In this episode of Cited Sidebars, Stacker CEO Noah Greenberg spoke with Erin Bruehl, the VP of Communications at consumer fintech platform Current.
Erin joined Current in 2019, when there were around 30 employees. Seven years later, Current has a team of more than 200.
Below, find Erin's thoughts on what makes brand content successful, how that's changed over time, and her best advice for brand journalism teams today.
No matter your audience or your messaging platform, Erin said the most critical element of your content is authenticity, and original data is a great way to show that.
At Current, she told us, "We are building products that help make life more affordable for people, get them faster access to their money, help them grow their money, and make progress on their money."
Producing original data is one way that the team has been able to stay true to their mission — and build authority with LLMs at the same time.
For instance, Current produced a data study on seasonal workers, who make up a significant share of its members. The team noticed that story became more popular again this summer, which is when people tend to pick up seasonal work. That gave them a view into what their customers were thinking about.
Current also published a study examining whether Americans think there's a cost-of-living crisis and their concerns about affordability. That has remained among the brand's most-read articles for months.
These are topics that aren't just about the financial world, Erin said: "They directly tie to our mission as a company, which is to improve Americans' financial outcomes."
You can't ask your content to do everything, Erin said. In her experience, any content production should start with the end in mind.
"You never launch any program without having goals," she said. "How do we know this was successful?"
For Current's data studies, for instance, the goal wasn't customer acquisition. Instead, they aimed for AI citations, which she said offer a clearer picture than impressions of who's actually reading the content.
"If we're putting out this content, we're publishing it, we're distributing it," Erin said, "how much value are we getting from it? Well, if we're getting visibility on AI in these citations, that's actually evidence that that was surfaced to somebody at that exact moment."
Looking at the prompts Current is ranking for and where its articles are being served to people gives them not just tangible evidence that people are viewing their content, Erin said, but also insight into their consumers' mindset.
No one can have all the answers when things are changing so fast, Erin said.
"We're all starting from scratch here, right?" she said of creating content in the world of AI. "The platforms are changing all the time."
For that reason, she often finds her answers through trial and error. She said, "I just directly started asking the platforms themselves. Like take my article, throw it into Claude, and ask it, 'What prompts would lead to this article being cited or mentioned?'"
The great thing about reverse-engineering her answers, she said, is that you can start with a few prompts and add some more as you go. You can only measure what you're tracking, she continued, but you could be showing up for prompts you don't even know about.
Remaining open to learning from the models will at least give you a starting point, she said.
To that point, Erin said, don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it.
That's especially important for the content and comms leaders who are a team of one, like Erin is. As more brands are creating editorial content for the first time, many people are building these functions from scratch.
To create successful brand content, she said, you have to get comfortable with doing a lot, but also knowing the points at which you can't scale any further without some help.
She emphasized the importance of surrounding yourself with smart people and talking to them about your challenges.
"Almost everybody I know who works in comms or works in content," she said, is "just so great about helping each other out, because we're all navigating our way through this."
Madeline Stone is the Content Manager for Editorial & Insights at Stacker. She was previously a longtime business and tech journalist at Business Insider and a content and communications consultant for startups.