What Does Accounts Reached Mean on Instagram?

You can eliminate the guesswork and figure out what your Instagram followers actually like with Instagram metrics.

Whether you’re new to Instagram or an experienced content creator, these analytics tell you everything you need to know about your followers’ behavior. You’ll see what they engage with the most, what they don’t like, and even what times of day they’re usually online. Based on what you learn, you can focus more on doing what works.

So, what does Accounts Reached mean on Instagram, and what about impressions? Here’s everything you need to know about Instagram metrics and why they’re important.

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Understanding Instagram Metrics and Insights

Accounts Reached and Impressions both fall under your Instagram metrics, and they show how many people see and interact with your posts. This interaction is important to track so you can know which kinds of posts reach the most people — whether you want to reach a certain number of accounts by the end of the year or post when your followers are online. 

If you have a Creator or Instagram Business account, you can find key metrics under your Instagram Insights dashboard in your settings. If you only have a personal account, you won’t have access to Instagram Insights, but you can still track your likes, comments, shares, and follows on your own to see how you’re doing. 

You’ll see several metrics in Instagram Insights, but these three are the most important to know:

• Engagement rate — This is the percentage of your followers that engaged with your content, which could be liking, commenting, or sharing. A higher engagement rate indicates that people are enjoying your posts.
• Impressions — This is the number of times users have seen a certain post. These views could come from users’ feeds, Search and Explore pages, or Stories. If one user saw your post three times in their feed and once in a Story, for example, it would count as four impressions.
• Accounts Reached — This is the number of unique accounts that have seen a post. If one person views a post three times, no matter where they’ve seen it, the Instagram app counts it as one account reached. 

What Does Accounts Reached Mean on Instagram?

Accounts Reached is a metric that tells you the number of unique accounts that have seen your content — on their feed, Search and Explore pages, or your profile. It shows you how many individual Instagram accounts viewed a particular post. Whether they viewed it once, twice, or multiple times, Instagram counts it as one “account reached.” 

Imagine you received 100 views on a Reel. One viewer watched the Reel three times, and 97 others watched it just once. Instagram counts that as 98 Accounts Reached — the one person who viewed it three times only counts as one. 

Impressions versus Accounts Reached

So, what does impressions mean on Instagram? Instagram impressions are the total number of views each post receives. If one account views a single post multiple times, Instagram counts those instances as separate “impressions.” In other words, it’s the total number of views each post gets.

If one Instagram user sees a video 10 times, Instagram counts it as 10 impressions, but one account reached. If 10 Instagram users view a video 10 times, Instagram counts it as 10 impressions, and 10 accounts reached. 

If you have more impressions than “Accounts reached,” viewers are seeing your posts multiple times. This could just mean they’re seeing it again by chance, like in their feed and on your Story, but it could also mean they’re going back to look at it again and again because it resonates with them. 

When the same accounts view your posts more than once, it means you’re creating a more loyal audience and you’re on the right track to building a community. However, if your goal is to gain more followers, you might want to boost your “Accounts reached” instead of impressions so more individual users see and appreciate your content.

Why Should You Track Accounts Reached? 

High account reach on Instagram means that your content is popular. It’s reaching lots of different people, whether that’s because it’s showing up on their Explore pages or their friends are sharing it with them. No matter why your reach is high, it’s important to track because it indicates which posts are doing well and reaching more people. 

If you take note of the posts with the highest reach, you can replicate the elements that you think made them successful. For example, if you wrote a funny story in the caption of a Reel, that could encourage more shares, which could be the reason why it reached so many people. You could try doing that again and see if you reach more accounts the second time — if so, you can keep it up and continue growing. The algorithm will notice the effect and recommend your content to even more people. 

In the “Accounts reached” section of Instagram Insights, you can also see your reach for any particular day or date range. You might notice that you reach more people on Fridays, and with that information, you can plan to post more at the end of the week for maximum visibility. 

What Is a Good Reach Rate on Instagram?

While you can use Instagram Insights to see how many accounts you have reached, it doesn't show your reach rate. Your reach rate is the percentage of users who have seen your content compared to your follower count. This can help you understand how well your content is performing relative to your account size, also known as your follower count.

Your reach rate is your “Accounts reached” divided by your number of followers, then multiplied by 100. This creates a percentage. You could also look at it as a formula:

(Number of Accounts Reached / Total number of followers) x 100 = Reach rate

If you have 1,000 followers and your Accounts reached is 300, your reach rate would be 30%. 

There’s no rule when it comes to the “ideal” reach rate. In a perfect world, all of your followers would see all of your posts every time — for a reach rate of 100% — but it doesn’t always work that way. Not everyone checks Instagram every day, and the algorithm could push other posts above yours so some of your followers don’t see it. 

Instead of comparing your metrics to an arbitrary standard, set realistic goals to improve your reach rate over time. For example, if your current reach rate is 10%, aim to increase it to 15% over the next couple of months. Then, you can keep tracking your Insights to see how you did and figure out how to improve.

How to Reach More People on Instagram: 4 Tips

Here are a few tips to improve your account’s reach. 

1. Create High-Quality Content

Dark and blurry posts are harder to view and understand, which often deters users — meaning they won’t revisit your post or share it with friends. Make sure your posts have decent lighting and solid audio so viewers can see (and appreciate) every moment. Natural lighting and a quiet room makes for a great setting to film a Reel that both looks and sounds good.

If you want to take the extra step to make your Instagram Reels even better, use Captions for editing. The app’s AI tools will add captions to your videos, take out any pauses or mistakes, and remove any background noise in seconds. With just a few taps, it’ll look like you spent hours editing your video instead of minutes.

2. Interact With Your Audience

Respond to as many comments and direct messages as you can. When followers see that you reply to them, they’re more likely to comment and interact with every post. This creates a positive cycle, where your response prompts more engagement from your audience. The higher engagement rate will show the algorithm that people love what you post, and it’ll recommend you to more accounts. 

3. Use Hashtags

Hashtags categorize and organize content based on specific topics or themes. This lets users search for or tap on a hashtag to explore the content that interests them most, and it shows the Instagram algorithm what a post is about. When you add relevant hashtags in your post’s description, you show both your viewers and the algorithm what you’re posting about, which could increase your reach. 

Let's say you're a travel creator and you've just posted a photo of a beach sunset. Search for relevant hashtags on websites like Hashtagify or Ritetag, or see what similar creators are tagging on their posts. You might find #traveldreams, #beachlife, or #sunsetmagic. Then, when you include these hashtags, you can reach users interested in those topics — and therefore more accounts. 

You can also rely on AI to help you with Captions’ Prepare Social Post feature. It will automatically suggest trending and viral hashtags that relate to your video’s topic. Here’s how:

1. Open the Captions app.
2. Go to the “Projects” tab in the bottom left.
3. Tap the three dots on the right side of the project you’re ready to post.
4. Tap “Prepare Social Post” at the top of the menu.
5. You’ll see the tags in the middle of the screen. Use the “Copy” button on the right side to copy your hashtags and paste them in your Instagram description.   

4. Do Giveaways

In an Instagram giveaway, you give away free items to your followers. People can typically enter by sharing the post, tagging friends, or following you — all of which could help bring your post to more people. After a few days or weeks, you randomly choose one of your participants as the winner. This rewards your audience while boosting your engagement and reaching more individual accounts. 

Elevate Your Reach With Engaging Content

The best way to extend your account reach is with high-quality, engaging content — but that can take hours of editing. If you’re looking for a way to speed up your content creation process, Captions can help.

In the Captions app, you can use AI tools to automatically polish your videos and make them look like you’ve used professional equipment. Remove all background noise in a tap, add royalty free music tracks, and instantly cut out any pauses and filler words to sound like you recorded your video in a professional studio. Do it all in Captions.