Consistent Content — Issue 013: What's Actually Safe to Post When You Have a 9 to 5

I believe that professionals who want to post more on LinkedIn aren't usually stopped by laziness or not knowing what to say.

They're stopped by fear.

Fear that their boss will see it. Fear that colleagues will think they're trying to stand out for the wrong reasons. Fear that a client will misread a take, that HR will flag something, that posting about their industry will somehow create conflict at work.

That fear keeps talented people silent for years while their peers who do post are getting noticed, approached, and promoted. And the frustrating part is that most of it is unfounded, because the line between what's safe to post and what isn't is actually pretty clear once someone draws it for you.

This issue draws it.

In this issue:

There are two categories of content: What belongs to your company and what belongs to you. The rule is straightforward: keep the first inside, post the second publicly.

Here's what belongs to your company and should stay off the internet entirely.

Anything negative about your employer or your competitors. Projects that haven't gone live, unannounced campaigns, partnerships, or products. Your company's business or brand strategy. Internal data or metrics, even the ones you're proud of. Screenshots or quotes from internal communications, Slack messages, emails, meeting notes. Colleagues tagged without their permission. Credit for work you didn't fully own or lead. And anything that could be mistaken for your company's official position rather than your personal one.

None of that is yours to share. It belongs to the organization, and posting it, even with good intentions, creates real risk that no amount of personal brand momentum is worth.

Here's what's actually yours to post.

Your personal career journey and the lessons in it. Industry news and what you actually think about it. Tools you use every day and how you use them. Profiles on industry leaders worth paying attention to. Your take on brand campaigns, product launches, and cultural moments. Career lessons that apply universally rather than company-specifically. Work that's already public and live. What you're reading, watching, and listening to, and what you actually took from it. How you think through problems and structure your work. Your own wins: talks, milestones, deals, recognition that belongs to you.

That list is longer than most people realize. And it's more than enough to build a consistent, credible public presence without ever touching anything proprietary.

My line is simple: if it belongs to the company, keep it inside. If it belongs to you, your observations, your lessons, your story, that's your content.

When I started posting consistently, I didn't have a formal rule about what was safe and what wasn't. What I had was a mental model that kept me naturally on the right side of the line without having to think about it constantly.

I picked categories I genuinely cared about, tech, entertainment, culture, and I found timely stories within them. Then I posted about those stories the way a journalist would: covering the beat, adding perspective, sharing what I actually thought without making it personal in ways that created conflict. A journalist reports on their industry without revealing sources, without becoming the story, without sharing anything that belongs to someone else. That framing kept my content focused on what was mine to say rather than what I could see from inside my company.

The result was that I never had to decide whether something was too close to the line because I was never near the line in the first place. The categories created natural distance from anything proprietary while still letting me post with genuine authority about things I understood deeply because of where I worked.

What surprised me was what happened internally. Colleagues started referencing what I was posting. People inside my own company were reading my takes on the industry and bringing them into meetings. Now I'm seeing more people at work doing similar things, building their own public presence, covering their own beats, showing up on LinkedIn in ways they weren't before.

Posting smart didn't just protect my job. It made me more credible inside it.

Pick three categories you genuinely care about that exist outside your company's walls.

These can be industries, topics, cultural spaces you'd follow regardless of where you worked.

Find one timely story in each category this week. Write about it the way a journalist would: here's what happened, here's what it means, here's what I actually think about it. That's a post. That's three posts. None of them touch anything proprietary and all of them reflect genuine expertise.

Do that every week and you'll never have to worry about the line again because you'll never be near it. The content will be fully yours, your observations, your perspective, your voice, and that's exactly the kind of content that builds a public presence without putting anything at risk.

Post like a journalist covering your beat, your observations, your perspective, your story, and the line between what's safe and what isn't takes care of itself.

Recent issues: Issue 012 : The Linkedin Progression No One Talks About
Tool library: Notionly
Full archive: Consistent Content

Tools I Use...

Some links in this section may be affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.