A little over a week ago, Facebook rolled out screen sharing for it’s Live platform. You would’ve had to use another piece of software to do this in the past, but now a simple extension makes it pretty simple. This feature has been available for quite some time in Google Hangouts and it’s very similar. (No surprise there given Zuckerberg’s obsession with video.) However by Facebook making the move, you have to wonder how creators and brands will best utilize it.
So far, it has been primarily utilized by gamers who are streaming their sessions for others to watch. Yes, that sounds crazy to a lot of people but if you saw some of the numbers they’ve been racking up on Youtube, your jaw would drop.
But enough about Overwatch. What does this mean for business? We recently received the question from a client, “Where should we stream our webinar/show?” This sparked a debate internally because webinars have forever been on things like GotoMeeting, Adobe COnnect, and WebEx. Why not mix it up a bit? Broadcasting on Facebook Live could make it easier than ever to reach a larger audience. Yes, the goal of a webinar has traditionally been to gain an email address. However, in today’s social world, having it on Facebook, could be key to building trust and an audience. It also allows users to watch on a platform they are likely used to rather than force them to use an outdated system that has a pain-in -the-neck set of directions.
I can’t say for sure that broadcasting a typical webinar on Facebook is going to be wildly successful. However, it’s only a matter of time before other brands start to experiment and we begin to have some real data. So why not give it a shot?!
