Brands have power, and content has power. Brand marketers, in the evolving sports media market, can capitalize on these truths through brand storytelling.
In a conversation with Stacker CEO Noah Greenberg, we explored how storytelling, content distribution, and brand strategy intersect in today’s media landscape. Stacker, co-founded by Greenberg, is a distribution platform that helps brands maximize reach and foster authentic connections with audiences by getting their content into the hands of newsrooms and publishers.
During our discussion, Greenberg shared actionable strategies for marketers looking to elevate their brand storytelling.
Stacker CEO Noah Greenberg Provides Essential Tips for Leveraging Authentic Storytelling
Versatility is a key to success — one that we’ve written about at length — and that’s something Greenberg can hang his hat on.
Greenberg began at a startup called Graphiq. There, he helped develop software to compile and consolidate large data sets, and created data visualizations that could be sold to newsrooms. That experience was crucial in laying Stacker’s foundation.
“After six years there,” Greenberg said, “I not only saw just the appetite for third-party content amongst newsrooms, but I also had a lot of relationships with newsrooms, and so when we started Stacker, that was a little bit of the basis of both knowledge and relationships that I had in getting Stacker going as a marketplace.”
Even before Stacker was fully developed, Greenberg was hard at work cultivating collaboration. Now, the results speak for themselves. Stacker is growing as a modern content optimization engine, and bridging a gap for brands seeking organic exposure.
Here’s what Noah has learned in the process, and what insights he passes along to brands.
Transform Promotional Content into Engaging Stories
As content becomes more accessible, simply having promotional material isn’t enough to attract or retain attention. Audiences crave genuine human connection, and that’s something brands must prioritize to stand out. Now, more than ever, brands have the opportunity to establish this connection by sharing meaningful stories that resonate with their audiences.
This shift in audience expectations has led to a blending of marketing strategies and journalistic storytelling in the media world — an intersection that Greenberg sees as a rich source of potential.
“I think there’s two really interesting things happening right now. One is, you have this massive trend of brands saying: ‘We don’t want to create self promotional content marketing. We want to hire journalists and become thought leaders. We have all this really interesting data we’re sitting on. And we want to tell stories that just help make people know our brand, and help create an authority of that.'”
Brands have a desire to create truly valuable content from their data and expertise, and this desire is amplified by the fact that news outlets are now very open to republishing high-quality content from third-party sources.
But here’s the catch: You need high-quality content and storytelling to get in the door, and you need distribution and structural marketing to be seen by publishers and news platforms. One doesn’t work without the other.
That’s the picture that Stacker is painting for brand marketers: A two-pronged approach, where peak content and distribution combine to amplify brands. If you’re a brand marketer, you have to lean into that combination as much as you can.
Leverage Earned Media for Authentic Reach
Another central concept that Stacker champions is the concept of earned reach. It’s a concept that’s prevalent in their branding on-site. Greenberg took the time to explain it in detail.
“There are a few types of media, or kinds of attention,” Greenberg expanded. “There’s paid: That’s where you’re paying someone to write a story about you. Sponsored content or advertisements, more or less… and then there’s earned, which is when someone chooses to write about you or cover you without you paying.”
Paid media is naturally fabricated, while earned media is more organic and authentic. That’s what makes it so valuable for reaching and capturing audiences. Stacker prioritizes this earned media for brands. In doing so, they’ve shown brand marketers where to aim.
“We’ve gone out to thousands of news outlets across the country and said: ‘Would you like access to great content created by third parties?’ They say ‘yes’, and what we’ve done is, we create a feed of curated great content from brands which we then provide to those publishers for free.”
Brands are investing in the ability to curate their own content, and newsrooms value that content. Why? Because human connection is the ultimate key to establishing and retaining brand loyalty. To do that, you need to tell stories, and generate organic interest in those stories.
According to Greenberg, what sets Stacker’s system apart is its non-commercial model with publishers. There’s no financial requirement for publishers to pick up content from Stacker. Instead, brands invest in distribution, recognizing that the value of earned reach can yield significant returns.
“When a news outlet republishes [brand] content, it shows up as earned media getting them readers where, when you’re reading the story as a consumer, it doesn’t say sponsored content. It’s not a press release. It’s earned coverage.”
That earned coverage — earned reach — is what brand marketers should chase. Because it’s not fabricated. It’s real, it’s authentic, and it’s what will make people truly receptive.
Craft Stories That Foster Genuine Brand Connections
If you can find and tell a story that has value and meaning, that alone can separate you from your competitors.
Stacker’s journey within the brand marketplace is proof that principle — the art of telling a story — will always be in demand. And in this new age of social media, where interconnectivity reigns, a good story can be a game-changer.
“Brand storytelling, at the heart, is just getting the story out there,” Greenberg says. “It doesn’t matter who the end purveyor of that information is, or conveyor of that information.”
Greenberg uses an example from the service industry to convey how different interpretations and presentation techniques can underlie the presence of a story:
“Square has all of this data on how consumers are tipping at restaurants, how they’re spending at restaurants, etc. On one hand, Square could hire a journalist and write a story comparing different states or different cities by how much they tip, and then they could give that piece of content to the Miami Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune.
“But similarly, they could give that story to a creator on Youtube who talks about the economy or the restaurant industry, and that creator could say: ‘Hey, did you see that? According to recent Square data, Florida tips five times more than California.’ I’m making that up. But you get what I’m saying. Brands are providing really interesting data. That can be the story, no matter who’s telling it.”
Recent changes to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) framework in recent months have rocked the media industry. But Greenberg isn’t as concerned. He maintains that an emphasis on earned reach — through authentic brand storytelling — can limit one’s reliance on SEO.
“As brands who traditionally rely on getting their content in front of audiences versus via SEO are seeing less traffic there, they still need to find a way to meet audiences, and so earned media, or getting that content published on news outlets, is only becoming more valuable and more needed as SEO is impacted negatively.”
Authentic brand storytelling isn’t just about being accessible. That’s a big part of it — but it’s also perhaps the most self-sustainable brand marketing strategy in an industry that experiences constant disruptions.
That desire for authentic brand storytelling and self-sustainable growth has also ushered in another notable development: Collaborations between brand marketers and creators.
Brands are seeking storytellers, embracing earned reach and authentic connections. By partnering with creators who bring journalistic expertise, they’re turning stories into powerful tools for influence. Stacker shows that the right story, told well, can redefine a brand’s impact.
