Last year, Facebook rolled out Live, its real-time video broadcasting feature, which helped the social media giant step into the world of live streaming. Facebook Live joined the ranks of other streaming and live-video services Blab, Periscope, and Meerkat.

Recently, Facebook has released a raft of new features, which could open doors to new Facebook marketing opportunities. If you’re a looking to leverage Facebook Live for your business, here’s what you need to know about the newest Facebook Live video features.

More Options for Going Live

You’ll now be able to post live video to a personal profile, which is visible based on the settings you choose (public, friends, etc.). If you have a Facebook page, you should be able to broadcast live video to your page. This will be automatically visible to the public.

Post Live Videos to Your Groups

With this feature, you can broadcast live videos to a Facebook Group you belong to. However, the visibility of your live video in groups will depend on the privacy settings of the group. Also, a group may or may not allow live video to be posted.

Enhance the Appeal of Your Events

You can now broadcast live video to most event pages if you’ve been invited to the event and have responded as interested or going, which is visible to anyone who can see the event. Though, this visibility depends on whether the event was created as public or private.

This feature can offer great ways to promote your event and connect more deeply with your audience and community. You could provide live feed of your event and even allow a sneak peek to those that can’t make it to your event.

Engage With Live Video Using Comments and Reactions

Another new feature with Facebook live video is that it allows interesting ways for live video viewers to engage during a broadcast. Before this was limited to only comments that the viewers could post. Now, viewers can comment plus send reactions pretty much like Periscope and Blab.

More Personalization Features

Facebook now provides more interesting ways to personalize your live broadcasts. While it has rolled out a set of five Live Filters, the ability to draw or doodle on your video will be added soon.

New Ways to Discover Live Videos

Facebook has released a Live Map feature for desktop users. This tool makes video discovery much simpler. Besides subscribing to your favorite live video broadcasters, you can visually explore the public live broadcasts happening all over the world. There will be live video markers in search and trending topics in the Facebook app so you can easily find live videos on those particular topics.

Invite Others to Watch a Video

Thanks to this new feature, you now have the option to send an invitation to a friend to watch a live video with you. To enable this function, simply tap on the invite icon and select the friend you want to invite. They will receive a push notification with your invitation.

Whether Facebook Live outshines its competitors in the live video market is yet to be seen, but one thing’s for sure — the company will come up with more updates and features that you’ll want to try out as a part of your Facebook marketing strategy.  

If you haven’t tried Facebook Live yet, give it a try and share your experience with us in the comments below. 

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