The Brief: All about Facebook — Rejigged News Feeds, celebrity deals, two-person broadcasts, and waiting rooms

TL;DR

Publisher reach on Facebook is going down but Facebook reveals two factors to staying relevant, Facebook Live signs deals with celebrities and media companies, adds two-person broadcasts and waiting rooms for viewers.

Facebook de-emphasizing publisher content

Facebook wants you to stay in its News Feed by increasing the number of posts relevant to you. It plans on accomplishing this by updating the News Feed to show more posts from friends and family.

After family and friends, Facebook revealed two key factors it will favor when determining what shows up in people’s News Feeds:

• Your feed should inform: People value stories they consider informative and interesting. Of course, that means different things to different people: a recipe, a current event, celebrity gossip.
• Your feed should entertain: People also want to be entertained, whether that’s by following a celebrity, watching Live videos, or sharing funny photos with friends.

Source: Facebook, June 29, 2016

Facebook tapping celebrities and media companies for Facebook Live

Facebook signed deals with close to 140 media companies and celebrities to create videos for Facebook Live, its live-streaming service.

The Wall Street Journal notes that Facebook is positioning itself for an advertising market it has yet to tap — while keeping its 1.65 billion monthly users engaged. These deals help publishers produce quality video content frequently, while giving Facebook time to explore other deals that could see creators sharing ad revenue.

The highest-paid three of the 12-month deals are:

• BuzzFeed ($3.05 million)
• The New York Times ($3.03 million)
• CNN ($2.5 million)

Source: The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2016

New Facebook Live features: two-person broadcasts and viewer waiting rooms

Facebook continues its move toward more live-streaming video. Facebook Live will soon have the ability to handle:

• Two-person broadcasts — Broadcasters can invite a friend to “drop in” during a broadcast, opening the door to remote collaboration opportunities like interviews.
• Schedule live-streams and viewer waiting rooms — Broadcasters can schedule live-streams and Facebook will send users an alert beforehand, so people can be waiting when it’s time to go live. This way, broadcasters aren’t waiting for more people to join, while those already there start dropping off.
• Face masks and effects — Broadcasters will be able to go live with Snapchat-like masks and effects using video filter app MSQRD, which Facebook acquired in March. 

Source: TechCrunch, June 23, 2016