What is Potential Reach?
Potential Reach is an estimate of the maximum number of unique users who could have been exposed to a piece of content, mention, or campaign across digital and social channels.
It doesn’t measure how many people actually engaged, but instead calculates the theoretical audience size based on follower counts, media circulation, and network amplification.
Why is Potential Reach Important?
- Measures visibility opportunity: shows the scale of how far a message could travel.
- Supports campaign evaluation: helps compare expected impact vs actual engagement.
- Benchmarking tool: assess whether your brand reach is expanding relative to competitors.
- Influencer analysis: evaluate the audience size that influencers contribute when they mention a brand.
- Crisis & reputation management: estimate how widely negative narratives could spread.
Example of Potential Reach in action
A consumer brand partners with three influencers:
- Influencer A has 200k followers.
- Influencer B has 100k followers.
- Influencer C has 50k followers.
The campaign’s Potential Reach is estimated at 350k unique users — representing the maximum audience who might have seen the content before accounting for overlaps or engagement levels.
How Potential Reach is calculated
Potential Reach combines factors such as:
- Number of followers of accounts posting about the brand.
- Estimated audience size of web publications and digital media
- Shares and reposts amplifying original content.
- Source Impact – weight given to high-authority sources.
Potential Reach vs Related Metrics
- Buzz = number of mentions; Potential Reach = how many people could see those mentions.
- Engagement = actions taken by audiences; reach is the opportunity, engagement is the reaction.
- Share of Voice (SoV) = compares visibility share across competitors; potential reach provides the absolute scale.
- Source Impact = evaluates the authority of the sources contributing to reach.
Key Takeaways
- Potential Reach = the estimated maximum audience size a brand message can reach.
- It helps brands measure visibility, influencer impact, and campaign effectiveness.
- Complements KPIs like Buzz, Engagement, SoV, and Source Impact.
- With Palowise, Potential Reach is calculated across social platforms, media outlets, and influencers — providing brand
