Impressions

Impressions, in the context of social media, mean the total number of times a piece of content, such as a post, ad, or story, is displayed or appears on a user’s screen. This is true regardless of whether the content is clicked, interacted with, or even fully seen by the user. For our purposes, 'impressions' also means the number of times content is shown and can be counted even when the same content is seen multiple times by the same user.

For example, an Instagram post shown once and then later in someone's scroll through the Explore page will count as two impressions, even though there was only one viewer. Impressions are critical for gauging the content's visibility or exposure and are more often seen as a top-of-funnel metric leading toward brand awareness. They really have nothing to do with engagement.

Focusing on engagement, as we have in this module, is more a focus on the bottom of the funnel, leading toward conversions. Impressions are also somehow intertwined with visibility and the idea of 'opportunity to see. ' If we understand that almost 2 billion people scroll through Facebook every day, then just imagine how many businesses and nonprofits trying to raise money for good causes are competing for attention!

And yet, with more and more organizations on these platforms, we're somehow able to see these posts with an 'impression' that leads us closer to some 'engagement' with Metro areas we had in mind when developing this course as we lead toward final exams and community service.