Lab539 went from almost never posting to two podcasts and a conference talk in one quarter

Lab539 is a UK cybersecurity company that protects the systems other vendors won't touch, industrial control systems, operational technology, critical infrastructure and legacy platforms that still matter. Its approach, Tailored Cyber Defence Operations, starts from the catastrophic outcome an adversary is after and works backwards, stopping malicious infrastructure as it's being weaponized rather than sifting through alerts after the fact. The team has presented at CYBERUK alongside the NCSC on securing operational technology.

LinkedIn was an intimidating place

Rachel O'Brien has spent 17 years in operations and now runs business development at Lab539. She is not a writer by trade and she is not deeply technical, which in a cybersecurity company full of specialists made LinkedIn feel like somewhere she didn't belong. She posted when she changed jobs and more or less never otherwise. Her founder was only slightly better at once or twice a month.

It wasn't for lack of trying. She'd spend a couple of hours turning an idea over, draft something, decide she didn't like how it read, and never post it. Every Monday started with good intentions about what to say that week, and by Wednesday it hadn't happened.

For a company selling tailored defence to critical infrastructure operators, that silence meant the people who most needed to hear from Lab539 weren't.

“Before Poplar, I found LinkedIn a very intimidating place. I would post maybe when I had a new job, and that was more or less it.”

Plan it Monday, then forget about it

Two features sold Rachel on Poplar and they're still the two she uses most. The first is scheduling. She starts Monday by deciding what she wants out that week, spends very little time getting it written, schedules everything in Poplar and moves on. Because Lab539 sells into both the UK and the US, she schedules posts by audience and time zone, US hours for a US audience, UK hours for a UK one.

The second is analytics. Poplar shows her reach, engagement and new followers per post, plus strategy reporting on what's working. Her strategy is simple. Find the posts that reached the most people and the right kinds of people, then double down on that type of post the following week.

“I can spend very little time on Monday going through what I want to say, then I'll schedule it all in Poplar, and then it's forgotten about.”

Half formed ideas in, her voice out

Rachel's biggest struggle was getting what was in her head onto the page. Within a few months Poplar had learned how she talks. Now she drops in a half formed idea, tells it the audience, says 'make sure it sounds like me, I'm not deeply technical, make that clear,' and the draft comes back in her voice. She rarely modifies a post.

LinkedIn recently added a way for readers to flag AI generated content, which briefly terrified her. It stopped being a worry. Poplar gets to know her better every time she writes a post, and the posts read like her, not like a tool.

“I just love the way it seems to have learned my tone and voice so fast, and I rarely have to modify the posts. It helps me write.”

Two podcasts, a conference talk and inbound, in one quarter

The change showed up fast. In a single quarter Lab539 landed two podcast appearances and had a talk accepted at a conference the company had wanted to speak at for a long time. Inbound inquiries picked up, website visitors climbed, and Rachel attributes all of it to the consistent presence Poplar made possible.

• Rachel went from almost never posting to two or three original posts a week
• Her founder went from twice a month to three times a week
• Both follower counts grew 6 percent in one quarter
• Two podcasts booked and one conference talk accepted in the same quarter
• A significant rise in inbound inquiries and website visitors
• Time per post went from a couple of hours, often ending in no post at all, to about 10 minutes, and every post now goes out

“If Poplar disappeared, I would probably cry and I would stop posting, which would be a real shame.”

A coach, not a content machine

What Rachel values isn't the volume. It's the accountability. Poplar tells her she needs to post and shows her what she could post, and that nudge is what got a self described non writer with imposter syndrome to show up every week in her own words.

Lab539 is a security company, so where data lives is not a small question. Rachel spoke with Poplar's founder and team before committing, and the team has been accessible whenever she's needed anything since.

“Being in the cybersecurity industry, where data's kept is really important to us. Having spoken to the founder of Poplar and the rest of the team, we're really comfortable with where our data is.”