| What is a Facebook Watch Party?

What is a Facebook Watch Party?

Social media is constantly evolving. Along with trying to keep up with all the new features, you must decide which ones are a good fit for your business.  However, I have to say, Facebook Watch Parties might be my new favorite feature and can be a useful fit for everyone!

 What is a Facebook watch party?

In July of 2018 Facebook rolled out a new video feature called “Watch Party”. A Watch Party is a way for you to watch any public videos on Facebook in real time with a group of your friends! A Watch Party can be accessed through desktop or your mobile device. You can create a Watch Party from your personal profile, business Page, or group. To create a Watch Party, you’ll begin by starting a new post. From there you’ll click or tap on the “Watch Party” icon. This will prompt you to upload videos into your queue from categories such as previously saved, live, and suggested videos. Once you’ve chosen the videos you want to view with your party, add a title and description to your post, then share. Once you’ve shared your post you’ll receive a message that reads “Your Watch Party Is About To Begin”. Get ready, the party has started!

Time to put on your hosting hat!

As the creator of the Watch Party you are the “host” – you can also add a co-host. This opens up a lot of useful tools for you. Once the Watch Party has started you can invite friends to participate, then give your friends a few moments to jump on. Once you’re ready you have the ability to pause, resume, skip, or add a new video to the queue. Friends in the Watch Party will see a notification about these actions in the discussion. Just like Facebook Live videos, Watch Parties have a discussion section for participants to leave comments or send reactions. Unlike Live videos, you must participate while the Watch Party is happening because interactions can only be made in real time. Though it does have a drawback, it’s a perfect way to create urgency around interaction with your followers.

The most interesting tool that can be used is live commentary! As mentioned before, you can access Watch Parties via desktop or mobile, and there are pros & cons to both. I suggest testing each of them to decide what would be best for the purpose of your Party. If you’re on desktop, live commentary can be done as audio only, but if you’re hosting on a mobile device you can actually use live video commentary during the party. Once you’ve finish your Watch Party, a recap will be saved onto your timeline as a post, which will show all videos watched during the party along with any comments that were made. Now that you know how to use it, imagine the possibilities and different uses for this great new feature. Do a Q&A session of your previous educational videos, play a “best of” collection that followers can catch up on, or get the team together to watch something new that would benefit everyone.  So. Many. Options! See why it’s my new favorite? Now go try it out, and let us know how you decided to use your Watch Party.

If you’re new to using fun social media features like this for your business, email me at bobbieanne@germono.com to set up an educational session to continue moving your social media strategy forward!

 

Bobbie Anne Williams
BobbieAnne@Germono.com