I’m noticing an interesting – and dangerous – trend with the links I post to Twitter. The number of retweets always exceeds the number of clicks on the link. This means that people are sharing my content without looking at it. While I appreciate the shares, this is a dangerous practice for communicators.

Simply put, you should click every link and read the content before you share anything.

Clicking the RT button is fast and easy. But if you don’t know anything about what you are sharing beyond the text of the tweet you could be doing your brand and your engaged audience a huge disservice.

As one example, the other day I saw an intriguing tweet offering tips for engaging on Instagram. That’s something I want to help my followers to find. When I clicked through to the link, the content was so poorly written that it was not helpful. I didn’t RT the tweet.

Sharing content from others is a great practice. You increase your value to your followers when you help them tap into a depth of information beyond your content. You support the content efforts of others by spreading their thought leadership more widely.

But, sharing bad content can be a hit to your reputation and your brand. Only retweet content that you think will reflect well on you by association.