More Ways To Connect with Friends in Facebook Live

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We know Facebook Live is better with friends. We’ve been working on ways to make Live more fun, social and interactive, like with the new Live interactive effects we announced last month. Today we’re excited to announce two new features that make it easier to share experiences and connect in real time with your friends on Live.

Live Chat With Friends

One of the best things about Live is that you can discuss what’s happening in the broadcast in real time. In fact, people comment more than 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos. When it comes to compelling public broadcasts — such as a breaking news event, a Q&A with your favorite actor or behind-the-scenes action after a big game — watching with the community and reading comments is an exciting part of the experience. We know sometimes people also want the option to interact with only their friends during a public live broadcast, so we’re rolling out Live Chat With Friends.

Live Chat With Friends lets you invite friends to a private chat about a public live broadcast. You can invite friends who are already watching or other friends who you think may want to tune in. You’re able to jump back into the public conversation at any time, and you can still continue chatting with your friends via Messenger after the broadcast ends.

With Live Chat With Friends, you can be part of big moments with the wider community but also have the option to participate in personal conversations with the people closest to you, directly within the Live experience. We’re testing this feature on mobile in several countries, and we look forward to making it available more broadly later this summer.

Live With

Last year we started rolling out the ability for public figures to go live with a guest. Now available for all profiles and Pages on iOS, Live With lets you invite a friend into your live video so you can hang out together, even if you’re not in the same place. Sharing the screen with a friend can make going live more fun and interactive — for both you and your viewers.

To invite a friend to join you in your live video, simply select a guest from the Live Viewers section, or tap a comment from the viewer you want to invite. Your viewer can then choose whether or not to join your broadcast. You can go live with a guest in both portrait mode (for a picture-in-picture experience) and landscape mode (for a side-by-side experience). For a full tutorial, click here.

We’re excited to see how people use these Facebook Live features to come together around moments big and small.