000
|
8,150
|
8,600
|
8,800
|
10
|
|
Facebook
|
9,500
|
10,700
|
11,300
|
11,600
|
22
|
|
YouTube
|
7,000
|
7,250
|
9,400
|
9,750
|
39
|
|
Total
|
29,500
|
31,600
|
35,500
|
36,450
|
23
|
Facebook (and Twitter) analytics provide measures and reports on reach if an event chooses to use paid advertisements on these social media platforms. However, measuring viral reach requires more in-depth analysis by media analytics companies which may incur additional costs, which will vary depending on the level of insight required.