Facebook eyes video creators

Looks like Facebook is stepping up its game. The social media giant announced the new ‘Facebook Creator’ app on Thursday. The app offers exclusive tools for creating and promoting the streaming of videos. It offers influencers ‘Live Creative Kit’ for adding intros and outros to broadcasts, a unified inbox of Facebook and Instagram comments plus messenger chats, cross-posting to Twitter as well as custom live stickers and video frames.

The app also offers video and page analytics that allow users to track how their followers are watching their creations.

“Creators around the world are sharing their videos on Facebook to build a community around their passion — whether their passion is comedy sketches, their favorite recipes, or even knitting sweaters,” Chris Hatfield, a Facebook Video Product Manager, said in a blog post announcing the new tools on Thursday.

“On Facebook, creators can connect with more than two billion potential fans and collaborators, get to know their community, talk directly to fans with Live, and monetise with products like branded content.”

The Creator is a re-brand and update of the 2014 Facebook Mentions app that was only available to verified public figures and pages, but now is open to everyone.

Facebook is also launching a Facebook for Creators website with best practices for growing fan bases. It is widely believed that Facebook is trying to woo video creators away from YouTube, given that they are currently struggling with changing rules at YouTube.

The mobile app, which debuts on Apple’s iOS devices on Friday, will be available on Android devices in the coming months.