Glossary
Impressions
Impressions are the number of times a post was shown on screen. Repeat views count again, so one person can add several impressions.
Impressions are the number of times a post was shown on someone's screen. They are not unique: if the same person sees your post three times while scrolling, that is three impressions. That makes impressions a measure of how often your content was displayed, not of how many people saw it (that is reach).
Example
You publish a post on Monday. By Friday your analytics show 2,400 impressions and 1,600 members reached. On average, each person who saw the post saw it 1.5 times, because the post came back into some feeds (after a comment, a repost, or simply a later visit).
On LinkedIn
LinkedIn's post analytics define impressions as the number of times your post was shown on LinkedIn, and list "members reached" separately as the number of distinct members and Pages that saw it, without repeat views. LinkedIn says both numbers are estimates. For LinkedIn Pages, an impression counts when the post is at least 50 percent on screen for 300 milliseconds or more, or when it is clicked.
On X
X's developer documentation defines impressions as the count of times a post appeared on a user's screen, and says they are not unique: the same user viewing twice counts as two impressions. X shows the count publicly on each post.
How to use the number
Impressions on their own say little about whether a post worked: being shown is not the same as being read. They are most useful as the denominator of a rate, such as engagement rate (engagements divided by impressions) or link clicks per impression. Compare posts by those rates, and look at impressions next to reach to see how often a post resurfaced.
Postopus collects the impressions, likes, replies, reposts, quotes and bookmarks of your own X posts over time and shows them on each post. LinkedIn post metrics are not in Postopus yet.
Sources
- LinkedIn Help, Post analytics for your content (impressions and members reached).
- LinkedIn Help, Content analytics for your LinkedIn Page (the 300 millisecond, 50 percent rule).
- X Developer Platform, Metrics (impression definition).
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