How Do You Repost Content on LinkedIn? A Straight Walkthrough

The short version: To repost on LinkedIn, find the post, click the two-arrow "repost" icon under it, then choose either an instant repost or "repost with your thoughts" to add your own comment above it. Reposting your own old content works differently and is usually the better move, and either way, reposting rarely does for your visibility what most people assume it does.

How to repost on LinkedIn: the two ways it lets you do it

LinkedIn gives you two buttons that both fall under "repost" and people mix them up constantly.

• Repost (instant): the post shows up on your feed exactly as the original author wrote it, with a small "Reposted this" tag above it. You add nothing.
• Repost with your thoughts: this is the quote repost. Your comment sits at the top, and the original post appears below it in a shaded box.

That's it. Two buttons, two outcomes. Everything else people call "reposting" on LinkedIn, copying someone's text into a new post, screenshotting a carousel, retyping a thread, is a different thing entirely and I'll come back to why that distinction matters.

Step by step: reposting someone else's post

Here's the exact sequence, because half the confusion online comes from LinkedIn changing icon placement every eighteen months:

• Find the post in your feed, on the person's profile, or via search.
• Under the post you'll see four icons: Like, Comment, Repost, Send.
• Click Repost (the icon looks like two curved arrows).
• A pop-up gives you two options: "Repost" and "Repost with your thoughts."
• If you pick instant repost, it publishes straight away, no editing possible.
• If you pick "with your thoughts," a text box opens above the original post. Write your comment, tag anyone relevant with @, add hashtags if you use them, then click Post.

The whole thing takes under thirty seconds on desktop, maybe a minute on mobile because the tap targets are smaller and I still fat-finger the wrong icon more often than I'd admit. If you want the fuller breakdown of etiquette around this, including when it looks lazy and when it doesn't, I've gone into that separately in how to repost someone else's LinkedIn post without looking lazy or rude.

Step by step: reposting your own content

This is where most people get stuck, because LinkedIn's repost button works on other people's posts but reposting your own old content needs a slightly different route:

• Go to your own post (find it via your profile activity tab or by scrolling your history).
• You can hit Repost on your own post the same way, and it'll show as "Reposted this" to your followers, which works fine if the post did well originally and you want a second wave.
• Better option for old content: open the post, copy the text, start a brand new post, paste it in, tweak the opening line and maybe the ending, and publish it fresh. This isn't technically a "repost" in LinkedIn's terms, it's a repost in the practical, human sense of the word, and it performs better because LinkedIn's algorithm treats it as new.
• If the post had an image or document attached, re-upload it rather than relying on the old link, since attachments sometimes don't carry over cleanly on a straight repost.

I run a rule for myself: anything I post gets flagged in a spreadsheet, and posts that scored above roughly 3% engagement rate (reactions plus comments divided by impressions) get rewritten and reposted six to nine months later. Not copied. Rewritten. Same idea, new opening line, updated example if I have one. That gap matters because LinkedIn's network turns over fast, roughly half the people following you today weren't following you a year ago, so the "everyone's seen this already" fear is mostly in your head.

Instant repost vs quote repost: which one gets seen

Here's the bit most guides skip. LinkedIn's own engineering blog and multiple platform updates since 2023 have made it fairly clear that reshares without added commentary get less algorithmic push than reshares with commentary. Makes sense when you think about it from LinkedIn's side: a plain repost adds zero new text to the platform, so there's nothing new for the algorithm to index, rank, or serve against search intent. A quote repost adds fresh text, which means it gets treated more like an original post.

In practice that means:

• Instant reposts mostly reach people who already follow you and happen to be scrolling at the right moment.
• Quote reposts with at least two or three sentences of real comment tend to get shown to a wider slice of your network, and occasionally reach the original poster's audience too if they engage back.

So if you're going to repost anything, someone else's post or your own, the quote version with actual added thought is doing almost all the work. The plain repost button is closer to a bookmark with extra steps.

A real story about getting this wrong

In 2023 I reposted a client's LinkedIn win, a nice case study result, using the plain instant repost button because I was rushing between calls. Zero comment, zero context, just the two-arrow click and gone. It got 4 likes in three days. Two weeks later I reposted a completely different, older post of mine using "repost with your thoughts," added four sentences about what had changed since I first wrote it, and it pulled in 61 reactions and 18 comments, more than the original post got when I first published it eighteen months earlier.

Same platform, same week roughly, same size audience. The only real variable was whether I added new words above the old ones. That's not a fluke I've seen once, it's the pattern every single time I've tested it side by side over the last two years.

The part nobody likes admitting about reposting

Here's the uncomfortable bit. Reposting someone else's content, even done well with a thoughtful quote, does very little for your own reach or your own authority. It borrows someone else's idea, someone else's proof point, someone else's story, and puts your name on top of it for a moment. LinkedIn will show it to a few hundred more people than an empty like, sure, but it will not build your personal brand the way an original post with your own number, your own client story, or your own opinion will. I've watched people repost brilliant content daily for months and still have nobody remember what they do for a living, because a repost tells people what you admire, not what you know.

Reposting is a filler tool, not a strategy. Use it on the days you have nothing, not as a substitute for the days you do. If you're constantly stuck for what to post in the first place, that's a different and more fixable problem, and I've written a longer list of where to pull real ideas from when the well runs dry in where to find content ideas for LinkedIn when you've got nothing to say.

When reposting is worth doing and when it isn't

Worth it:

• A client, colleague, or partner posted something that directly praises your work and you want it seen without writing a whole new post yourself.
• An industry report or news piece is useful to your audience and you have a real, specific reaction to add, not just "great insights!"
• Your own older post still holds up and you can add a fresh line explaining what's changed since you wrote it.

Not worth it:

• You're reposting purely to look active without saying anything of your own, which readers spot instantly.
• You're reposting a viral post from a huge account hoping some of the reach rubs off on you. It doesn't. Their audience sees your name attached, shrugs, and scrolls on.
• You're reposting your own content weekly. Six to nine months between reruns is a sensible gap, weekly reposting of the same handful of posts reads as running out of ideas.

It's also worth knowing the difference between LinkedIn's native repost function and the older "Share" mechanic that some people still refer to out of habit, since the two produce slightly different results on the page. I cover that distinction, and how to do a plain share, in how do you share a LinkedIn post, and the wider question of why most shares get zero traction in how to share a LinkedIn post the right way.

One thing to check before you repost anything

Since 2024, LinkedIn has been rolling out content credentials labels on posts that include AI-generated images or edited media, and those labels carry over when a post gets reposted. If you're quote-reposting something with an image that carries one of those tags, it's worth knowing what it signals to your audience before you attach your name to it, which I've broken down in what the LinkedIn content credentials label means for your posts. Small thing, but it's the kind of detail that turns into an awkward comment thread if you skip it.

And a practical timing note that trips people up: if you're reposting a job announcement on behalf of your company, timing matters more than the content itself. I've written separately about when to post a LinkedIn job announcement for best reach, and the same window applies whether it's an original post or a repost.

Related guides live in the LinkedIn Help: 28 Guides to Profile Views, Impressions, Algorithm and Account Fixes.

Related: hr tech (this site).

If you'd rather show than explain, my roundup of the best screen recording software compares the tools for tutorials, demos and quick walkthroughs.

Frequently asked questions

Does the person who wrote the original post get notified when I repost it?

Yes. LinkedIn sends the original poster a notification any time someone reposts their content, whether it's an instant repost or a quote repost with commentary, so they'll see your name attached to it.

Can I edit a post after I've reposted it?

You can edit the commentary text on a "repost with your thoughts" after publishing, the same way you'd edit any of your own posts. You cannot edit the original post's content inside the repost box, since that belongs to the original author.

Does reposting my own content count as posting twice in one day?

Yes, LinkedIn treats it as a new post in your activity feed, so if you post something else the same day it can crowd your own content and split attention between the two. Space reposts of your own material out by at least a few days from any other post.

Why did my repost get almost no engagement compared to the original post?

Nine times out of ten it's because it was an instant repost with no added comment. LinkedIn's algorithm treats plain reshares as low-value because there's no new text attached, so it shows them to a much smaller slice of your network than a quote repost with genuine commentary would get.