Facebook is Launching a Platform That Will Include Newsletters

Remember when I told you Twitter’s acquisition of Revue was probably a response to the growing popularity of newsletters? I think we all knew it was just a matter of time before Facebook made similar moves. Though we’re still waiting on more details, the social media giant recently unveiled the impending debut of a platform that will enable independent writers to amplify content through a variety of tools, including, you guessed it—newsletters.

The unnamed program is described as “a new platform to empower independent writers, helping them reach new audiences and grow their businesses.” A small set of content creators will participate in the initial launch, which is an extension of Facebook’s larger effort toward supporting journalism.

This includes the Facebook Journalism Project, a robust initiative meant to address business challenges and close the opportunity gap between privileged and underrepresented groups. (If you haven’t already, check out the North American Subscriptions and Memberships Accelerators program. It’s grant-funded and you have until March 19 to apply.)

The aforementioned, unnamed platform will focus on a range of support tools, as explained by Facebook:

• A free, self-publishing tool with robust styling options to create individual websites and an email newsletter
• An integration with Facebook Pages to enable publishing across various multimedia formats including photos, live videos and stories
• The ability to create Facebook Groups and nurture a community of readers
• Features to help audiences easily discover new content and writers, and in turn help those creators build direct relationships with their audience
• Insights for writers to understand how content is performing
• Monetization tools to build successful individual websites and businesses, starting with subscriptions
• Accelerator services to help creators come together and learn best practices

According to a recent survey, over one billion people use Facebook groups, so participating in this program almost guarantees you can grow your audience significantly. To that same point, the danger of platforms like that is that you can easily fall into the trap of full dependence on a social media platform, which experts don’t recommend.

Either way, it’s a win for Facebook, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

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