Carrying out live broadcasts with Facebook Live is no longer something complex and exclusive thanks to Facebook creating more and better tools within reach of end users, those who turn on their computer and want to accomplish tasks with a few simple steps.
Facebook Live attracts both these types of users as well as gamers and big brands, so it allows you to make live videos from computers to offer greater possibilities to its users.
This is a completely free service, although it leaves a link for you to become a professional and, with the use of third-party applications, make more eye-catching videos.
What are the benefits of using Facebook Live from your Desktop device?
In 2016, Facebook live streams were only available for Android or iOS devices, but the following year they decided to extend the tool to Windows and MacOS.
These are the benefits of this radical change:
- Older native tools: Without a doubt, from the Facebook website you will have access to a large number of options such as publishing on more than one page, better managing comments and doing complex surveys that you could not achieve so easily on mobile phones.
- Better image quality: The ability to connect to the internet of a mobile phone, via Wi-Fi, is not the same as broadband through a network cable. The connection and video quality will always be better, smoother and sharper.
- You have more cameras: Whether you want to show what you do with the phone, a webcam or show your computer screen, none of this can be done at the same time with a phone, no matter how smart it is.
- Third party support: There are applications that allow you to better configure live broadcasts, let you use professional cameras and microphones, use more than one view and apply special effects live. It’s like turning your lives into a professional channel.
- You can delegate tasks: While you do the transmission, another person can manage the comments on the computer, invite more people, take surveys and all from the same session. With telephones it becomes cumbersome to delegate functions to someone else.
- Environment suitable for brands: Large companies prefer to show off to their followers, which is why it is better for them to opt for transmissions through lives from computers, thus they have access to endless options that will make each transmission they make professionals.
Learn step by step how to install FB Live from your PC or MacOS computer from scratch
The first thing you should be clear about is that it is not an app that is installed on your computer, all the functions of Facebook Live You get them on the website of the social network. In the case of mobiles, you access it by downloading the Facebook app for free from Google Play and Apple Store.
We show you the requirements below:
- Have a Facebook account.
- Choose if you want to stream from a user profile, a fan page or a group.
- Be an administrator or editor of those accounts.
- Have a connection stable internet.
- Have a webcam available.
- Keep updated your preferred browser.
- Have good content to develop.
We show you step by step how to start a transmission on Facebook Live from your Desktop device
We will do this section as if it were a user with a profile account, which is the one that the vast majority of Facebook users use.
There are small variations if it is a broadcast on a Fan Page:
Initial recommendations
Before making your first broadcast, consider what you want to talk about, what are your interests to make the video and choose if that topic will be of interest to people. Although you are free to talk about what you want, the idea is that you capture many people from the first live.
You must be presentable, pleasing to the eye, with a good attitude and willing to answer questions that, at times, are often uncomfortable. Find an environment where you feel calm and there is silence, this way you will avoid noise filtering in the transmission. Try to use headphones with a built-in microphone, you will notice that it improves the quality of the video.
Make your first live
After ensuring that you have a good internet connection, open the Facebook web page to perform the following steps:
- In the section of “News”, look for the area where you publish your posts.
- Select the option “Live video”, has a video camera symbol.
- Facebook will send you to the section “Live Producer”.
- You can switch to the new or old interface in this section, they constantly experiment with new options.
- Before choosing whether to broadcast live, in the central and lower part choose the camera you want to use. If you only have one, you shouldn’t do anything.
- Fill the fields with “Qualification” Y “Description”.
- Mark where you want your video to be seen: your profile account, a Fan Page or a group to which you belong.
- Brand the option “Stream now”.
- Whenever you want stop streaming, brand “End live video”.
- Later, you can choose whether to save it or delete it completely.
Integrate an additional app
As we mentioned, you can become a professional by installing and integrating a third-party app like OBS Studio, which allows you to make additional settings, such as using more than one camera:
-
Install the app from its official website
https://obsproject.com/es
.
- Open the app and keep it on execution.
- Go to section “Facebook Live Producer”.
- Find and press “Use stream key”.
- The data “Server URL” Y “Stream key” you must copy them and place them in OBS Studio.
- This makes the app is linked with Facebook.
- You can now control the entire transmission from the app that you installed on your computer.
Schedule a broadcast
Facebook It also allows you to program a live and warn users that you are going to make a live video.
Even send three notifications to them so that they are attentive to your live:
- Go to section “Live Producer”.
- Instead of going live, press “Schedule Live Video Event”.
- It will ask you to fill in some details like the “Name of the event”.
- Modify the “Start date” Y “Start time” of the video.
- Brand “Next”.
- You can add a “Cover photo”.
- Finish the settings with “Create event”.
This event you can modify it whenever you want and even delete it, it is completely configurable so that you have mastery of the tool.