Video has long been the preferred marketing communication tactic preferred by audiences and Facebook Live is riding that wave. Facebook Live is a great way to make announcements and to engage an audience in a closed group. Many businesses use Facebook Live to promote pre-recorded videos also. Facebook Live can help build excitement with an audience.
Now Facebook, just like they did when they opened up the ability to broadcast live on a Facebook page, has truly opened up a huge new asset for those using this platform. This will give YouTube some serious competition. This is a game changer!
In October, Facebook added a feature to Facebook Live, that tool is screen sharing. Granted, with a few widgets and gadgets this could be done earlier but Facebook has added this feature to the native platform.
How do you activate Facebook Live Screen Share?
“When you want to share your screen to Facebook Live, you hit the button on the Live interface that says “Share Screen,” and you’ll be prompted to allow the extension to be installed to your browser. It worked with Chrome, but the option wasn’t available in Firefox.” ~ Matt Navarra at NextWeb
“If you click on “Share Screen” a prompt will follow asking to install the Facebook Screen Sharing extension to your browser. Then, when you do share your screen, you’ll be able to choose an application, a particular tab within your browser, or your entire screen. In the past, third-party software Open Broadcaster Software was necessary to share your screen with Facebook Live.” The Verge
This new tool from Facebook does lack some features enjoyed by others using a custom platform to screen share and during testing is did bog down and get grainy, certainly something Facebook will remedy. As TheNextWeb said, you can’t insert a video of yourself on the lower corners while you stream your screen, it doesn’t produce the clearest videos, etc.
How can a Facebook business page use Facebook Live Screen Sharing?
GoToWebinar and Zoom are very popular platforms for webinars and virtual meetings. Their technology has long excelled at delivering a clear stream but is quite pricey for many startups and micro-small business owners. This new feature from Facebook could help those entities give presentations and organize webinars from within closed groups if appropriate. Facebook already dominates the world of finding custom audiences and this will be a big plus over email and form opt-in. Now you can show your presentation software with your Facebook Live audience.
Product demo and previews via video are highly recommended on your ecommerce pages. Now you can demonstrate the uniqueness of your offer and take questions on Facebook Live while showing your brochures and warranty information.
Coaching, Teaching and Tutorials have long been popular use for video and many use Facebook Live for that already. Now you can add what you are doing on PhotoShop and other slideshows for reinforcement of those teachable moments.
Viral Solutions will continue to monitor the use of this new tool and we hope that our audience discovers many new uses for it. We see this as a cost saving tool for many small business owners and are excited that Facebook added this feature.
Copyright 2017 Viral Solutions LLC
by Jordan Thomas | Chief of Doubling your Small Business
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.