Facebook is pulling out all the stops with it’s Facebook ‘Watch Party’ feature. It allows group admins to pick any public video on Facebook and show it to their members at the same time. Think of it like watching your favorite movie with a group of you favorite friends. The “shared viewing experience” helps build community and engagement much like with live video. You can share videos you saved, your own content or videos you watched.
[ Watch this video for a step-by-step on how to use Facebook Watch Party for Groups]
What I like most about this platform is the ability to share great content other than your own. Recently, my friend fashion stylist, and business coach Alicia Zeigler held a watch party using some of my content. She said, she wanted to share my expertise with her audience. Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner! Just think people who didn’t know me now get a chance to “experience” me because someone they trusted, shared me with the audience. This is amazing friends. Word of mouth is still a thing. Encourage your friends and audience to create a watch party with your content, show up, engage with the audience. In this live video, I did just that and even suggested a follow-up video audience members could watch.
I want to also highlight a clever way I saw a local theatre production company use the watch party feature to increase visibility around its latest production. WOW (Walking on Water) Productions hosted a watch party of an online debut of “Confessions: Home for the Holidays” short film. The theatre company went live with the cast and crew prior to the watch party and then a short film fundraiser afterwards.
I set up a watch party to run in the wee hours of the morning, just to test out my market in other time zones. According to Facebook, they have been encouraged seeing some use the platform to host Q&As around particular hobbies, swapping tips and tricks for things like home improvement or makeup tutorials with members in real time.
The possibilities are truly endless. Have you used Facebook “Watch Party”? If so, how?