With ads, it’s how many people saw your ad in their feed.

Reach is different from Impressions, though — yet many of us seem to treat them like they’re the same.

For example, a Facebook ad may have achieved 12,009 impressions but only reached 7,226. Does this then mean that 7,226 people saw the ad?

Not necessarily.

Think about how you use social media feeds.

You could be on Facebook scrolling through posts from friends, family, ads and businesses. How many of them do you notice? And how does Facebook measure that?

Algorithms can, hypothetically, notice a slowdown of the scrolling that indicates that a specific post is being looked at. But is this necessarily what is being reported?

We don’t know. And we’re not likely to know.

What we do know is that Reach metrics on all social platforms (not just Facebook) is a black box of measurements that we have no visibility of.

We see a number and have to trust that it’s true.

Video views on social media aren’t what you think they are

There’s a very good reason why your video views are so much higher on TikTok than anywhere else. And it’s not just because so many people watch so many videos on TikTok.

Every platform has its way of counting video views. So here’s a quick guide to how each social network measures your video views so that you can decide for yourself if shifting all your focus to one platform is really just creating yourself a house of cards.

The short answer is no. The long answer is “maybe a little.”

Personal Brand is an incredibly personal topic. After all, you’re choosing how you plan to project yourself to the world, personally and professionally.

And while I wouldn’t say I like the idea of someone basing their personal brand off someone else’s, there’s nothing wrong with being inspired by how someone else has built theirs.

After all, I have lifted a lot of inspiration from Justin Welsh and bits and pieces from several other women and men who express themselves in a way that I resonate with.

There is a danger of losing yourself in someone else’s narrative.

• When you don’t define your values, you inherit theirs
• When you don’t refine your voice, you mimic theirs
• When you don’t have a goal in mind, you may end up copying theirs

Let’s drill down on those dangers a little more.