Finding “Sharer Zero”: How can I see who shared my Facebook post?

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As the webmaster of a couple websites, there’s been a few occasions where I woke up to see a post was shared out on Facebook, went viral and my website traffic spiked from it. 

Most of the time when a post goes viral, it’s a recent post, but there’s been times a post several months old catches on. Whatever the case, I’m always curious where and why these posts were shared out. So I’ll do some light investigation where it initially was shared, who shared it and why.

I’m looking for “Sharer Zero“, if you will.

So how can one see who shared your link on Facebook first and how do you track who has shared your Facebook page post since?

How Do I See Who Shared My Post on Facebook?

This question has come up on Facebook’s own Help section over and over and over and over again, so you’re not alone. The short answer is there’s no one easy way to see everyone who shared your post, unfortunately.

No matter what some third-party companies say, you just can’t just plug in into their tool and get the full picture. Finding out who shared your post on Facebook is going to take some work and research. If you’re diligent enough you can find *some* information.

Here’s four ways to find where your post was shared:

  1. Facebook: Search by Post Title: This is your best bet. Use Facebook search. Search your title or words from the title and Facebook will show you a list of users, pages or groups who have shared that link.*search facebook to find out who shared your link
  2. Facebook: Search by URL: Plug the URL of the shared post into Facebook Search. Facebook doesn’t search URLs per se, but sometimes URLs are shared within the post content as mine did.search URL on facebook to see who shared your post
  3. Google: Search by Post Title: This step is similar to #1, so searching on Google usually won’t yield any new Facebook information, but you may find other websites that have mentioned your post. Plug in the post title between quotes for an exact match search and see if the search yields any new results. If it does, do some more research on the site around the mention of that title. If the site has a Facebook page or Group, you may be able to see whether they’ve shared out the post.Google search your facebook shares
  4. Facebook: Search by Keyword: This one is a stretch, but sometimes the sharer may change the title of the Facebook post when they share it out or creates their own unique summary. If they do, searching on the core terms and unique points within your post may yield something that the URL or title may not.

* Privacy Matters When Tracking Facebook Shares

The main barrier to finding out where your post was shared is the privacy settings of where it was shared. The success of the steps above depend on whether the shared link came from people, pages or groups that were posted publicly or privately. Obviously, public posts are accessible to all (even Google). Generally, private posts are only seen if you’re a friend of the person that shared the post or a member of that page or group.

So you found Sharer Zero…

The good news is if locate Sharer Zero, whether it’s because they shared publicly or you are somewhat related to them, you’ll get the insight you’re looking for. From that post, you can tell how many times it’s been “shared”sharer zero click shares

For my most recent viral post, “Sharer Zero” was a page I was a member of, so I was easily able to tell where the virality started from. I clicked on the “shares” link and was able to view all the secondary public shares:

See all facebook shares

Good luck in your search for SHARER ZERO.


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