The scariest moment came when I saw this small animation titled “What Facebook Has Come To” and realizing it’s sad yet true that the quality of content on Facebook has dropped below many people’s tolerance. Working on content products at LinkedIn, I often hear praises about the quality of Influencers’ posts as well as comments that follow. People have gradually discovered the power of publishing on LinkedIn, yet only some have realized what to share on this platform and how effective sharing could be.

What sets LinkedIn apart from the regular content platforms is what people want to share here. In comparison to sharing entertaining pictures, abbreviated updates and “BuzzFeeds”, which might eventually become repetitive and tasteless, the community of LinkedIn voluntarily sets a whole different tone: sharing knowledge. From my observation, longer form content is very popular and many professionals tend to engage in meaningful discussions under their interested topics. With this kind of healthy atmosphere, if you still haven’t shared anything or only tried once, consider these three reasons why you should share more often on LinkedIn.

1. Sharing establishes yourself as an expert.

The best thing about sharing on this platform is that it’s not repetitive and you’re snowballing to success. Through sharing relevant information, you’re benefiting your followers by providing an angle on the piece of content. Over time, the point of view will come across and you’re poised to influence other professionals in an area of expertise. Sharing eventually establishes yourself as an expert in the field. Staying in your best field helps accumulate authority and guarantees that the followers are always subscribing to the most important content.

You’re not just spreading the word in your network. LinkedIn gives you a bonus: your identity as an expert will reach the entire local geographic area! Through mobile reading app Pulse, we’re piloting a new feature to pick top experts in different fields through complex computer algorithms. We then push the most popular content they shared to other users who are also interested in these fields or possess related skills.

2. Sharing draws interest circles and expands your network.

As you might have discovered, sharing good content naturally ignites a discussion. If the key person you wanted to discuss with didn’t see it, you can share to individuals or mention them with an @ sign. I’ve engaged in interesting discussions on a trending social media topic and one of the responders, whom I didn’t know before, connected with me on LinkedIn that night and we’ve become pretty good friends offline this year. Here’s my follower circles of 1,500+. Grow yours by sharing more compelling content!

3. Sharing challenges you to read and learn more.

Recently, Share[in] team adopted a new daily task: Share of the Day (kudos to Jasper!). Known as “eating our own dog food”, we take turns to discuss what we’ve shared on LinkedIn each day. In preparation of this small daily exercise, many of the team members picked up a habit of browsing some interesting writings before coming to work. I started utilizing my time on public transportation in the morning to read and share. Even if you do not work on Share[in] team, Share of the Day might not be a bad idea. In order to share truly meaningful information, you need to be selective, which means more reading and learning. The exercise challenges you to read a greater amount and urges you to provide some insights before you push the Share button.

There you have it, three reasons why you should share on LinkedIn. Through a charitable move of sharing knowledge, you can benefit yourself as well as your network. It establishes your identity as an expert, expands your interest circle and pushes your to consume more knowledge. Remember the most important idea that sets LinkedIn sharing apart: be selective, non-repetitive and focus on high-quality content.

So begin sharing today! Start from your own area of expertise, just like what I did here with this article (Sharing about the topic of Sharing because I work on Sharing). Hope you have a wonderful experience, otherwise don’t hesitate to send feedback to us!