GROW EXETER MAGAZINE ANNOUNCEMENT: GROW BY FACEBOOK MAGAZINE

As many of our magazine readers and online followers will have seen, Facebook recently announced the launch of a quarterly business ‘magazine’ called, funnily enough, Grow by Facebook. Their vision, as per their ‘About’ section of their website, is to “grow businesses, networks and perspectives by shining a light on people, companies and trends that are challenging the status quo.”

As a business-centred magazine called Grow Exeter (commonly short-handed to Grow), and with an almost identical vision, this obviously caught our attention.

Initially, what perplexed us the most is that, in a recent testimony given in front of the US Congress, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated clearly that Facebook are not a content creator and, therefore, shouldn’t be treated with the same restrictions and legislation that media organisations are bound by. However, on their site, Grow by Facebook clearly state that their ambition is to ‘help business leaders keep ahead by creating and curating insightful content and experiences.’ Confusing to say the least.

And with their tagline ‘GROW YOUR BUSINESS. GROW YOUR NETWORK. GROW YOUR MIND.’, it’s a little hard to know how a small independent publisher like ours can do so with one of the most influential companies in the world setting up such a similar product to ours. Particularly as they can see all of our audience targeting data and engagement statistics on their platform too. It feels like an unfair fight.

Nevertheless, for those of you who know us, you will know that our vision and ethos is centred around being relentlessly positive and VERY hardworking.

So, if we are David and Grow by Facebook is Goliath, then we don’t have much to worry about. We all know how that story ended…

Here’s to the underdogs.