Facebook lets publishers cross-post Live videos across multiple Pages & tests a rewind button

Facebook is also making it easier for teams to collaborate when shooting Live video by giving publishers a single, permanent stream key for live broadcasts.

Facebook is continuing to give Pages more video features. After announcing new video metrics last week, the platform is now making it possible to cross-post Live video broadcasts across multiple pages.

“With Live Cross-posting, all Pages globally can seamlessly publish a single broadcast across multiple Pages as an original post. We’ve added this functionality to both our Publisher Tools on Pages and the Live API,” writes Facebook Live product manager, Matt Labunka.

The feature has already been tested by World Surf League, which cross-posted a recent Live video to its main Facebook page, a sponsor’s Page, and one of its athletes’ pages. The Live video broadcast across the three pages resulted in more than 1.5 million views, 4,500 shares and over 538,000 minutes of watch time, the League reported.

Multishow, a Brazilian entertainment channel, says a recent Live video it cross-posted across its Pages garnered a 40 percent increase in retention and twice the number of interactions when compared to its other Live broadcasts posted in the last 90 days.

In addition to the cross-posting feature, Facebook is giving publishers and creators who frequently use the Live API a persistent stream key with an encoder for their Live broadcasts.

“This means, if you’re a publisher or creator that goes live regularly, you now only need to send one stream key to product teams, and because a Page’s stream key is permanent, it can be sent in advance of a shoot,” says Labunka. The feature is aimed at making it easier — and less time-consuming — for teams to collaborate when producing Live video.

People watching Live videos on Pages are also getting a new feature, as Facebook says it is testing a rewind function — making it possible to rewind a Live video as it is being broadcast on a Page.

Facebook reiterated its daily average broadcasts from verified publishers’ Pages have increased 1.5 times over the past year — a stat it first released last month on the second anniversary of Live video.

Video continues to be a high priority for Facebook. In the last 20 days, Facebook has rolled out the “Premieres” video format for publishers, letting them post pre-recorded videos as live footage and has given creators new ways to monetize their videos and launched new video metrics for Page admins.