Facebook launches paid online events
On Friday, Facebook announced that it would give businesses, creators, educators and media publishers the ability to earn money from online events on Facebook. Now, Page owners can create an online event, set a price, promote the event, collect payment and host the event, all in one place.
This new feature has launched on the back of a successful June for Facebook Live, with activity doubling on Pages.
Fidji Simo, Vice President, Head of Facebook App said, 'With social distancing mandates still in place, many businesses and creators are bringing their events and services online to connect with existing customers and reach new ones. People are also relying on live video and interactive experiences more when they can’t come together physically.'
So what could this mean for creators?
According to Facebook, early users involved in beta testing have run paid events including talks, trivia, podcast recordings, boxing matches, cooking classes, meet-and-greets and fitness classes.
Fitness professional, Rachel Holmes has been involved in the testing and is full of praise for the new feature and thinks it will be a game-changer for creators, 'Whatever you teach, Facebook Paid Online Events is going to be massive for your business.'
Some of the benefits I can see with this new feature:
Less hassle for creators in having to direct customers to use one service i.e. Zoom to partake and then another system to pay i.e. Paypal
Ability to target audiences with promotion around Paid Online Events
Allows creators to use the other features of Facebook to maximise their events
Facebook has said it will offer Paid Online Events for free for at least a year to support creators and small businesses during this difficult time. However, for payments Facebook users submit through the app for Apple’s iOS app, Apple will keep 30% of the revenue. Facebook asked Apple to remove its 30% tax, but it was rejected by the tech giant.
Get up to speed with this new feature...
If you want to find out how to learn how to create a paid online event, read this step by step guide from Facebook and on Weds 19th Aug at 1.30pm GMT, Rachel Holmes will be offering a 2hr deep drive on how to use Facebook Paid Online Events.