Six months in, and Meta is feeling good about its paid newsletter service, Bulletin. Meta, then Facebook, launched the newsletter service for select creators in June, hoping to become a serious competitor to Substack, Twitter’s Revue and similar services. In December, Meta revealed that they had signed more than 115 publications to host newsletters on the Bulletin platform. More than half of Bulletin’s creators have over 1,000 free email subscribers, while others have 5,000 or 10,000 subscribers already.
Content creators using Bulletin include:
- Malcolm Gladwell
- Alyssa Hardy
- Andrea Gibson
- Claire Sulmers
- Dorie Greenspan
- Jiquanda
- Laurie Santos
- Malcolm Gladwell
- Nik Sharma
- Rachel Lindsay
- Ryan Schreiber
- Sherrod Blakely
- Sohla El-Waylly
- Virgie Tovar
[For a more complete list of content creators and publications, visit Bulletin.com.]
“When we launched Bulletin in June, we began with a small group of voices to learn how to best support their work. Six months later, we have more than 115 publications on Bulletin, and we’re energized by all the ways this first group has made meaningful connections with their audiences. This is the start of our overall effort to connect people in a more significant way to content from a broader set of sources and experts,” said Campbell Brown, VP of global news partnerships and Ben Peskoe, product manager of Bulletin, said in a December 21, 2021 blog post.
Brown and Peskoe called Bulletin “a new kind of product for Meta,” expanding the company’s platform beyond Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. With what they believe to be a unique approach, Bulletin has attracted writers with a wide range of topics and areas of expertise including fashion, food, science and diverse, and Meta is excited to help those creators find new ways for them to monetize their work.
What’s next?
“In the coming year, we’ll thoughtfully increase the number of creators on Bulletin as we improve the experience ahead of future expansions. This will include a number of different topics and types of content, from video-first and audio-focused creators to long- and short-form writers, and more,” said Brown and Peskoe. “We’ll also continue focusing on ways to help new writers grow their audiences and monetize their publications. So many creators right now are working to build audiences on their own. We want to be right there with them to help them thrive.”
Additional benefits
Beyond the platform, Bulletin’s content creators get access to educational opportunities, design services, image licensing through Getty Images, legal services and background research capabilities via LexisNexis. For creators like Gladwell, these are niceties, not necessities. For emerging creators, these perks are invaluable as they grow their audiences and brands.
Insider Take
While Meta’s Bulletin only has 115 content creators or so thus far and many of the newsletters are free, they’ve attracted big name creators as well as emerging creators. Meta also has the expertise to offer more than just a newsletter platform. By going beyond the written word, Meta is giving these creators focused on video and audio first a platform where many types of content can co-exist. Their approach originally seemed competitive, like they wanted to join in on the paid newsletter craze. It doesn’t look that way. Instead, their approach looks very intentional, and we think Meta’s vast reach and broad expertise will provide creators with tools they might not get with more popular newsletter services.
