The short version: there are three ways to share a LinkedIn post (the plain repost, the repost with your own comment, and copying the link elsewhere) and the plain repost is the one that does the least for you. Add your own point in the first two lines, share within the first hour or two if it’s your own content, and never repost the same thing to the same network twice in one week. Get those three things right and shares stop being a wasted click and start being a second bite at the same content.
Why “just share it” is bad advice
Someone will tell you to “just share the post” as if there’s only one button. There isn’t. On LinkedIn you can hit the plain repost icon, you can hit repost with your thoughts, or you can copy the post URL and drop it into an email, a Slack channel, or a WhatsApp group. Each one does a different job, and most people default to the laziest option, which happens to be the one LinkedIn rewards the least.
I found this out the expensive way with a client called Marcus, a fractional CFO who wanted more inbound leads from LinkedIn. He’d written a useful post about cash flow forecasting that pulled in 40 comments organically. Two weeks later he hit the plain repost button on it, no comment, no context, straight repost to his 6,000 followers. It got 11 likes. Not 110, eleven. Compare that to a post I helped another client, a recruitment consultant named Priya, reshare with three fresh sentences added on top explaining why the original point still mattered a month later. Hers pulled in 89 reactions and four inbound messages. Same original post format, wildly different outcome, because one of them told the algorithm and the reader “here’s something new to think about” and the other one didn’t.
The three ways to share, and when to use each one
- Plain repost (the icon with no text box): this puts the original post straight onto your feed with your name attached but zero commentary from you. LinkedIn treats it as the lowest-effort action on the platform, roughly on par with a like, and it shows it to a small slice of your network before deciding whether to bother showing it to more.
- Repost with your thoughts: this opens a text box above the shared post so you can add your own point, disagreement, or context before the original content shows underneath. This is the version that gets distributed, because you’ve created new content, not just forwarded old content.
- Copy link and share elsewhere: pasting the post URL into an email newsletter, a client update, a Slack channel, or a WhatsApp group. This doesn’t touch LinkedIn’s algorithm at all, but it’s often the most useful of the three if your goal is getting a specific person to see a specific post rather than chasing reach.
Step by step: sharing someone else’s post without wasting the opportunity
- Step 1. Read the whole post, not just the first two lines. I’ve seen people reshare posts they clearly skimmed, and it shows within the first sentence of their commentary.
- Step 2. Click “repost with your thoughts,” never the plain repost icon, unless you have nothing to add and just want to bookmark it publicly for later.
- Step 3. Write two to four sentences of your own take before you post. Agree, disagree, add a number from your own experience, or explain who should read this and why. “This is so true” is not a take, it’s a shrug with a full stop.
- Step 4. Tag the original author by name in your comment text, not as a separate tag bombing exercise, so they get notified and often reshare or comment back, which pushes your version further.
- Step 5. Post it when your own audience is online, not whenever you happen to remember. For most UK-based business audiences that’s between 7.30am and 9am, or again around 12.30pm, UK time.
Sharing your own posts (this is where people quietly hurt themselves)
Here’s the bit most guides skip over: resharing your own post too soon after publishing it doesn’t double your reach, it splits it. LinkedIn’s system checks for duplicate or near-duplicate content from the same author showing up in the same feeds within a short window, and if you repost your own thing six hours after the original, you’re often just cannibalising the reach the first version was still building. I did this myself in early 2025, reposted a post about client retention four hours after it went live because the numbers looked slow, and watched both versions stall under 2,000 impressions combined, when a similar post left alone the week before had hit 14,000.
The fix isn’t complicated. If a post underperformed, wait at least seven to ten days before resharing it, and change the framing rather than the wording. Turn a statement into a question, or lead with the result instead of the problem. If it’s a evergreen piece, an annual repost with an updated stat or a “this still holds true, here’s what’s changed” line works far better than a straight repeat. This is also exactly the kind of decision that gets easier once you understand how the algorithm treats reposts versus fresh posts, because the two get scored very differently even when the content is identical.
The uncomfortable bit nobody wants to admit
Most people share posts to make themselves feel busy on LinkedIn, not because the person on the other end of their network wanted to see it. If you’re sharing five posts a day with no comment attached, you’re not building a presence, you’re just making noise that LinkedIn is actively deprioritising in front of you. I’d rather see one considered repost with your own point attached per week than a daily drip of empty reshares that nobody stops scrolling for.
Sharing to a specific person or a small group
Sometimes sharing a post has nothing to do with reach and everything to do with getting one particular person to see one particular thing. LinkedIn’s own “send” arrow lets you drop a post straight into someone’s messages with a short note, which works far better than tagging them in a comment if the goal is a private nudge rather than public visibility. I use this constantly with journalists and podcast hosts I want to pitch to, sending them a relevant post of mine with one line explaining why I thought of them, rather than cold-messaging out of nowhere.
For sharing outside LinkedIn entirely, copy the post’s own URL (click the three dots on the post, then “copy link to post”) rather than screenshotting it. A screenshot loses the engagement counter, the comments, and any chance the recipient clicks through and adds their own reaction, which is often the whole point of sending it in the first place. This matters more than people think if you’re tracking where inbound interest comes from; the same logic applies when you’re checking whether a link you shared did anything at all, which is worth understanding through what your landing page views are telling you once someone clicks through from a shared post.
What to write when you add your own comment
The comment box on a repost isn’t a caption, it’s a mini post of its own, and LinkedIn treats it that way for ranking purposes. Aim for three to five sentences minimum. A useful structure I give clients:
- Line 1: why you stopped scrolling for this one specific post.
- Line 2 to 3: your own experience, number, or disagreement related to the point.
- Final line: who should read the original below, and why.
If you’re stuck for what to say, don’t reach for a generic AI-generated summary of the post you just read, people can spot that instantly and it reads as hollow. There’s a better way to bring AI into this without sounding like a robot summarising a robot, which I’ve written about in detail in how to use AI for LinkedIn content without sounding like a LinkedIn post about LinkedIn posts, and the short version is to use it for structure, never for your actual opinion.
Timing, frequency, and the one habit that fixes both
Reposting works best in that narrow window where LinkedIn is still deciding how far to push the original post, roughly the first one to three hours after it goes live, when it comes from someone in your network with a decent engagement history on their own posts. Beyond about 48 hours, a plain repost adds almost nothing, though a repost with fresh commentary can still work weeks later because you’ve effectively created a new post.
On frequency, cap yourself at two or three thoughtful reposts a week rather than a daily habit. If your business runs a Company Page as well as a personal profile, sharing between the two needs its own logic too, and getting that balance right without spending an hour a day on it is exactly the kind of thing worth sorting once, which is why I put together a separate guide on how to save time managing a LinkedIn profile or Company Page rather than trying to squeeze it into every post.
A quick checklist before you hit share
- Have you read the whole post, not just the opening line?
- Are you using “repost with your thoughts,” not the plain repost icon?
- Have you added at least three sentences that are yours, not a rewording of the original?
- Is this your third repost this week, or your first? If it’s your third, skip it or save it for Monday.
- If it’s your own post, has it been live for at least a week if it underperformed the first time?
Frequently asked questions
Does resharing a LinkedIn post hurt the original poster’s reach?
No, resharing someone else’s post doesn’t hurt them, it usually helps them, since it puts their content in front of a fresh audience and LinkedIn credits engagement back to the original post’s stats too.
Is it better to repost or write a comment on someone’s LinkedIn post?
A comment is better if you want to be seen by the original poster’s audience under their post, while a repost with your thoughts is better if you want the content to appear on your own feed in front of your own network with your take attached.
Why did my reshared LinkedIn post get almost no views?
The most common causes are using the plain repost button with no added comment, resharing your own post too soon after the original, or resharing something more than 48 hours after it was first published without any fresh commentary.
Can you share a LinkedIn post to Instagram or Facebook directly?
Not directly through LinkedIn’s own share function; you need to copy the post’s link and either paste it as a link post or take a proper screenshot with credit to the original author, since LinkedIn doesn’t offer built-in cross-platform sharing.
