Shares are the number of times people passed one of your posts on to someone else. That can be public, such as resharing to their own feed or Story, reposting on LinkedIn or X, or quoting it; or private, such as sending it to a friend through a direct message, WhatsApp or a copied link. Instagram often calls these private shares “sends”.
How shares work
Every platform reports shares in its analytics, but what gets counted differs. Taps on the share button and in-app sends are counted. What happens after someone copies a link and pastes it into a group chat is mostly invisible, and visits that arrive that way often land in your analytics as direct traffic. This hidden sharing is known as dark social, and for many businesses it is the larger share of word of mouth.
Shares carry weight in ranking because they put content in front of someone new, through a person they trust. At the time of writing (October 2026), Instagram’s leadership has said publicly that sends by direct message are among the strongest signals it uses when deciding whether to show a post to people who do not follow the account. Other platforms do not spell out their weightings, but treat a share as a strong vote of confidence for the same reason.
To compare posts fairly, work out a share rate: shares divided by reach, multiplied by 100.
Why it matters for a UK business
A share is a referral. When someone sends your post about spotting damp in rented flats to their housemate, or forwards your note on new employment rules to their HR lead, your business arrives with a recommendation already attached. That kind of reach is more trusted than anything you can buy.
Shares also tell you why people care. The posts that get passed on tend to do one of a few jobs: they solve a problem someone else has, they say something the sharer agrees with and wants to be seen agreeing with, or they are funny in a way that fits a particular person. Knowing which of these works for your audience shapes what you make next.
Common mistakes
- Running “like and share to win” competitions on Facebook. Meta’s Pages terms do not allow you to require sharing on a personal timeline to enter, and every prize promotion in the UK also has to follow the CAP Code rules on clear terms and fair prize-giving.
- Chasing shares with content that has nothing to do with what you sell, so the attention never turns into customers.
- Counting shares from staff and family as proof of audience interest.
- Sharing links without tracking, so the visits they bring look like direct traffic and nobody credits social.
- Comparing raw share counts between posts that reached very different numbers of people.
How to act on it
Before publishing, ask a simple question: who would someone send this to, and why? If you cannot name the person, the post is unlikely to be shared. Specific, practical posts usually beat general ones. “Three things to check before signing a commercial lease in Manchester” is easier to forward than “Tips for businesses”.
Look back at your last three months of posts, sort by share rate and study the top few. Repeat the format and subject, not the exact post. Where you want a link passed around, such as a guide on your website, add UTM parameters so the resulting visits are attributed to the right channel.
Finally, make sharing easy: a clear point people can agree with, text that reads well out of context, and nothing that requires them to have seen your previous posts. Planning which content earns reach and which earns enquiries is part of my digital marketing strategy and consulting work.