Live Streaming to Facebook Workplace

In episode 16 of StreamGeeks live this week, we talk all about Facebook Workplace. Facebook Workplace is a team collaboration platform that combines everything we love about Facebook, into an internal communications tool. Workplace is one of the first platforms to combine live streaming, video conferencing, unified communications and an internal newsfeed into an all-in-one enterprise level product.

While it’s clear Facebook intended this tool for enterprise use, their other applications for affordable platform we discuss for small and large communities we believe will open up significant monetization opportunities and even new multi-million dollar markets.

Explaining Facebook Workplace

The best way to explain Facebook Workplace is to think about a completely blank Facebook newsfeed. Instead of having your Facebook newsfeed populated with your best friends photos, videos and other sponsored material, Facebook Workplace is all about your work community. Workplace adminstrators can set up the platform to automatically accept new users based on email domain or allow collaboration with users in other companies but in general all information is setup as privileged internal data.

Increasing Organizational Learning

For many businesses having a unified communication platform like Facebook Workplace is a paradigm shift. Learning how to post relevant media and content to create increase organizational learning is a powerful “shared mindset” that can wield incredibly interconnected workflows in modern business. For example, imagine how hard it is to keep up with all the people in your small medium or large size business.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Facebook Workplace had an algorithm to aggregate content into the most relevant engaging in important information inside your organization? The curated newsfeed for internal communications inside small and large organizations is perhaps the most powerful tool in Facebook Workplace. And of course, unified communications managed with Facebook groups may be equally as powerful as a tool for organizing corporations for the modern age.

Facebook Workplace Groups

We also discuss the various Facebook Workplace groups and their uses. Facebook Workplace offers five default group types suggested for organizing various types of communities inside your organization such as: Team Projects, Open Discussions, Announcements, Social and Multi-Company. Each Facebook group can be set to open, private or secret to manage user access. Open groups are ideal for forum type communities where anyone can see the content and everyone can join in the conversation.

Private groups are used to share information with only the people who need it yet the group itself can be seen by any user. Finally, secret groups are for users who want to collaborate on projects that are entirely private on the platform. Facebook Workplace uses groups to manage sets of content and understand which pieces of information are most relevant to different users.

If you have ever joined a group on your public facebook account you know how the information. Facebook Workplace also includes various tools for businesses such as organization charts and the ability to follow individual employees. The platform is incredibly advanced and features everything you would find on the normal Facebook platform.

Live Streaming on Facebook Workplace

When it comes to live streaming Facebook Workplace will connect organizations instantaneously in ways we never thought possible. Workplace is also a great tool for practicing live streams as well releasing the pressure of going live publically and allowing marketing teams the ability to practice the craft internally.

We also discussed non-corporate uses for Facebook Workplace such as fan clubs in buying/trade in communities. We tested live streaming on Facebook Workplace with copy written materials to see if we would get a copyright strike or if our material will be taken off the platform.

To test this we use copywritten music videos by Lady Gaga live stream of the content to a Facebook Workplace group. We found that there are no copyright strikes on the Facebook Workplace platform like there are on the normal Facebook platform. Many professional bands find live streaming on Facebook troublesome because their own content gets flagged for copyright right even though they are the owners and writers of the music.

Monetizing Facebook Workplace in Creative Ways

The ability to monetize a Facebook Workplace community as a premium network for fan clubs, teaching areas and exclusive buy/sell trading areas could be $1 billion+ industry alone (mark my words Zuckerberg :). Not to mention that Facebook Workplace seems to be one of the most fully featured collaboration tools available on the market today. Facebook is putting video conferencing and live streaming for internal communications in the pocket of every employee in your company and all this for only three dollars a month per user. It’s worth noting that Facebook Workplace also has a free version which is runs with all feature except administrative controls.

Facebook Workplace’s biggest problem

The biggest problem Facebook Workplace will have is Facebook’s negative connotations as a time waster in the corporate workplace. Many organizations simply block Facebook or there internet routers so that employees do not waste time browsing family photos and other non-work material. But I do believe Facebook Workplace is a path for international success with large companies case studies on board such as: Walmart, Heineken and booking.com. Facebook has the tools and the team to bring this collaboration suite to market and break down the negative connotations as a time waster with this premium offering. As our business opens up additional regional offices we plan to switch from Slack to Facebook Workplace and take a vantage of the live streaming / video conferencing tools built into the platform along with the unified communications to be more productive at work.