Today we’re sharing new ways to make it easier to publish new content, connect more deeply with your community and be discovered by new audiences.
Below we’ll walk through new Live video tools, the power of engaging in conversations with fans and other creators, new post formats and more.
Facebook Live creator broadcasting tools
Every day, people around the world use Facebook Live to share and connect around important moments happening around the world in real time. Since we launched Live video on Facebook, people have made over 10 billion broadcasts, and creators like Roccibella and Candylover89 are finding creative ways to connect with their global audiences.
We recently launched a new design for Facebook Live on desktop and mobile to make it easier for creators to go live. We’ve simplified the navigation menu so you can more easily access the insights and tools you need before and during your live broadcast.
We’re also rolling out new Facebook Live features to make it easier for creators to engage with fans, including:
Featured Links. One of the most requested features we’ve received this past year is the ability to add third-party links to live broadcasts. With Featured Links, creators can share multiple links to things they care about. From beauty blogs and donations to causes you care about, creators can add a featured link to their live broadcast, and viewers can visit these links without leaving the live video.
Polls. Previously only on desktop, we’re testing a refreshed Polls experience on mobile so that creators can receive real-time feedback from their fans and in turn, fans can engage directly with their favorite creators.
Live With. We are expanding the number of people you can co-broadcast with using Live With on Facebook. Creators will soon be able to go live with up to three additional guests, opening up opportunities to go live with other creators, friends and fans.
Live in Stories. We’re rolling out Live in Stories to make it easier for creators to get discovered at the top of News Feed. Creators can share their live broadcasts directly to Facebook Stories as another way to maximize the reach of the content with their audience.
Badges. To more clearly recognize the fans who support creators via Stars, donations and more, we've rolled out a redesigned Badges experience. Badges help make it easier for creators to identify their most loyal fans, and appear next to viewers' names in the comments section.
Front Row. We’re testing an experience that gives creators an easy way to know who their most devoted viewers in the video are at any time. These viewers will show up in a dedicated “Front Row” section of a live broadcast, and creators can give shout outs during their live broadcast to recognize their biggest fans.
And as part of our commitment to invest over $1 billion in creators through 2022, we’re also launching a new bonus program for Facebook Live creators. The program will pay eligible creators based on the performance of their live broadcasts. The program will be invite-only to start and will kick off in the coming weeks.
Building stronger connections through comments
Engaging with your community in the comments section of your posts and videos is a great way to build relationships with peers and connect with fans, while reaching new followers. Molly Burke, a motivational speaker, lifestyle creator and disability advocate, has grown her Facebook following 81% over the last 12 months and built a thriving community by engaging in conversations. She shared, “When you want to build community, it’s important to have a conversation with the community. I get to make content for a living because I’ve built a community that engages with me and they know that I engage back. I make an effort to get to know them and I do that by asking questions in my videos, asking questions in the comments and replying in an authentic way, either in the comments or in direct messages.”
When creators comment on public posts, a Follow button may appear by their name. The public posts that creators comment on may also appear in their followers’ feeds, creating an additional touchpoint with their fans and leading to additional engagement on that post. When creators engage in the comments sections of their own posts, the posts may be shown again in their follower’s Feeds, which can further increase reach and engagement.
Building on this, we’re making it easier and more valuable for creators to engage in conversations on Facebook by adding the ability to react and respond to comments quickly and directly from a notification. In addition, we’re rolling out a more streamlined commenting experience for Live Audio Rooms.
We have also introduced improved comment ranking features that help creators find and engage with the most relevant conversations. These features include elevating comments and replies from creators to the top of the discussion thread on a post and decreasing the visibility of spammy or repetitive comments. We have also expanded comment ranking to additional content types such as Reels, Facebook Live videos and Live Audio Rooms.
New post format: Spotlight Conversations
Terrell and Jarius Joseph, fathers to two toddlers, LGBTQ+ advocates and digital creators who share the ups and downs of raising a family through relatable videos on Facebook, have seen their Page grow over 800% this year and attribute some of this growth to posting nearly every day. While this might sound like a challenge, according to them, “...Facebook makes it easy. If it’s not a video, it’s a photo or a soundbite. There’s a range of content that makes it so you can post daily.”
To help creators express themselves in a new way, we’re testing a new post format, Spotlight Conversations, giving creators more ways to connect with peers and their broader communities.
With Spotlight Conversations, you can have an engaging comment-based discussion with your chosen guests. These conversations will appear as posts with two separate comment sections: one for you and your guests, and one for everyone else who wants to follow along and discuss. Spotlight Conversation enables you to engage in a focused space while also expanding your reach to a broader audience.
Creator discovery
As a part of our efforts to help people see content from a diverse set of content publishers on Facebook, including emerging creators, we’re testing new ways to make it easier for people to discover and explore creator content across Facebook. This includes adding a ‘follow’ button on content from creators you don’t already follow. We’ve also added units in News Feed that recommend public figures and creators to follow based on interests and other pages someone follows, and we're testing ways to surface more content from creators across our video and feed experiences, in particular from emerging creators.
To help creators build and engage their communities, we are also testing a deep-dive experience that shows people content they may have missed from creators they follow directly in their News Feed, and we’ve added the ability to crosspost feed posts from Facebook to Instagram, making it easy to share your stories and posts from Facebook with your audience on Instagram, too.
Making it easier to create content in Watch
Since Facebook Watch launched globally in 2018, it's become the go-to place to easily discover videos for whatever you’re into — whether that's live videos, shows, sports, news or music videos. To make it easier for creators to publish content on mobile, we’re testing a new way to create videos from the top of Facebook Watch. As soon as a creator is inspired by other videos in their Watch feed, they’ll be able to create and upload content in just a few clicks.
