Facebook’s Creator Studio gains a mobile companion
Facebook's Creator Studio has added a mobile companion. The insights dashboard for creators and publishers, which debuted globally in August 2018, is now available as a mobile app for both iOS and Android. Similar to the desktop hub, the Creator Studio app allows users to track how their content is performing across Facebook Pages, as well as publish, schedule and make adjustments to posts, respond to fan messages and more.
Facebook Director of Entertainment for Northern Europe Anna Higgs took the stage at last week's VidCon London, along with creator Ladbaby, who has more than 4 million Facebook followers, to share the news of the new app's launch.
There are a few key areas where the app can be of use to creators and publishers, starting with its metrics and insights section. Here, users can analyze both Page and post-level insights, retention and distribution metrics in order to adjust their strategies accordingly. For example, they'll find content performance metrics like "1-minute views," "3-second views" and "avg. minutes viewed," plus engagement metrics like comments and shares, and follower counts, earnings and more.
The app also serves as a mobile companion for viewing both published and scheduled posts, allowing creators to make quick adjustments like editing the video titles or descriptions. And they can use the app for deleting or expiring posts, rescheduling posts or publishing drafts.
From the inbox section, users can respond to incoming messages and comments while on the go.
Creators can toggle between their different accounts during the same session, instead of having to log out and back in as a different user. This could be helpful for those who have a large social media presence, as well as those whose business involves supporting multiple creator pages.
The Creator Studio app will also send out immediate notifications for key milestones and other important events.
This isn't the first time Facebook has offered a dedicated app for its creator community. The company in 2017 debuted a Creator app that had also offered a unified inbox and analytics, among other things. But that app was shut down early last year, and creators were pointed toward the Pages Manager app or desktop version of Creator Studio instead. Before that, Facebook had offered a Mentions app that was only available for verified public figures and Pages.
The new Creator Studio app isn't a direct replacement for the shuttered Creator app, as it sports a similar, though not identical feature set and a new user interface. It also notably lacks Instagram integration and the ability to upload and post new content - the latter which is contributing to poor user reviews, following the app's launch. Many complain there's too much overlap with the Pages Monitor app, as well. But the missing features are something Facebook will likely address in the future, as it rolls out more functionality to the app.
It's worth noting that Facebook's desktop hub and app sport a name similar to YouTube's service for creators - YouTube Studio, rebranded from YouTube Creator Studio in 2017. By including both "studio" and "creator" in the new app's name, it will perform better in App Store search results - including those that appear when someone searches for the YouTube Studio app for creators. That reflects the competitive nature between the two companies, both hungry to woo video creator talent.
Facebook's new app is a free download on iOS and Android.