I was reading a Facebook thread the other day. Someone had asked whether hashtags help on Facebook the way they do on Instagram or TikTok. Fair question. Loads of opinions followed, as you’d expect.
Then one comment stopped me.
“They help me get more reach.”
Reach. That was the goal. Not enquiries. Not sales. Not new customers walking through the door.
Reach.
And I sat there thinking, have we really got to the point where a business owner considers ‘reach’ a win?
Because if we have, that’s a problem. A fairly significant one.
Reach Is Not a Business Result
Let’s strip this back to basics, because it needs saying.
Reach means the number of people who might have seen your post. That’s it. It doesn’t mean they cared. It doesn’t mean they clicked, visited your website, picked up the phone, or bought anything from you.
You can reach 10,000 people and sell absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile, a different post might reach 200 people and bring two genuine enquiries. Which one matters? The one that leads to actual business. Every time.
You don’t get taxed on ‘reach’ and you can’t pay bills with ‘reach’.
I know ‘reach’ matters, to some extent, but next time an invoice lands in your inbox, try paying it with ‘reach’.
Social Media Trained Everyone to Chase the Wrong Numbers
Platforms like Facebook are very good at one thing: getting you hooked on numbers. The wrong ones.
- Likes.
- Shares.
- Followers.
- Reach.
- Reactions.
They all feel like progress. Facebook even gives them a cool name; ‘Insights‘.
Most of them mean very little for a business. They don’t mean absolutely nothing, but they don’t mean everything either.
You’ll regularly see someone proudly announcing, “We reached 18,000 people this week!” And when you ask how many customers that brought in?
Silence.
Because reach looks impressive in a screenshot. What happens – or more often doesn’t happen – afterwards is a different story.
The Numbers That Actually Matter
If you run a business, the metrics worth caring about are a lot simpler.
Enquiries. Bookings. Phone calls. Email sign-ups. Website visits. Sales.
Those are business outcomes. Reach is just a possibility, and a vague one at that.
Facebook Keeps the Attention. Not You.
Here’s something else that rarely gets said out loud.
Most Facebook activity never leaves Facebook.
People scroll. They tap a like. Maybe they leave a comment. Then they keep scrolling. Most don’t visit the business website. They don’t read anything useful. They don’t enquire. And Facebook is perfectly happy with that arrangement, because the longer people stay on Facebook, the more advertising it can show them.
The platform wins. Your business, not so much.
The Borrowed Platform Problem
Your website is an asset.
Your Facebook page is borrowed space.
A website can appear in search results, get referenced by AI tools when someone asks a relevant question, rank for useful searches, collect enquiries, and build your authority over time. A Facebook post disappears down the timeline within a few hours.
Yet plenty of businesses pour all their effort into the thing they don’t own. That’s a bit backwards, if I’m honest.
The Gmail-and-Facebook Business Model
There’s a whole wave of modern “businesses” that run on a Facebook page, a Gmail address, and a mobile number. That’s the entire setup. No website – or maybe something built to look ‘cool’ but not effective. No proper digital presence. No content that answers real questions from real customers with buying intent. Just posts.
In that situation, I understand why reach feels like a win. There’s nothing else to measure. But a real business should be building something more solid than that.
Reach Only Matters If It Leads Somewhere
Reach is not useless. I want to be clear about that. It’s just not the destination.
Think of it as step one. Someone sees your post. Then ideally they visit your website, read something useful, decide you know your stuff, and contact you. That is how reach becomes business. Without those steps, reach is just people scrolling past your post while waiting for the kettle to boil.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Social Media Marketing
A lot of what gets called marketing today isn’t really marketing.
It’s performance. Posting regularly. Checking reactions. Watching numbers tick up. Insights. Feeling productive. But feeling busy is not the same as growing your business. I know people who obsess over Facebook insights.
Reach, however impressive it looks on a screen, does not pay the bills.
A Better Question to Ask
Instead of asking whether your post got good reach, try asking:
- Did anyone visit the website?
- Did anyone contact us?
- Did anyone become a customer?
Those answers will tell you whether your marketing is actually working.
Customers in your bank account look a lot better than a reach number in a screenshot.
FAQs About Social Media Reach and Business Results
Do hashtags actually help reach on Facebook?
Sometimes, but the effect is usually small. Facebook does not rely on hashtags the way Instagram or TikTok do. A post that people genuinely interact with will nearly always outperform one that’s been stuffed with hashtags.
Is reach a useful metric for a small business?
It can show how many people had the opportunity to see your post, but it says nothing about business impact. Enquiries, website visits, and actual sales are far more useful measures of whether your marketing is working.
Why do so many businesses focus on reach instead of results?
Because platforms put it front and centre. Reach, likes, and reactions are easy to see and easy to feel good about. But they are vanity metrics that rarely connect directly to business growth.
Should a small business rely on Facebook as its main marketing channel?
Facebook can support visibility and community engagement, but it should not carry your entire strategy. A well-built website, useful content, and solid search visibility give you far more control and much better long-term value.
What should I focus on instead of reach?
Focus on actions that move people closer to becoming customers. Encourage website visits, useful reading, mailing list sign-ups, and direct contact. Those steps are what turn an audience into actual business.
