Facebook to replace Reach metric with viewers from Oct 31

Facebook will discontinue its traditional “Reach” metric for measuring content performance from October 31, 2026, replacing it with a new metric called “Viewers” to measure the audience viewing content.

In a notice, Facebook said the Reach metric had been used to measure how many unique accounts a piece of content reached within a specific period. However, the feature will no longer be available from October 31, 2026.

Under the new system, Viewers will become a key metric for assessing the audience for content published on the platform. Users will be able to use the metric to evaluate different types of content, including photos, videos and Reels.

The change is expected to affect how businesses manage their Facebook pages, monitor promotional campaigns and assess the overall performance of marketing content.

Media organisations, businesses, independent content creators and digital marketing professionals may need to adjust their analytics strategies to accommodate the new measurement system.

The transition could also make it difficult to compare historical performance data with figures generated under the new metric if the calculation methods for Reach and Viewers differ. Facebook page administrators may therefore need to preserve their existing reports and familiarise themselves with how the new metric is calculated.

The change is particularly significant for organisations that rely on Facebook analytics to assess content performance and audience engagement. Information about how many people content reaches and how many accounts view it often plays an important role in evaluating the effectiveness of social media campaigns.

For publishers and businesses, understanding the differences between the two metrics will be important to ensure continuity in performance reporting and make informed decisions about content strategy and digital marketing.