Facebook suddenly killed its ‘Live With’ feature after encountering a few issues in the past weeks. But don’t worry! There’s an awesome alternative to continue doing your Facebook Live split screen interview — BeLive!
Update: Facebook has revived ‘Live With’ along with other new features as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While this is an awesome way to connect to friends and loved-ones in the native Facebook Live platform, using BeLive allows you to customize your broadcasts with your own logo and branding! You can also add videos directly from YouTube during your Live! So if you’re planning to grow your business on social media using live streaming, give BeLive a try today!
What Is Facebook’ Live With?’
Introduced in May 2017, Facebook’s ‘Live With’ function allowed users to invite guests to go on broadcast with them in a split-screen interview format. This feature made Facebook Live with two people so easy to pull off.
The feature allowed the users to invite someone to go live with them on the spot. Users could connect with friends in Facebook Live by swiping on their iPhone or Android phones. They just had to click on the ‘Invite to Go Live’ button, and they can immediately start Facebook live with multiple people.
Why End the ‘Live With’ Feature?
On the Facebook notice shared by social media commentator Matt Navarra, the company wants to commit to “building a truly social video experience on Facebook.”
With that, Facebook decided to put “experiences that drive the most value for the community” at the forefront of their development. The notice also implied Facebook intends to make its Live function a more interactive experience for users.
It seems like users faced several issues with the feature. Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith found the feature “clunky” when she used it a few times and wondered if Instagram will do away with its version as well. Read Mari’s entire post here.
What’s Next?
Instead of split-screen interviews, Facebook announced that they plan to focus more on audience interaction. They’re currently developing tools to integrate into Facebook Live, including the recently launched Polls.
Users who need this feature for their business engagement found the decision saddening.
It’s a good thing there’s an excellent alternative for Facebook’s ‘Live With’ feature — BeLive! 
Because BeLive is an official Facebook Live solutions partner, you won’t have problems broadcasting to the social media site with the platform. It’s a great tool to use to grow your community and improve your engagement with your audience!
BeLive allows users to curate a professional-looking setup in Studio2 before and during the live broadcast. Like Facebook’s ‘Live With,’ you can also do a split-screen interview with a guest during your broadcast. You can even conduct a talk show with up to 4 people on screen with other guests waiting in the lobby!
Planning to create a podcast from your Facebook Live split screen interview? Here’s a helpful post for you to check out.
Add Guests for a Facebook Split Screen Interview
You or your guests don’t need a fancy or complicated setup to pull off an excellent interview either. Your guests can use their laptop or phone to join your discussion or talk show. You just need to push your guest’s screen to the show, and you’re good to go!
Here’s an easy tutorial on how to add guests to your live broadcast!
Wanna know how to conduct the BEST interviews on Facebook Live? Here’s how you can improve your interview skills to up your interaction with your guest.
Aside from that, you can also customize your Facebook Live broadcast with these fantastic features:
- Use your own logo/branding image
- Display agenda onscreen
- Add crawlers
- Replace colors and background image
- Share a short video (100mb)
And yes, you can change your background, update your agenda list, or edit your crawler while you’re still live! Isn’t that amazing?!
BeLive’s guest feature isn’t just for Facebook Live split screen interviews either. You can use this feature to share a photo, short clip, or whatever you feel like showing during your broadcast without having to go off-screen!
You can now go live on YouTube with BeLive as well. Check out this blog post to know how you can do just that.
You won’t have to worry about going on Facebook Live with multiple people thanks to BeLive!
Want to see how split screen Facebook Live with BeLive looks like? Watch the video below!
Interested to go Live on Facebook or YouTube with BeLive? Sign up now and try out all of its awesome features for FREE!
Are you new to live streaming and need more tips and advice? Join our 12k Facebook community members and get more live streaming tips from the experts themselves.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on November 25, 2019, but has been edited for updates.
Pam Amantiad is a Content Writer in BeLive’s Marketing Team. With a degree in Creative Writing, she has nearly a decade of experience in digital marketing, particularly in content creation as a copywriter and a freelance blog writer. Not contented with producing written outputs, she dove into the world of live video marketing in 2019 and hasn’t left since.
[…] This poses a problem for YouTube streamers who used Hangouts on Air for interviews or live group chats. Users of Facebook Live With also faced the same dilemma when the social media site decided to end the service suddenly. […]
I’m in
I’m in
Live streaming has a multitude of purposes even in the business world. You could stream webinars, conferences, training sessions, and even to multiple platforms simultaneously.
I hope you can help? I can’t get some people to join a Facebook live broadcast. They don’t have an ‘add’ option or a green camera icon. Their friend request settings are on ‘everyone’ they are using a profile not a page and I can add them on my personal account. I don’t receive their requests to join even though they’re sending them.
I have a broadcast scheduled for tomorrow night so urgent help is appreciated! Thank you
Hi there! Are you using BeLive for your scheduled live or the native FB live?