How to live stream on Facebook

 

Did you know that you can live stream on Facebook for free? You can live stream to your personal Facebook page, a group, a business page that you manage or even inside of a Facebook Messenger Room.

 

How to live stream from your smartphone?

 

Live streaming to Facebook from a Smartphone

The easiest way to live stream to Facebook is with the Facebook app on a smartphone. When you first open the Facebook app you should see a “live” button that you can click. When you click this button it will give Facebook access to your smartphones camera and microphone. Facebook will then give you the option to choose who can see your live stream. You can choose between public, friends, a custom mixture of friends or only you. If you scroll down you will also see options for streaming directly into groups that you are a part of.

 

Pro Tip: If you enjoy live streaming with the Facebook app, consider updating your Facebook app frequently. New features such as video calling allowing you to bring a friend into your live stream are continually being improved. You can now wear masks, add a donate button, and add all kinds of visual effects to your live stream

 

How to live stream to Facebook from Messenger Rooms?

A new feature inside of Facebook is called Messenger Rooms. These are private rooms that you can use to host video calls with up to 50 other people. You can now live stream these chat rooms by clicking the live button in the upper right corner. When you do this you can give your live video a title, and select where you want your live stream to go. THis is a great way to live stream an interview or group meeting.

 

How to live stream to Facebook with a webcam?

You can use your computers webcam to live stream directly to Facebook as well. To do this click the live button on Facebook. This will open up the live streaming area of Facebook where you can enter a title and description for your live stream. Select the “Use Camera” feature and allow Facebook to access your camera and microphone. This will give you a live preview of your video and audio to check before you go live. Now you can click the go live button and start you live stream. Before you go live you can consider creating some polls and questions to drive user engagement.

 

 

Scheduling a Facebook Live

Scheduling Facebook live streams are a great way to notify your audience of an upcoming live stream. When you schedule a live stream, Facebook can notify your friends and followers before your live stream actually starts. You can schedule a live stream on a page by clicking the live button and selecting the “Schedule a Live Video” option. When you schedule a live stream you can choose the time and date that Facebook will set up for your event. You can give the live stream a title and description here. Facebook will automatically create a StreamKey that you can use with your encoder. You can copy this stream key information into a streaming encoder such as OBS, Wirecast or vMix to start streaming to Facebook. Facebook scheduled live streams will start exactly at the start time that you have set. Therefore, a countdown timer will show right before your live stream.