Reach is how many people an outlet could put a story in front of. Impact is whether a specific story changes how your company is seen. Ranked by reach, round-ups and passing mentions rise to the top of the report. Ranked by impact, the stories that are genuinely about you do.
Reach, as media tools supply it, is usually a publisher constant: the same figure attached to every article from that outlet. A front-page story about your company and a round-up that names you sixth get the same number. Syndication then multiplies it, so one story picked up forty times can look like forty times the exposure.
Four questions, asked of every article:
Keep reach as an input and fold syndication first: one article republished forty times is one article, carried as a reach multiplier. Left unfolded, syndication can move a net sentiment figure by ten points, which is a number someone would act on wrongly. And show the stories the method demoted, the high-reach coverage that scored low, so you can see the correction being made.
The home page of measuredio.com ranks a set of stories both ways. Switch between reach and impact and watch what rises.
No. Report it as context and use it as one input. Just do not rank by it.
Not really. Impressions are reach counted per placement, so they inherit the same problems and add the syndication one.
Take last month's twenty highest-reach stories and mark each one: is the company the subject, or a passing mention? The share of passing mentions is usually the case for changing how you rank.