When considering the desired online identity for a brand, business or campaign, it is important to think about the message that needs to be relayed. The message will define a purpose, help target an audience and develop a community of fans and supporters.

Here at Raconteur, we like to tell stories for our clients--as you can see from our tagline. We believe that any story worth listening to needs a clear message. So, we delve in and work with our clients to piece together their thoughts, and form that meaningful message. But what’s next is where we really dig in.

The message is not and should not be the finish line. It is the starting gate. It has to be disseminated, received, processed and, ideally, acted upon or engaged with by your audience. But how do you know if it’s reaching them? How do you know if they are responding to it?

The nitty-gritty of measuring message impact is our specialty. If all the details of how we analyze our clients’ messaging were given in this post, it would be one hundred pages long. Let’s just explore one piece of the puzzle for the moment.

The Reach. What is it? Do you have it? Can you get it?

In social spaces, particularly Facebook and Twitter, the reach of your content is a piece of information that you’re going to want to track. It is measured by the number of individuals that have potentially seen your posts. Think “media impressions.” Same idea, new media. This explanation seems simple, and in theory it is, but in that magic number, you are taking into account your current network size, AND the network sizes of all your fans and followers that have deemed your message worthy of their re-tweet or share. Reach helps determine the extent to which your messages are being shared, and thus gives you a snapshot of the content that resonates most with your audience. This little nugget of information is an essential strategic tool and will act as a litmus test for developing ongoing effective messaging.