Business25 Aug 20266 min read

Creator Decode, Part 1

This week, we’re decoding some of those creator words you hear all the time but might not actually understand.

We hear words like “the algorithm,” “reach,” “engagement” and “impressions” all the time.

We use them, we see them everywhere, but do we actually know what they mean?

That’s what we’re getting into today.

Algorithm

When you post something, the app shows it to a few people first. If they like it, watch it, save it or share it, the app shows it to more people.

That’s basically how the algorithm works. It decides who gets to see and watch your content.

So let’s say you post a video and the first few people watching it actually stick around, like it and share it. The app sees that and starts showing the video to more people.

That’s why you might post something thinking, “Okay, let’s see how this does,” and then suddenly, hours later, it’s reaching people you’ve never seen before.

The app is basically trying to figure out who else might like it.

And now,that brings us to reach.

Reach

If that same video ends up being seen by 1,000 different people, your reach is 1,000.

It doesn’t matter whether all 1,000 people liked it or commented. They just had to see it.

So when you see your reach, think: How many people saw my content?

For example, if your reach says 5,000, your content was seen by 5,000 people.

Now, those people might have done something with your post too. They might have liked it, commented, saved it or shared it, and that’s where engagement comes in.

Engagement

Let’s go back to those 5,000 people. Maybe 300 of them liked your post, 50 commented, 100 saved it, and another 40 shared it.

Those are all actions people took on your content, and they count as engagement.

So engagement is simply how people interact with your content.

Reach tells you how many people saw it.

Engagement tells you what some of those people actually did.

The interesting thing is that a post can reach 10,000 people and still get very little engagement, while another can reach 2,000 people and have people commenting, saving and sharing like crazy.

Subscribe now

Niche

Okay, now let’s talk about niche.

Let’s say you’re a creator who talks about money, saving and making extra income. You keep creating content around those things, and after a while, people start associating you with finance.

Someone sees your page and thinks, “Oh, she talks about money.”

That’s your niche.

Your niche is that thing people know you for.

It doesn’t mean you can never talk about anything else. It just gives people something to remember you for.

And once you know your niche, the next question is usually, “Okay, so what do I actually post?”

And that brings us to content pillars.

Content Pillars

Let’s say your niche is fitness. You want to talk about fitness, but obviously, you can’t make the exact same post every day.

So maybe you talk about workouts, then healthy meals, then fitness tips. Those are your content pillars.

They’re basically the main topics you keep creating around.

So your niche is fitness, while your content pillars could be workouts, healthy meals and fitness tips.

See the difference?

Your niche is the bigger thing people know you for, and your content pillars are the different things you talk about within that niche.

And this is why having content pillars helps. When you need an idea, you already have a few things you can create from.

Personal Brand

Now, you can have a niche and content pillars, but there’s still something else people start to recognise.

You.

One way to know you have a personal brand is when someone sees your content and knows it’s you without even seeing your name.

Maybe it’s the way you talk, what you talk about, your humour, or just the way you show up. Whatever it is, people start recognising you for it.

That’s your personal brand.

It’s what makes people recognise and remember you.

So your niche might tell people what you’re known for, while your personal brand is more about how people recognise you.

Your logo, colours and fonts can be part of that, but they’re not the whole thing. It’s really about what people remember about you.

Impressions

Now, remember reach? This is where things can get a little confusing.

Let’s say 1,000 people see your post. Your reach is 1,000.

But imagine some of those people see the post more than once. Maybe you see it in the morning, then you see it again later, and then you see it again because someone shared it.

You’re still just one person, so you only count as one person in your reach. But the content has been shown to you three times.

That’s three impressions.

So unlike reach, which counts people, impressions count how many times the content was shown.

That’s why you could have:

Reach: 1,000

Impressions: 1,500

It just means some people saw your content more than once.

Once you look at it that way, the difference is actually pretty simple.

So, what did we just decode?

Algorithm: decides who gets to see your content.

Reach: how many people saw your content.

Engagement: how people interacted with it.

Niche: the thing people know you for.

Content pillars: the main topics you create around.

Personal brand: what makes people recognise you.

Impressions: how many times your content was shown.

And that’s really the point of Creator Decode.

We hear these words so often that they start sounding complicated, when they’re actually pretty simple once someone explains them properly.

So the next time someone says, “This post has high reach but low engagement,” you’ll know exactly what they mean.

And if they say, “The impressions are higher than the reach,” you’ll know why.

What creator word should we decode next?

Drop it in the comments. It might be in Part 2.