Well, HAPPY October 17th to us! Facebook officially released the ability to share your screen while LIVE without the use of third party software!
There is a required extension but, this is great news!
Here’s How You Get Started
To use this new feature, all you need to do is to go to your Facebook Business Page, click on “Live Video” and you’ll see the option “Share Screen.” **Please NOTE: You might not see this option if you’re using a browser other than Chrome or Firefox. So far it’s only available in those browsers.**
Once you choose “Share Screen” you’ll see the following prompt to install the Facebook Extension:
Once you add the extension you’ll see a confirmation message:
When I did this the first time, the screen sharing didn’t start so I had to exit the Live Video Screen and go back in again. Once I did that and clicked on the “Share Screen” button I was given the option to choose what I wanted to share (Your Entire Screen, Chrome Tab, Application Window):
After making my selection and a 3 second count down, I was officially LIVE, sharing my screen without the use of any 3rd party software! Woot!
Some noteworthy things I experienced:
- I was unable to switch between sharing my screen and sharing my camera.
- When trying to “Share Screen” on business pages that I manage through Business Manager, I was not given the option to “Share Screen.” The button was missing. It MIGHT be that either the functionality isn’t rolled out to all pages yet or that you simply must be a direct admin on a business page to have this option for now.
- When I tried to share my screen while using Safari, I was referred to Chrome or Firefox:
- When I tried to share my screen while using Firefox, I didn’t have the option to “Share Screen.”
In Conclusion
So, let me sum up…Buttercup is marry Humperdink in little less a half an hour…(yes, I’m unapologetically quoting Princess Bride in this post…it’s what I do.)
Ahhemm…let’s try that again:
While this isn’t a robust screen sharing option – it definitely does the trick. Users of OBS and other screen sharing platforms will miss out on all of the bells and whistles so I can’t imagine everyone will abandon ship for this new tool.
One of the things I know I would hope to see added right away is the ability to share your camera simultaneously.
OR simply the option to switch between your camera and your screen share. But, Facebook is BUSY…so, it might be a while.
All in all, this is a sign that Facebook still has it’s ever-watchful eye on the power of going LIVE and has no plans to slow down on encouraging it’s users to dive in and Go LIVE.
Are you excited about the new sharing feature? Pop over to this Facebook post and let us know how you feel about it. If this post has helped, please SHARE. Thanks!
PS – here’s a quick video walkthrough I did for you! 😉
