This week, we tried out Facebook Live. This is Facebook’s offering for live-streaming video, much like other apps like Meerkat and Twitter-owned Periscope. However, with Facebook Live you don’t need a separate app like with the others; the live feature is within Facebook’s main app.
Facebook Live, launched in April 2016, can be used to broadcast to your Facebook friends and followers. On other sites like Periscope, you can broadcast to followers and also have your video be searchable by the general public. This cannot be done on Facebook Live. Much like the rest of Facebook, the live feature is designed mainly for interaction with friends and followers, whereas Periscope is like its owner Twitter in that it is more about broadcasting your posts to the world.
We tried out the feature to find out how it all works.
The option to ‘go live’ is on the list of status options on the Facebook app (Android and iOS). You can see the option second from top in this image.
You can also post live from your desktop if you’re posting on a brand page.
You can choose who to share your video with, as with any other post on Facebook. This can be public, friends, or just yourself.
You can add a description for your video, which will be used to describe the video to entice your friends and followers to watch.
You can then click ‘go live’ to go live!
This is what the screen may look like when you go live. You can see what is being broadcast, as well as comments from viewers and other options.
You can add filters and writing to your videos. You can see the filter options for live video on the right in this screenshot.
Notifications will pop up on the screen to tell you who is watching the video. You can see our Senior Tech Developer Paulina watching this video, as well as a comment added.
When you’re done, click the ‘finish’ button in the bottom right of the screen, and the video will end.
You can choose to post the video to your timeline so people can watch it after the stream is over, or you can delete the video once it has streamed so it is not available for viewing or re-watching.
Facebook Live can be a great feature to utilise to show exciting events to your friends and followers, or to answer questions from people on your brand page.
