Get ready to see a lot more live streaming in your News Feed, as Facebook has announced the feature will now be available to any public figure or journalist with a verified profile.
In addition, this means the ultra-exclusive Facebook Mentions app, previously reserved for celebrities and musicians, is now available to public figures and/or journalists with verified profiles.
Facebook’s live streaming works similar to other live streaming apps you may be used to, like Periscope or Meerkat. People can stream live video while conversing back and forth with viewers who can post messages in a little chat box.
With the Mentions app users have access to data on what other Facebook users are saying about them. As well, can explore what’s being said about other topics you follow. Mentions also allows Pages to choose if they want to publish posts publicly, or only to followers.
Making Mentions and live streaming available to public figures and journalists opens it up to a slightly wider audience, but still leaves out a lot of people who would like to stream live on Facebook.
Since the feature is still in its infancy, it’s possible the company is testing the waters before giving everyone the ability to live stream.
If you can remember back when Facebook first introduced advertising, it was only available to a select number of major brands. Now anyone can join Facebook today and get an ad running within minutes.
The company could end up going a similar route with live streaming, but of course it also depends on how other people engage with the live streams. If it proves to be wildly popular then it would make sense for Facebook to keep expanding it.
If you’re a verified public figure or journalist, just download the Mentions app from your device’s app store and login with your Facebook account.
If your Page is not verified, but you believe it should be, there’s a form you can fill out here.
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