Does using a social media management platform affect reach?

Often touted as a ‘vanity metric’, reach gets a bit of a bashing sometimes. If you work in public sector communications, it’s still a useful measure when evaluating your social media activity, especially when combined with other metrics like sentiment. 

And from experience, we know it’s an important measure for comms teams. A question we’ve often been asked by customers and prospects alike: will using a social media management platform like Orlo hurt our organic reach?

It’s a fair question. After all, communications activity should always be seeking to reach the right audience, at the right time, on the right platforms. Why would you want to do something that could negatively impact that hard work?

Let’s address those concerns, weigh up the perceived risks of using social media management tools with the benefits, and help you understand how to get good reach for your content.

Ok, back to basics for a moment. What actually is reach? And is it that important?

Reach is the number of unique individuals who have seen your content. It’s a fundamental metric that indicates how widely your message has been distributed and the potential audience it has reached. It’s different from impressions – that’s the total number of times your content was displayed, regardless of whether the same person saw it multiple times.

It’s split into organic reach and paid reach. Organic just means no money has been spent on getting the post in front of targeted audiences.

And yes. It does matter.

Higher reach means more people are exposed to your messaging, see your brand, and potentially take action. It helps you assess how effective your campaigns are at distributing your message to your target audience. It can also help you understand the types of content that resonate with your audiences and generate wider interest. Plus, increased reach can lead to more followers, as people who see and engage with your content might choose to follow your account.

There’s a lingering belief that social networks penalise posts from third-party tools.

This is largely outdated.

Social media companies actually prefer organisations to use these platforms, as it helps them manage their presence more effectively. The easier and more convenient it is to do your job, the more active you’ll be. And they like active.

People have been concerned about this for years. Studies by companies like Buffer, Agorapulse, and CoSchedule have shown no statistically significant difference in reach or engagement between posts published natively and those scheduled through third-party tools.

Independent parties have run a variety of experiments, too.

It’s pretty safe to say that if these tools affected reach, someone would have flagged it by now. 

So, why does the myth persist? 

You’ve created a great piece of content. It’s jazzy. It’s got a trending sound. It’s targeted at your intended audience. Your boss loves it. You post it and…oh. 

We’ve all been there. There could be any number of reasons that a carefully crafted campaign content piece doesn’t perform as expected.

Is the message clear and concise? Was it posted at the right time? Is the content really interesting to your target audience? Is there a clear call to action? Are you competing with other posts in a noisy space? Did you cross-promote it on other channels? There’s a lot to consider.

The point here is, a drop in reach might coincide with you using a scheduling tool, but it’s most likely due to other factors.

Social media reach is in decline. You might have noticed this from your own content performance over time. But it’s not you, it’s them.

This is not a new phenomenon – gradual trends have been observed over the past few years, influenced by several factors. These include competition, algorithm changes, and social media fragmentation; you can read more about our thoughts on that in our report, Comms Trends for the Public Sector in 2025

Organic reach on Facebook has been notoriously low for a while. Studies by Social Status show average organic reach of around 1.37% in 2024, with median engagement rates at a meager 0.2%. This means that, without paid promotion, only a fraction of your followers will see your posts.

While Instagram’s organic reach has historically been higher than Facebook’s, it’s also on a downward trend. Recent data suggests it’s around 4%, which is still significantly lower than it used to be.

While platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok still offer decent organic reach, it’s likely that they too will follow a similar trajectory as their user base and content volume grow.

While organic reach is declining across social media platforms, the challenges faced by public sector organisations are even more pronounced. The unique nature of public sector communications, with its focus on transparency, accountability, and service to citizens, requires a different approach.

Public sector organisations often have less flexibility in their social media presence. They can face stricter regulations, have more diverse audiences, and be held to higher standards of transparency. Often, they’re prevented from using a lighter tone of voice than some of the commercial organisations whose content often goes viral.

Think RyanAir, Greggs, or Innocent. These factors can impact their ability to reach and engage with their target audience organically. 

Of course, there are always those who do things differently and succeed. We see incredibly successful content from the likes of Orlo Golden Ele award winners, Buckinghamshire Council, and Derbyshire Constabulary challenging the norms on the ‘corporate tone of voice’ with great results.

But these teams have put in the graft to build trust with their audiences, which allows them to engage differently and extend their reach.   

The most successful strategies now blend organic and paid content across their channels to maximise reach, balancing authentic content that builds trust with communities with targeted, promoted pieces.

Ok, you get it. There are loads of things that can affect the reach of your content. But say you’re not convinced and think the social media networks might still be penalising you for not posting natively. Why would you use a platform like Orlo?

To put it simply, all the benefits of using a social media management platform seriously stack up. We help to streamline workflows, ensure consistency, provide valuable analytics and powerful reporting tools that help to track and improve reach and engagement. 

However, it’s crucial to remember that a platform alone is not enough. Public sector organisations must still focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that resonates with their audience. 

They should also actively engage with their followers, respond to comments and questions, and foster a sense of community. Doing that is so much easier from one unified inbox. 

For example, Orlo customer Connexus found that their reach increased by 144% after joining us. They listened to their audiences and created content that resonated with them.

Another question we’re often asked is “what does good reach look like?” While there’s no single magic number for ‘good’, here’s a breakdown of what to consider and some examples to illustrate what success might look like.

Factors influencing “good” reach:

• Audience size: A council with 50,000 residents will have different reach expectations than a central government body with millions.
• Platform: Reach varies across platforms. 1,000 views on a niche community forum might be excellent, while 1,000 views on a viral TikTok trend wouldn’t be.
• Content type: A dry policy announcement will naturally have lower reach than an engaging video about a local hero.
• Objectives: If your goal is to inform a small group about a hyperlocal issue, your reach target will differ from a national awareness campaign.

Measures of success:

• Local council: A Facebook post about a new park opening reaches 20% of their page followers and generates lively discussion in the comments.
• Health authority: A message about flu vaccine availability reaches 10,000 people and results in a measurable increase in appointment bookings.
• Government agency: A YouTube video explaining a new policy receives 5,000 views and a high percentage of viewers watch to the end, indicating they understood the message.
• Emergency services: A series of Instagram Stories about fire safety reaches 30% of their followers and leads to a decrease in callouts for preventable incidents.

How do you know how well you’re performing? Benchmarking and data are your friends here. Compare your reach to similar organisations. Are you on a par, above, or below? If you’re an Orlo customer, we can help you with that information and give you ideas about how to improve reach on social media. 

Track your own performance and compare it over time. Are you seeing improvement or decline, and what factors might be influencing that?

Experiment – the best way to learn is to try and see what happens. Test out your content, review the impact, change and try again. 

Reach is just part of the picture – high reach is great but it’s meaningless without engagement. Look for likes, comments, shares, and clicks. Analyse your sentiment. And evaluate your outcomes – are things changing as a result of your activity?

While there’s no conclusive data out there about using a social media management platform impacting your reach, the benefits for public sector comms teams are undeniable.  By streamlining workflows, ensuring consistency, and providing valuable analytics, platforms like Orlo can help you maximise your reach and engagement, without sacrificing authenticity or transparency.    

Reach is still a valuable metric, and it’s important to understand what good reach looks like for your organisation and strive to improve your performance over time. Remember, the most successful social media strategies blend organic and paid content, and prioritise building trust with communities.

1. Know Your Audience: Research your audience’s interests, demographics, and social media behavior to tailor content that truly resonates and encourages them to share with others.
2. Prioritise Quality Content: Create visually appealing, informative content, like videos, images, and infographics, that is useful and engaging for your audience.
3. Engage Authentically: Use a genuine voice, be open about your services and challenges, and actively respond to comments and questions to foster a sense of community.
4. Optimise Posting Strategy: Post consistently and at times when your audience is most active, use strong calls to action, and promote your content across different channels for wider reach.  Research the algorithms of the channels you use, and use social media management tools to schedule posts and ensure a consistent flow of quality content.
5. Track, Analyse, and Adapt: Monitor your reach and engagement metrics, experiment with different approaches, and benchmark against similar organisations to identify what works best and continuously improve your strategy.