LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 810 million members worldwide. It’s a great platform for establishing your professional brand, connecting with other professionals, and sharing insights. One popular way to engage your connections on LinkedIn is by sharing articles – but what exactly happens when you do?
Your article appears in your connections’ feeds
When you share an article on LinkedIn, it will appear in the feeds of your 1st-degree connections. Your connections scroll through their feed to stay updated on industry news, insights from thought leaders, and what their network is reading/sharing. So when your shared article pops up, it’s a signal to your connections that this content is worth their time.
How prominently your article appears in their feeds depends on a few factors like how recently you shared it, how closely connected you are, and how frequently you interact. But the key takeaway is that your shares garner visibility and distribute content to the professionals in your immediate network.
You expand the article’s reach to your unique audience
Every LinkedIn member has a distinct professional network based on their industry, interests, alma mater, etc. When you share an article, you instantly amplify its reach to your own audience. Professionals who otherwise may never have discovered that content now have it cross their feeds because of your unique social graph.
This creates exponential distribution – the author shares it to their connections, your connections share it to their networks, their connections recipocate, and so on. So your singular share as part of your network can really accelerate an article’s overall propagation across LinkedIn.
It appears on your profile under ‘Activity’
Your shared articles don’t just appear in your connections’ feeds. It also populates in the ‘Activity’ section of your own profile. This content shows up on your profile right below your experiences and education. You can choose to showcase articles under ‘Activity’ on your profile to highlight insights you find valuable.
It demonstrates to your network the types of content you engage with. Viewers can click on the articles you’ve shared to read them themselves. So in addition to distributing articles, sharing helps communicate your interests and build your professional brand.
The author receives attribution
When you share an article, the author name always appears attached to it. This means authors and publications receive full attribution when their content propagates on LinkedIn through your shares.
For creators, this attribution helps expand their reach and elevate their brand and expertise. Your shares drive new audiences to their work. So authors often appreciate when their articles get shared within new professional networks they may not have tapped on their own.
It shows up under your LinkedIn Company Page
If you manage a LinkedIn Company Page, articles you share as an individual will also populate under your company’s updates. When visitors land on your Company Page, they’ll see news from your company intermixed with your own shares.
This gives added visibility to the articles you curate among your company’s target audience. As a company representative, the content you pick demonstrates your brand’s values, perspectives, and subject matter expertise.
Increases your sharing stats
LinkedIn tracks the number of articles each member has shared in their lifetime on the platform. This number appears alongside interests and volunteer experience in your profile’s background summary. As you share more articles, this stat climbs.
Higher sharing stats convey your level of engagement on LinkedIn. It shows your active in distributing insights to build your professional brand. LinkedIn often highlights heavy sharers and their content more algorithmically as well.
| Year | Shares |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 26 |
| 2020 | 57 |
| 2021 | 93 |
| 2022 | 117 |
Analytics on your shares
For each article you share, LinkedIn provides analytics on who saw your post and how they engaged with it. You can view these stats by clicking on your share’s timestamp.
This data shows the post’s total impressions and breakdowns of how many liked, commented, clicked, reshares, etc. Reviewing these metrics can help you learn which types of articles resonate most with your audience.
Total Impressions
This reflects the total number of people who had your shared article enter their feed. It encompasses all 1st-degree connections who saw your share in their timelines.
Clicks
Denotes how many people actually clicked into the article from your share to read it. Higher clicks signal the topic is relevant to your connections.
Likes and Comments
Likes and comments indicate your connections found value in the share. The more qualitative reactions, the more it aligned with their interests or provided useful insights.
Reshares
When others reshare your post, they essentially endorse and help propagate the article to their own networks. Getting high reshares expands the content’s reach virally.
Takeaways
In summary, when you share articles on LinkedIn:
- Your connections see it in their feeds
- You distribute it to your unique professional network
- It appears on your profile
- The author gets attribution
- It may show under your Company page
- Your sharing stats increase
- You can view analytics on your post
So sharing high-quality articles can be a great way to engage your network with valuable insights, build your brand as a thought leader, and amplify content for creators. Take advantage of LinkedIn’s article sharing features to strengthen your connections and be an active participant in professional conversations.
