Everything You Wanted To Know About Facebook Live

Facebook Live is about to the "next big thing" on the platform, and it seems like it will be a boon for artists and bands wanting to engage with their fans on the service.

Since it's so new, you may not be sure of exactly what Live is and what it will do. Here are some facts about the service from the FB Live page.

• What is Facebook Live? Live lets people, public figures and Pages share live video with their followers and friends on Facebook.

• Live is available to all Pages and profiles on Facebook for iOS, Android, and Facebook Mentions. There will be a red icon at the top left-hand corner of the video indicating that it is a live video. The word “Live” is written next to the icon, along with the number of current viewers.

• The video will be published to the Page or profile so that fans and friends who missed it can watch at a later time. The broadcaster can remove the video post at any time, just like any other post.

• Videos will appear in News Feed and on the broadcaster's Page or profile while they are live. Once a broadcast has ended, live videos are eligible to show up everywhere that other videos appear.

• Live videos are more likely to appear higher in News Feed when those videos are actually live, compared to after they are no longer live.

• You can apply control and customization settings to the video on the broadcast after it has ended if you're a Page.

• Live broadcasts can last up to 90 minutes.

• People can discover live videos right in News Feed. To get notified when certain a broadcaster goes live, tap the "Live Subscribe" button on the top of a live video to get notified when that person or Page goes live again. People who frequently engage with or have recently interacted with a person or Page going Live may receive a notification.

• You need a strong signal before going live. WiFi tends to work best, but if you can't find a nearby network, you'll want a 4G connection. To check your internet speed ahead of time, download the Speedtest app from the App Store or Google Play.

Just like natively uploaded videos, Live videos will rank higher in news feeds and more of your followers will see it, so it's a very useful tool for engagement.

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Facebook Changing Its News Feed Algorithm Again

Just when you thought that Facebook couldn't get any worse in distributing your posts to your friends and followers News Feeds, it goes and changes its algorithm yet once again.

Right now your News Feed is determined by how much a post is liked, commented on, or shared.

The company will now measure how long that you look at posts, photos and comments in your feed to determine your interest in certain content as well. The thinking is that the more time you spend on a post, the more likely your friends will like to see it as well.

Of course, the main problem with its current algorithm is that it's cut down on the number of followers that you can reach with any one post. 5 years ago a post would be seen by all of your friends and followers. 2 years ago that was down to just 15%. This year it's around 2%.

Of course, you can still reach all of your friends and followers by promoting a post (meaning, paying for distribution), which is what Facebook really wants.

It's probably too early to tell whether this will be a positive or negative, but my bet is that for most artists, it will fall on the negative side. Of course, the best way around it is to post really compelling information that people spend a lot of time reading.

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Facebook Tweaks Its Algorithm And Becomes A Useful Tool Again

One of the problems that artists and bands have had with using Facebook for promotion is that the network has made it more and more difficult to reach your fans when you post.

Five years ago you could reach just about all of your friends or followers with a post, but by two years ago that was down to about 15%. Last year it was even worse with the number down to 5% or even less.

Facebook is always tweaking its algorithm however, and has done so again, but this time for the better.

Facebook was getting feedback from users stating that they were worried about missing important updates from their friends, and as a result it will now push those to the top of the News Feed so people are less likely to miss them.

A new update brings three big changes. First, followers can now see multiple posts from the same source. Second, it will promote news from people that Facebook has judged that users care about, and third, it will now show less news regarding friends that liked or commented on a post.

This is all great news for artists and bands that want to promote a new song, video release, or gig. Where recently the best way to do that was to promote the post (meaning you had to pay for it), it appears that you'll now have a much greater reach to the people that care about that information.

Of course, it's still too early to understand just how much the system has been tweaked and what that reach actually is, but stay tuned for more details on how it well it now actually works.

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Ping For Artists By Invitation Only

While yesterday's announcement of iTunes Ping seemed like a boon to artists and bands, now comes word that there's no way to create an artist profile on the network. When Apple was asked about the process, a spokesman responded that artist profiles are only available on an "invitation-only" basis. This is a giant bummer for most bands that could really make use of this new social network.

The same spokesman points out that any iTunes user, be it person or band, can create a profile, but that doesn't help the artist much if he can't push content to the fans.

That being said, Tunecore stated today that it's working with Apple to get all of their bands and artists signed up in the near future. Stay tuned.

Another disappointment is the fact that Ping only displays the albums that your friends have purchased and not the albums that they're currently listening to. This would not only help in music discovery but be a boon in data measurement for any band or artist. Let's hope that Apple implements this feature soon.

One of the cool things that Ping does do is provide a Facebook-like news feed that shows a recent activity stream from the people that you follow. Artists will be able to post updates to this news stream, which then will be directly sent to fans. This is very cool and a potentially big deal.

Clearly Ping is a work in progress and doesn't meet many of our initial expectations. That being said, it's only been online for two days, so expect the kinks and bugs to be worked out eventually.

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