Facebook is giving social media stars a powerful tool to foster communities around their content. Facebook has just launched Facebook Creator, offering online influencers a Live Creative Kit for adding intros and outros to broadcasts, a unified inbox of Facebook and Instagram comments plus Messenger chats, cross-posting to Twitter and expansive analytics.
Facebook launches it globally on iOS first with the Android version planned for the coming months.
Any individual profile or Page can download Creator for access to the enhanced fan engagement tools. Facebook is also launching a Facebook for Creators website with best practices for growing fan bases, examples of what other stars are doing and access to answers of frequently asked questions.
Inside Facebook’s Creator app
- Live Creative Kit
This bundle of tools lets users add intros, outros and custom emoji reactions to their live broadcasts. Creators go on Facebook’s site, upload an intro like a theme song or welcome, and an outro like a call to follow them across social media. Those can then be enabled in the Creator app so they play at the start and end of the broadcast. Simo notes that “[Creators] were saying Live is cool because it’s raw and authentic, but they’d like to be able to introduce every time what their show is about or what the theme is about.”
Graph frames let makers add a pretty border to their videos for a more immersive feel. And custom reactions let creators replace one of the six default “haha,” “‘angry” or “wow” alternatives to the standard “Like” with a graphic of their choice. That could tie in with the theme of their broadcast or personality. For example, Simo says feel-good video star Markian could add an especially toothy smile reaction to entertain his fan club group on Facebook, the #SmileSquad.
These features push Facebook Live well beyond the capabilities of Twitter’s Periscope, and could make it more viable than YouTube Live.
- Unified inbox
Rather than having to constantly jump between Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, Facebook is putting all of a creator’s comments and messages in a single inbox with Creator. That could make it much more streamlined to actually hold a conversation with fans or respond to comments instead of just being an old-school one-way broadcaster.
For Creators trying to moderate their comments reels, combining Instagram and Facebook could reduce the time it takes to scrub abusive trolls. And the more ravenous the community and clean the comments, the more interested brands will be to advertise on Facebook video and sponsor the stars.
- Stories and Camera
To keep the focus on Facebook’s augmented reality and daily sharing features, access to Facebook Camera and Stories sharing is available from Creator. Facebook will even let people cross-post to Instagram and even Twitter to reduce the friction of putting their content everywhere. That simplicity could encourage people to build higher-quality content and keep Facebook in the sharing loop.
- Analytics
Creators need to know what’s working so they can make more of it. Rather than burying that inside their Facebook Pages, Facebook is surfacing inside the Creator app. Details on fan demographics could help influencers not only zero in on what types of videos they should post, but also what brands might want to sponsor them.
You might disagree with Facebook’s definition of “time well spent.” But even if it’s just modest social interaction around video, that might be a marked improvement from vegging out on the couch binging Netflix or endlessly lurking through the News Feed.
Watch video tab for following them, Facebook dangles its 2 billion users in front of influencers, recruiting those eager to grow their followings. And for the user, facilitating two-way connections with creators helps Facebook achieve its mission of making video the focal point of community rather than an escape from it.
