Reports circulated earlier this year that Facebook users were sharing less about themselves, but more news articles and viral content. With the rise of valued video, Snapchat being a great example of this, other platforms need to keep up. Among a society of social-media savvy and picture-hungry digital natives, this is Facebook’s latest attempt to compete in the video-making market, but only for iOS users at this stage.
How to use Facebook Slideshow: How it works
Open the Facebook app. If you’ve taken more than five photos or videos within the last 24 hours, Facebook will show you a preview of a slideshow it has generated at the top of your News Feed. Alternatively, if you’ve seen a friend share a Slideshow to your News Feed, find the post and tap “Try It” as seen below.
Tap on the preview to open Slideshow within Facebook, and choose from the menu bar at the bottom of your screen. It will give you options: Library, Themes, Edit and More. We show you what you can do under each of these menu options.
How to use Facebook Slideshow: Library
A random selection of your photos will be chosen to give you the first preview of the Slideshow. If you don’t like these you can add or delete photos and videos from your library to the slideshow. To do this tap on the Library icon, then tap on the photos you wish to include in your Slideshow so the blue box appears around the outside of the photos and a tick in the corner, as seen below.
How to use Facebook Slideshow: Theme
You are given ten themes to choose from – Nostalgic, Playful, Night Out, Birthday, Epic, Thankful, Tropical, Bollywood and Amped. Among these themes will be different transitions and music to suit the mood of your photos and videos. Tap on the theme you wish to choose for your slideshow and a preview will begin playing. You can turn the sound off by tapping the audio icon in the top left-hand side of your screen.
How to use Facebook Slideshow: Edit
The editing option lets you crop an image or delete it, and you can choose which order you want the photos to appear in the slideshow. To do this, tap on the image you want to edit, and a crop icon will appear in the top left-hand corner of your screen and a trash icon in the top right-hand corner as seen below.
As soon as you tap the trash icon the photo will be deleted from the Slideshow, so make sure that’s the decision you want. Drag the image around to crop and tap the tick button to save changes, or the cross to not save, as seen below.
How to use Facebook Slideshow: More
The More button allows you to add a title to the start of your slideshow or tag friends in it.
To change the slideshow title tap Title, and write in the box the words you want to appear at the beginning.
It also lets you tag friends in the slideshow. Tap the plus icon and type in a friends name.
How to use Facebook Slideshow: Sharing
Now watch back the video you’ve created in the preview by tapping the play button in the middle of the screen. You can watch back the video at any stage of editing. The fewer photos you add to the video, the shorter its duration will be. If you like the final result, tap Done in the top right-hand corner of your screen and it will prepare the slideshow for a Facebook post.
You will then be taken to a screen which will let you write a post to go with the slideshow and will give you the option to check in (add location), add what you’re feeling and the option to tag friends.
Tap Post once you’re ready to share your slideshow.
