Facebook’s live streaming service has become very popular very quickly, especially with marketers. Having the ability to communicate directly with viewers has been very effective for many different people in many industries. When live streaming, however, it was essentially an ‘all or nothing’ type of deal. You just sent out the notification that you were going live, and everyone had the opportunity to view it.
As of late last week, however Facebook rolled out a number of new options to help target live broadcasts. You can now restrict live streaming events by age, gender, location, and a number of other things.
If you want to take advantage of these new options, however, you need to be using the Facebook API, which means most ‘casual’ users won’t be able to target users. For marketers who regularly use Facebook, however, this will provide them with much more control over who is able to see what they are broadcasting. This will be especially helpful in limiting broadcasts by age since some marketers may not want younger watchers to tune in depending on what it is they are promoting.
