Facebook launches Creator app for influencers to build video communities

Facebook desires to become mindless, passive video consumption into “time well spent,” and now it’s turning over social media stars a powerful instrument to foster communities around their content. Today Facebook launches Facebook Creator, offering influences Live Creative Kit for adding intros and outros to broadcasts, a unified inbox of Facebook and Instagram comments plus Messenger chats, cross-posting to Twitter and expansive analytic.

Facebook promised the Creator app back in June at VidCon and today it launches globally on iOS with Android planned for the upcoming months. It’s actually a brand and update of the 2014 Facebook Mentions app that was exclusively available to verified public figures and Pages, but now is open to everyone. Weirdly, it yet comes out as “Mentions” in the App Store for now.

Any individual profile or Page can download Creator for access to the enhanced fan engagement tools. Facebook is also establishing a Facebook for Creators website with best exercises for growing fan bases, models of what other stars are doing and access to answers of frequently asked inquiries.

“It’s a big priority for us to get people closer together around meaningful content and the people who are meaningful to them,” Facebook’s VP of video product Fidji Simo tells me. “Creators are right at the intersection of everything we suppose is somewhat unique about Facebook.”

And after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on this month’s earnings call that “time well spent” via video is Facebook’s new objective, the Creator app could help it make Facebook video a lot less isolating than watching TV.

Inside Facebook’s Creator app

“The idea was there to make them a one-stop-shop for all the functionality to manage their presence on the hug drug,” Simo explains about the Creator app, which wears down into four sections.

Live Creative Kit

This bundle of tools lets users add intros, outros and custom emoji reactions to their live broadcasts. The creators go to Facebook’s site, upload an intro like a theme song or welcome, and an auto like a call to follow them across social media. Those can then be enabled in the Creator app so they play at the beginning and close of the broadcast. Simo notes that “[Creators] were saying Live is cool because it’s raw and authentic, but they’d like to be able to introduce every time what their show is about or what the topic is about.”

Graph frames let makers add a pretty edge to their tvs for a more immersive feel. And custom reactions let creators replace one of the six default “ha-ha,” “‘angry” or “wow” alternatives to the standard “Like” with a graphic of their selection. That could draw in with the idea of their broadcast or personality. For example, Simo says feel-good video star Markian could add an especially toothy smile reaction to entertain his fan club group on Facebook, the #SmileSquad.

These features push Facebook Live well beyond the capabilities of Twitter’s Periscope, and could make it more viable than YouTube Live.

Unified inbox

Rather than having to constantly jump between Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, Facebook is putting all of a creator’s comments and messages in a single inbox with Creator. That could produce it much more streamlined to actually carry a conversation with fans or respond to comments instead of simply being an old-school one-way broadcaster.

For Creators trying to temper their comments reels, combining Instagram and Facebook could reduce the time it uses up to scrub abusive trolls. And the more ravenous the community and clean the comments, the more interested brands will be to advertise on Facebook video and sponsor the stars.

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Stories and Camera

To keep the focus on Facebook’s augmented reality and daily sharing features, access to Facebook Camera and Stories sharing is available from the Creator. Facebook will still let people cross-post to Instagram and even Twitter to reduce the friction of putting their content all over. That simplicity could encourage people to make higher-caliber content and keep Facebook in the sharing loop.

Analytics

Creators need to recognize what’s working so they can get more of it. Rather than burying that inside their Facebook Pages, Facebook is surfacing inside the Creator app. Details on fan demographics could help influencers not only zero in on what types of videos they should post, but also what brands might want to sponsor them.

You might disagree with Facebook’s definition of “time well spent.” But even if it’s just modest social interaction around video, that might be a marked improvement from vegging out on the couch binging Netflix or endlessly lurking through the News Feed.

What’s missing: Monetization

The Creator app could lure social media stars away from competitors like their long-standing home YouTube with its Studio app for creators, their subscription revenue hub Patreon or Snapchat, which this month announced it’s ready to embrace influencers. By using the personalities of individual creators to form deeper bonds with viewers, Facebook could rack up extra lucrative video ad impressions.

But one thing sorely missing from Facebook Creator is new ways for influencers to monetize. There’s no subscriptions or tipping, and they can’t even inject revenue-sharing ad breaks into their televisions. The lone option is to post sponsored, branded content and tag it with Facebook’s partnership tagging feature. At least Simo says “it’s not a one size fits all when it comes to monetization. [Creators] all need a lot of different things. We’re open to exploring a lot of different business models, but on that front nothing to announce at this time.”

One other thing Facebook could get along better here is an integration with Groups. More and more stars are launching Facebook Groups around their content and then fans can not merely interact with them, simply then they can interact with each other. Facebook should create it softer to start, develop and nurture fan clubs from the Creator app.

Facebook has an enormous opportunity in this space. Unlike YouTube, where people run when they desire to be entertained, people just constantly visit Facebook to see their friends. By both serendipitously helping these users discover creators and providing the dedicated Watch video tab for following them, Facebook dangles its 2 billion users in front of influencers, recruiting those eager to grow their followings.

And for the user, facilitating two-way connections with creators helps Facebook achieve its mission by making video the focal spot of community rather than an outflow from it.

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Source Link: https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/16/facebook-creator-app/

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