Facebook recently unveiled its new Creator Program, to help gaming creators on the platform monetise their content and build their communities.
The social media giant revealed their Creator App and Creator Tools back in November, in collaboration with Facebook streamer StoneMountain64 (SM64).
The pilot program is designed to focus on helping gaming creators build more meaningful and more engaged communities on Facebook than anywhere else.
It also aims to increase creator discovery and distribution across multiple surfaces, including Facebook.com, Instagram and Oculus.
The program will also come with a host of tools that provides creators at every level the opportunity to thrive and make a living streaming games on Facebook.
There's a lot of competition in the streaming market right now, so we caught up with Facebook Gaming Creator Lead John Imah, who ran us through what Facebook hopes to achieve and how it aims to become the go-to service for content creators.
InfluencerUpdate.biz: What can Facebook's Creator program offer creators and influencers that they can't find on other platforms?
John Imah: Our goal is to broaden the opportunity for creators at every level to help them thrive. Our program gives creators the tools and insights needed to strengthen discovery and distribution across multiple surfaces, including Facebook.com, Instagram and Oculus.
The main strength that Facebook aims to leverage is its social connectivity both to create communities around livestreams as well as to help with discoverability.
Who is the program for? Are you aiming at rising stars rather than already established personalities?
We're actively supporting creators of all levels, with a particular focus on up and coming talent. We believe this is an important segment in terms of the opportunity we have to help them grow and thrive on Facebook.
We're also focused including a diverse mix of gaming creators that specialize in different gaming genres, which we think is reflective of the broad audience that Facebook reaches.
What's the thinking behind the fan support monetisation initiatives and how does this work?
We've always believed in enabling creators - whether its game developers or gaming video creators - to monetize their own content.
At this early stage, we're focused on helping gaming creators introduce new fan support features to learn what works best for their content and community. Our long-term goal is to support gaming creators with the tools they need to eventually make a living by streaming games on Facebook.
Will Facebook offer support to those who want to move over to the platform, but are struggling to move their community?
We succeed when our creators succeed, and we want to help gaming creators build meaningful communities on Facebook. Facebook creators such as StoneMountain64 found success by creating a new community on Facebook over time.
So much of what this creator program is about is working side by side with these livestreamers to understand what their Facebook communities want most and using those insights to help with growth, discovery and distribution.
What do you really mean by 'creator-first ecosystem'?
Creator-first means that we're building this program hand-in-hand with gaming creators, and the tools and features we introduce are based on listening to the feedback from the gaming creator audience on Facebook.
There are a lot of great services today, but it’s hard if you’re a creator. A creator has to pull together their broadcasting software. There are tools for managing monetization services. There are tools to manage their community. There are tools for self-promotion, from a marketing perspective.
A lot of these tools are actually in the Facebook family of apps, whether it’s Instagram or Messenger or the Facebook platform, our developer APIs, or our livestreaming API.
We want our creators to have the tools and resources they need to make a living off of creating content for Facebook, and we're committed to providing the resources and tools necessary to make that happen.
Other sites like YouTube and Twitch have been caught up in controversies over the content they put out - such as what content creators might show or say. How will Facebook try to prevent this and what are the penalties?
All creators are bound by our code of conduct and community standards, and any creators in violation of those standards risk losing the ability to stream on Facebook.
Ultimately, we want all of our gaming creators to build supportive, healthy communities on Facebook and that starts by being transparent with our creator community and encouraging feedback loops between us and the gaming creator community.
We know that there may be mistakes along the way, but we're focused on setting the right foundation early on especially with our creators in the pilot program.
