LinkedIn is a powerful platform for building your professional network and sharing valuable content. With over 722 million users worldwide, LinkedIn offers the ability to get your content in front of a massive audience of engaged professionals.
One great way to leverage your LinkedIn connections is by sharing posts directly to your network. When you share a post, it shows up in the LinkedIn feed of your connections, allowing you to get your content, ideas, and thought leadership in front of more eyes.
Sharing posts is easy to do right from LinkedIn. Here’s a step-by-step guide to sharing posts with your LinkedIn connections.
Find Content to Share
The first step is finding content to share with your network. There are a few ways to do this:
- Publish your own long-form articles, insights, images, or videos as native LinkedIn posts. You can create engaging content directly in the LinkedIn Publishing Platform.
- Share content from around the web by copying and pasting a link when creating a new post.
- Reshare other people’s posts on LinkedIn that you find valuable.
Focus on finding and creating content that would appeal to your connections and audience. Think about the types of information they want to see, their pain points, and how you can provide value.
Create Your Post
Once you have your content selected, it’s time to create your LinkedIn post to share. Here are the steps:
- From your LinkedIn feed, click the “Start a post” box at the top to begin creating a new post.
- Add your content:
- If you’re sharing native long-form content, you can copy and paste it right into the post editor.
- If you’re sharing a link, paste it into the box.
- If you’re resharing someone else’s post, click the reshare icon on their post and select “Share on your profile.”
- Personalize the content with your own commentary or insights in the text box above the content.
- Add images, tags, polls, hashtags, or other multimedia to make your post more engaging.
- Click “Post” when your content is ready to be shared.
Select Your Audience
Now it’s time to select who you want to share the post with. You have a few options here:
- Your connections. This shares your post to the main feeds of all your 1st-degree connections.
- Other groups. You can share to your 2nd-degree connections, all LinkedIn members, or any LinkedIn groups you’re in.
- Individual connections. Use the search bar to look for specific individuals to share your post with.
In most cases, you’ll want to select “Your connections” to share your post broadly across your professional network. But you can get more targeted by sharing with specific groups or individuals that would find your content most relevant.
Add a Personal Note
Before sharing your post, you have the option to add a personal note to your connections. Here are some tips for your sharing note:
- Make it personal and conversational by directly addressing your connections.
- Briefly summarize the content and explain why you’re sharing it.
- Include a call-to-action like asking for feedback, opinions, advice, etc.
- Use emoji and exclamation points to create an upbeat, informal tone.
Adding a personal note helps your connections understand why you think the content is worth their time and makes them more inclined to engage with your post.
Click Share
Once you’ve selected your audience and added a note, click the “Share” button to share your post. It will now appear in the feeds of your selected connections.
That’s all there is to it! With just a few clicks, you can get your content in front of hundreds or thousands of targeted professionals.
Best Practices for Sharing
Here are some tips and best practices to help you get the most out of sharing posts with your LinkedIn connections:
- Share consistently. Don’t just share a post once in a while. Develop a regular sharing cadence like daily or weekly to stay top of mind.
- Vary content types. Mix up long articles, quick tips, images, videos, quotes, stats, etc. to keep things interesting.
- Monitor engagement. See which types of posts get the most likes, comments, and reshares from your audience.
- Share others’ content. Curate and share posts from influencers, leaders, and interesting profiles in your niche.
- Add value. Only share posts that provide value to your audience or start an insightful discussion.
- Follow up. If you get comments or questions on your shared posts, be sure to respond and engage.
Leveraging these best practices will boost the impact of your shared posts and help you build stronger connections.
Analytics and Metrics
It’s important to track the engagement and reach of your shared LinkedIn posts using analytics. Here are some key metrics to follow:
- Impressions: The number of times your shared post appears in front of others.
- Clicks: How many people clicked on your post to read and engage.
- Reactions: Total number of reactions (likes, loves, etc) your posts receive.
- Comments: How many comments people leave on your shared posts.
- Reshares: When others share your post to their own connections.
- Followers: Any new followers you gain from your shared content.
Monitoring these metrics helps you identify your best-performing content to share more of. You can find analytics in your LinkedIn post history.
Growing Your Network
Sharing high-value posts with your network is a great way to organically grow your LinkedIn connections.
When your connections find your shared content helpful, they will be more inclined to comment, like, and follow you for more. Some tips for converting connections include:
- Engage with anyone who comments on your posts to start a conversation.
- Check out the profiles of those engaging with your content and connect if they’re relevant.
- Thank people who reshare your posts and suggest connecting.
- Connect with the authors when you reshare influencer content.
The more value you provide, the more opportunities you’ll have to connect with relevant professionals organically.
Automating Your Sharing
Manually sharing posts everyday can be time-consuming. You can save time by using social media tools to automate your LinkedIn sharing.
Many social media management platforms like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Buffer allow you to easily schedule LinkedIn posts in advance. You can use these tools to:
- Easily import blog posts, videos or other content to schedule.
- Craft your sharing text and personal notes in advance.
- Set up optimal sharing times and cadences for automation.
- Manage all your accounts and profiles from one dashboard.
Automating your sharing will help free up your time while still keeping a steady stream of content in front of your connections.
Conclusion
Sharing valuable posts with your LinkedIn connections is an impactful yet straightforward way to engage your network.
With LinkedIn’s immense professional audience, the platform offers immense opportunities to get your content seen. Following the steps and best practices outlined here will allow you to organically grow your reach and strengthen relationships.
So start sharing helpful, relevant posts across your connections today and watch the benefits compound over time as your network grows and engages more!