Wanna show more than just your mug on Facebook Live?
(Not that there’s anything wrong with your mug – it’s just nice to have options!)
Want to know how to Facebook screen share during a broadcast? Then keep on reading.
You could technically Facebook screenshare in the past with a Facebook screen sharing extension, but since 2017 it’s built right in, which means you don’t need a 3rd party streaming software.
Once you know how Facebook live works, Facebook live screen share is simple to use:
- Go to live producer and choose ‘Use Camera’
- Go to the startup menu and choose ‘Start Screen Share’
- Click ‘Share’
- Go live
When you initiate your live broadcast, Facebook allows you to choose whether you want to share your entire screen, a specific browser tab, or the entire window of a particular app (like your browser):
And just like they did when they first added live desktop broadcasting in the first place, Facebook just opened some SERIOUS doors for creating and sharing new types of video content.
Speaking of which…
How To Take Advantage of Facebook Live Screen Share
Here are a few ideas to get you started!
Webinars and Presentations
If you’re already a pretty serious webinar presenter (webinarer?), you may already use a robust sort of paid program for organizing, presenting, and recording your broadcasts. (Something like GoToWebinar, for example – we’ve used that one a lot!)
If you’re just getting your feet wet in the webinar world, though, Facebook screen sharing just became a great place to try it out.
For starters, Facebook Live’s visibility can make finding your audience a lot simpler – both before and after your live broadcast ends.
(Not to mention that live broadcasting on Facebook is fairly intuitive – no complex software to master.)
On top of that, though, if you want to host a webinar, screen sharing is the ideal addition to Facebook’s live broadcasting toolkit.
Got a PowerPoint presentation to walk your audience through? Now you know how to share screen on Facebook, just throw it up on the screen, and narrate!
Got a short video you want to play, pause, and dissect with your viewers? You can watch it together!
Sharing your screen makes it way easier to review these types of educational materials with an audience – especially during a live on facebook.
But let’s say you don’t quite have the bandwidth for that sort of project right now.
What are some other ways you can take advantage of this feature?
Demos, Previews, and Exclusives
Facebook Live is a powerful tool for building excitement and making announcements.
Take one of our recent webinars for example!
We didn’t host it on Facebook Live, but we used Live to promote it – and that three-minute video has been viewed by 15,000 people and counting:
(And for what it’s worth, a lot of those viewers came after the broadcast ended – so don’t worry about not lasting long enough to attract an audience!)
If you’ve got something exciting coming up, Facebook Live allows you to share it with your biggest fans – and to attract new ones!
Maybe you’ve got a webinar or an online course coming up, and you want to preview some of the slides and materials.
Maybe you’re an author who wants to show off an advance preview of your next book’s cover design.
Are you a photographer who wants to reveal a few shots you’ve chosen for your upcoming Dogs Dressed As Silent Film Stars of the Early ’20s calendar?
(We can’t wait for that one, by the way.)
If you make it on a computer, you can share it on Facebook Live – and that’s a huge opportunity for connecting with audiences both familiar and new!
Speaking of things that you make on a computer…
Behind-the-scenes and Tutorials
Behind-the-scenes and tutorial videos are already huge on Facebook, especially for people like visual artists.
If your specialty is something you have to create on a screen, though, it hasn’t always been easy to translate that sort of thing into a live broadcast – until now.
Facebook Live screen sharing gives you way more options for going behind the scenes, AND for creating teachable moments.
A digital artist can share what they’re working on in Photoshop, or teach their fans how to master certain techniques.
A programmer can take you behind the scenes of their preferred methods.
A seasoned GIF-maker can walk you through their favorite way to whip up new images.
Whether you want to share bite-sized tips once a week or broadcast an entire afternoon’s worth of work from your desktop, screen sharing is literally made for that sort of thing!
Multi-person Broadcasts
While Facebook Live interfaces with plugins that allow you to do things like broadcast alongside other people – but screen sharing makes it a lot simpler.
It may not be as elegant a solution as one implemented using an externally-made plugin, but screen sharing on live broadcasts opens up the possibility of sharing video calls with other people – perfect if part of your usual strategy is to broadcast or shoot video with a partner or two!
(Just make sure that anybody you call on a screen share knows ahead of time that they’re going to be a part of a live broadcast – unless you’re doing a whole Candid Camera sort of prank, in which case, just do your thing.)
Do YOU plan on screen sharing live?
How do you want to make it part of your own Facebook live broadcasts?
Let us know what you think in the comments below!
18 Comments
When I am trying to share a power point presentation, using FB Live, the live screen it stacks itself. How do i stop this
We haven’t tried that ourselves, yet – might be a good question for Facebook’s support team! https://www.facebook.com/help/
mine did this too – did you find a solution?
Same here 🙁
You can do a FB Live in a FB Group, so you can make sure people sign-up to your email newsletter with their FB email address before they are given access to this group where you will host the webinar. You can make the group closed or secret and add them using their email. If the group is closed, you could also just send them a link via an email after they subscribe and have them request to join the group. If it’s secret, you will need their email to invite them to join. Groups also have the ability to do a three question questionnaire that people must answer before you let them in. One of those questions could possibly be what their email address is or what email did they sign up to your newsletter with, so you can cross-check.
That’s a genius workaround, Heather – thanks for sharing it! (And for anyone interested in more on Facebook Groups, you can check out this post: https://meetedgar.com/blog/how-to-hook-and-keep-new-members-for-your-facebook-group/)
when you go live. the share button disappears. wish you could go back and forth? looks like to need to OPEN with your shared content, and then close with your live screen. (if you share the live screen it stacks itself) when i hit stop sharing (in test mode) the stream stops…
could you find a solution?
That’s a GREAT question, especially because right now, Facebook Live doesn’t have a lead capture of any kind built in, the way a tool like GoToWebinar does. What you’ve suggested is a good idea, if you’re promoting something in advance – there are other ways you can encourage signups from your Page, too, like lead ads (https://www.facebook.com/business/a/lead-ads). It’ll be interesting to see if Facebook integrates email capture with live broadcasting in the future!
Thank you!
Can you still download the live video to upload on youtube? I was considering buying Zoom for webinars and adding the FB feature, but it is pricey. Do you believe this would eliminate the need for that? I’d like to be able to repurpose the videos on Youtube and other places.
Yep! Facebook will still automatically save the replay to your Page, where you can then download the file.
Perfect timing! I am looking forward to doing new and great things with this feature.
I am really looking forward to trying this out and thank you for making me aware of it. I am not much of a person who wants to be on Facebook Live, but I would not mind doing screen sharing! I am so excited to see technology for such useful features develop for those of us in online businesses! Thank you for sharing this insight.
Glad you found this so useful! Live screen sharing is definitely a huge plus – whether you’re in online business, or you just don’t relish the thought of appearing on camera in front of a live audience!
Do you know if it records it and if the recording can be repurposed outside of Facebook?
Yep – like other live broadcasts, Facebook automatically saves the recording to your Page, where you can download the file and do whatever you want with it! On that note, you might like this blog post about what to do after you wrap up a live broadcast: https://meetedgar.com/blog/what-you-should-do-after-your-facebook-live-broadcast-ends/
Fantastic, thank you. You guys are great!!