Your logo, a guest's name, a discount code: anything you want visible during a Facebook Live broadcast gets on screen the same way.
Here's how to do it, what size to make your files, and what Facebook asks for before you can go live at all.
Not from the Facebook mobile app. There's no setting in it for placing your own logo or graphic over a live video — which, to us, seems like a reasonable thing to go looking for and a slightly annoying thing not to find.
What you need is a livestreaming app that composites the graphic into the video on your device, then sends the combined picture to Facebook. Facebook receives finished video, so your logo is part of the image rather than something Facebook has to support.
Because you want the broadcast to look like yours. That's a good enough reason on its own.
Plus, it's the same mechanism for everything else you might like to put on screen. Once an app can composite one image over your video, it can composite a lower third with your guest's name, a graphic with a discount code, or a running order for a broadcast with segments.
A logo is the simplest version, and setting it up once means you have all these other options when you want them.
Three things, and only one of them is Facebook's:
Facebook has to let you go live: If you haven't streamed from this account before, check the requirements for going live. Your account needs to be at least 60 days old, and a Page or professional-mode profile needs at least 100 followers.
Your logo in PNG or JPG format: Choose a PNG if you want a transparent background that makes your logo sit directly over your video. JPG will work too, but it can't store transparency, so your logo will display as a solid square.
An app that supports image overlays: There are a few apps that can do this. The walkthrough below uses Switcher, on iPhone, iPad, or Mac, but the pattern is the same anywhere: import an image, position it, trigger it. So if you're in something else, you should still be able to follow along. Otherwise, sign up for a free 14-day trial to get started.
These steps are written for iPhone and iPad, but on Mac it's the same path (just click and drag, instead of tap and pinch!):
Open Switcher, log in, and tap Use As Switcher.
Tap the blue + button at the bottom of the Sources / Production panel, then choose Text & Graphics, then Image Overlays. (It sits a couple of levels down, so it's an easy one to miss.)
Pick where your file is coming from: Photo Library, Switcher Cloud, Google Drive, or Dropbox. If a photo-access pop-up appears and your logo isn't available, tap Select More Photos, choose the graphics you want Switcher to reach, then tap Done.
Tap your graphic to open Asset Properties. Pinch out with two fingers to make it bigger, pinch in to make it smaller, and tap and drag to position it. The alignment tools will square it up vertically or horizontally if you'd rather not do it by eye. Tap Done in the top right.
Your logo is now a selectable source in the Sources / Production panel. Tap the thumbnail to bring it on screen, and tap it again to take it off.
That's the graphic sorted. Connecting Facebook is a separate bit of setup, and your logo will already be in the picture by the time you go live.
Open the Outputs tab and set Broadcast Mode to Livestreaming.
Tap New Event, then Create New Event.
Tap the Facebook icon. The first time, you'll also tap Connect Account, log into Facebook, leave the visibility on Public so Switcher can post for you, tap OK, then Continue. Facebook expires these connections every so often, so if it asks again later, nothing's broken.
Choose where the stream goes: your own timeline, or a Page you're an admin or editor on. You can add other destinations here too if you're streaming to more than one place. Tap Next.
Add a Title and Description, and swap the thumbnail with the pencil icon if you'd like. Leave Stream Schedule on Go Live Now, and open Stream Quality to run a speed test and pick a resolution. There's a toggle to save the recording to your Video Library. Tap Create Event.
When you're ready, tap the red button in the top right. Your logo is already on screen if you left it selected, or one tap away if you didn't.
Switcher's Help Center has the full Facebook walkthrough if you want the scheduling and multistreaming detail.
Switcher sorts image assets into three types, and they're the same feature with different starting sizes and positions. Choosing between them comes down to how big an image you want and where you want to position it on screen.
|
Asset type |
Starts as |
Reach for it when |
|
Logo |
Small, lower right corner |
You want a corner bug sitting over the whole broadcast |
|
Image Overlay |
Larger, centered |
You're showing a promo graphic, price, or QR code for a moment |
|
Image as Lower Third |
Largest, centered |
You're naming a speaker or guest along the bottom of the frame |
Whichever type you pick, tapping the asset again reopens Asset Properties, the same panel you used to size and place it. Two of the settings in there are easy to walk past, and both save you a headache later:
Apply on Preview places the graphic in your Preview window first, so you can position it before viewers see it.
Stay on Top keeps it in front of other sources, so a corner logo stays visible when you cut to another camera.
The full asset walkthrough covers the rest of them if you'd like to go deeper.
Facebook's own specs put a landscape broadcast at 1920 x 1080, so that's the frame everything sizes against.
Corner logo: around 200 x 200 px, roughly a tenth of the frame's width.
Lower third: around 960 x 240 px, which is half the frame wide and roughly a fifth of its height. Leave a margin inside the graphic so your text isn't sitting hard against the edge.
Full-screen graphic: 1920 x 1080 px, matching the frame.
These are starting points rather than rules, and you can resize anything once it's on screen.
Tip: Exporting big enough matters more than hitting the numbers exactly: scaling a small file up makes it look soft, so give yourself a little more resolution than you think you need.
A few options, roughly in the order they'd come up during a broadcast. Take whichever ones fit what you're making.
A full-screen logo at the start: Something on screen while you're getting set up, before you start talking.
A corner logo for the rest of the broadcast: Smaller, out of the way, and visible to anyone who joins partway through.
Lower thirds for names: A name and title along the bottom when someone new speaks, which saves you reintroducing a guest each time.
A running order: If your broadcast has segments, showing the schedule early lets someone who joins late see what's coming.
Your website or a code, during the ask: In the frame, since you can't put a clickable link inside the video itself.
A branded frame before you clip: Facebook keeps live videos for 30 days and then removes them, so clips are usually what's left afterward. Whatever's on screen ends up in the clip.
Yes. An Android app that composites overlays on the device will do it, and PRISM Live Studio is one to look at.
Switcher's production app runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, so it isn't the one to reach for if you're producing from an Android phone.
Android still has a place in a Switcher production, though. Switcher for Android turns the phone into a wireless camera that joins a production running on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, so an Android device can be one of the angles in a branded broadcast. (There's more on using Android cameras if that's the hardware you've got.)
Not to the broadcast itself. Overlays are composited while you're live, so they're baked into the video as it goes out. To brand a stream after the fact, download the file and add the graphic in an editor before you repost it.
Yes. The graphics are composited before the video leaves your device, so they travel with the stream to YouTube, LinkedIn, your own site, or several at once.
30 days. After that Facebook removes it automatically, so download anything you'd like to keep before then.
If you're streaming from a Page or a professional-mode profile, yes. Facebook's live streaming requirements set a minimum of 100 followers, plus an account at least 60 days old.
That's the JPG. Export the same file as a PNG with a transparent background and the box goes away.
Adding a logo is a small change, and you only have to make it once. Import it before your next broadcast and it's there for every one after, which makes it one of the easier wins in a live setup.
Plus, when you sign up for Switcher, you can sync all the cameras you have (Apple devices, Android devices, HDMI and NDI cameras, and webcams) to create a multicam production. Then stream to multiple online platforms at once — and much more.
Whenever you're ready, sign up for a free 14-day trial to get access to pro-grade live streaming tools, made simple.