Facebook launches live video-sharing feature for celebs

Facebook has announced today that it will launch Live, a tool allowing public figures to broadcast real-time video to  their fans via the Facebook Mentions app.

The new video-sharing tool will allow athletes, musicians, politicians and other influencers to share live video with their fans. Among the first to use the feature will be Michael Bublé, Ashley Tisdale, Martha Stewart and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.

Australian pop star Delta Goodrem will also be among the first celebrities to use Live. To promote the release of her new single Wings, Goodrem will be hosting a live Q&A tomorrow (August 7), backstage on the set of The Voice at 7:30pm.

On their official blog, Facebook said that the Live feature will strengthen celebrity-fan interactions in a “new and immersive way.”

“Every day, athletes, musicians, politicians and other influencers use Facebook Mentions to share and connect with their fans, and more than 900 million people are connected to public figures on Facebook,” the post reads.

“Whether you have an established fan base or want to build up your audience, Live is a new way for you to connect authentically with your fans in the moment.”

Verified public figures can use the feature to grow and engage their fan base by taking them behind the scenes, hosting Q&A sessions and making announcements. Celebrities will be able to see how many viewers they have and can respond to comments live. Videos will be automatically saved onto their Facebook page for fans to view later.

The news of Facebook continuing to develop new video features is not new. TMN previously reported that the social media giant was to take on YouTube with ad-supported, full-length music videos. It is believed that Facebook is still in negotiations with major labels, with a trial to be tested until the end of the year.

Last month, Facebook introduced custom tools for video upload, which include the ability for users to restrict viewers by age and gender, set video expiry dates, publish directly to Videos with appearing onto the News Feed, and publish ‘secret videos.’

The new features will roll out to users globally over the next few weeks. To date, Facebook has 1.44 billion monthly active users, with 4 billion native videos watched on the site each day.