Enhancing Audience Engagement: Schedule Facebook Live Videos a Week in Advance

Being one of the most sought-after features available to users, Facebook Live has seamlessly integrated itself into the marketing strategies of many brands and corporations. It serves as a powerful tool that connects businesses directly with their fans and followers. In keeping with its vision of encouraging user interaction and active participation, Facebook aims to bring a conventional TV-like broadcast service into this platform.

The new initiative allows users to schedule broadcasts up to a week in advance with an added aim of creating hype and building anticipation. This not only extends the reach of your live videos but also enables Facebook to aid in planning and promoting your broadcast. Facebook recently revealed plans of this feature in a [post](https://media.fb.com/2016/10/18/scheduling-a-live-broadcast-via-the-live-api/), stating that, _”you can schedule a live broadcast up to one week in advance, and people can join your lobby three minutes before your broadcast begins. Once you’ve scheduled a live video, you will be able to share a link to the broadcast or embed it in other places, such as websites or blogs.”_

The intention is to roll out this feature to Facebook Pages in the coming weeks. Developers will be encouraged to incorporate this option into third-party apps using an API tool. The ability to create links to broadcasts a week in advance leaves ample room for advertising and promotion, offering a potential shift in how businesses utilize Facebook Live.

Additionally, this feature empowers content creators to embed links to live videos in posts on their websites, enhancing the immediacy and excitement surrounding breaking news.

Navigating this new feature is straightforward:

1. Navigate to Publishing Tools
1. Secure your stream credentials (e.g. steam key, Server URL)
1. Style your announcement post
1. Set your scheduled live broadcast

For comprehensive step-by-step guidance, refer to the [offical guide](https://media.fb.com/2016/10/18/scheduling-a-live-broadcast-via-the-live-api/) released by Facebook.

This pioneering move from Facebook highlights the social media giant’s ability to innovate continually, fostering user interaction and introducing novel streams of ad revenue. As it currently holds 12 percent of total digital ads space, second only to Google’s 31 percent, it is apparent that features like this could potentially boost Facebook’s position in the market.