FB Pre-Live setup (Photo: Facebook)
Live Streaming is becoming more and more popular so of course one of the largest platforms has to have a hand in it. Periscope is owned by Twitter, and at the end of last year Facebook rolled out Facebook Live for iOS with the Facebook Live feature rolled out to Android devices a little over a month ago. Now this isn't the breaking news if you have been on Facebook lately or at least in the past few months. What is notable right now are the new features that are being added.
Now if you've done a live video or at least seen one of your Facebook friends do it, you know that you can comment and they can see your comments as well as the number of viewers, well today you can do more. At first it was limited to doing live with those you were friends with; now you can go live in groups and on Facebook Events, that's sounds like great news for marketing. I mean also if you in a group or manage a group of like minded thinkers they also don't have to download another app to join the broadcast. If you have an event, this can connect those that can't make it or you could make it an online event and connect with those people in a different way.
This next feature probably excites people a little more because what are you using to watch the videos or look at photos, your eyes right? Well know you can add filters to your live videos, and eventually they will roll out the ability to draw on your video while you're live too!. They've also added the ability to use the reactions that are enabled on posts, pictures, and anything else that appears in your newsfeed to Live as well. The goal with these new features is to make it more engaging for those that use the Live feature and maybe get more people to try it. Oh and they have made it so that when you are watching a Live replay, the comments show up just as if you were watching it live.
Live Filters and Drawing (Photo: Facebook)
Live Playback (Photo: Facebook)
Reactions on Facebook Live (Photo: Facebook)
Did I mention that they are also allowing you to send invites to friends while you're live as well? So they won't miss out! Not to mention they will be including a new feed where you can find and search other live videos, so it allows you to find other great content. These features will be available on both iOS and Android soon!
So, are you excited about the new Facebook Live features? Do you already use it? If so what features do you think they are missing?
~ChicDivaGeek