Facebook announced the launch of a new "Facebook Mentions" feature that will allow fans to connect and interact with their favorite public figures on the social media site via live video.

With the new Mentions app feature, fittingly dubbed "Live," public figures can now in real time take their fans behind the scenes, host a Q&A, share announcements, and otherwise be more intimate with them.

In fact, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Serena Williams have already tried Live in engaging with their fans, BBC News reported. Said to soon follow next are Luke Bryan, Ashley Tisdale, Ricardo Kaka and Michael Buble.  

Unlike Periscope, Meerkat, Vine and other livestreaming services however, Facebook's Live is not yet available for the general public. It is only currently strictly for those who have access to the Mentions app, meaning public figures with verified "Pages" and "Profiles" accounts on Facebook.

But also unlike Periscope, which stores uploaded videos for 24 hours only, and Meerkat, which immediately deletes videos, Facebook will keep the videos for as long as the celebrity or public figure concerned has not deleted them.

Ordinary Facebook users, though, can watch and comment in real time on their favorite celebrities' Live broadcasts via News Feed. When a celebrity with the Mentions app starts a broadcast, a video with the Live tag goes out on the News Feed.

When the broadcaster end the stream, the News Feed story and video stay around but lose the Live tag. But users who failed to catch the Live broadcast can still watch the video later on their favorite celebrity's Page, unless it has been deliberately deleted by the Mentions account holder.

On the live stream, the incoming comments will be added at a steady readable pace. But the public figure can also turn the comments off, or filter them to blacklist things they don't want to see appearing in their feed.

Facebook itself will also automatically hide comments deemed too vulgar.

Asked by Tech Crunch why celebrities and other public figures would prefer to use Live rather than Periscope or Meerkat for their real-time broadcasts, Live product manager Vadim Lavrusik said, "Public figures already have fans on Facebook that they share to every single day."

Now with live video, they have a more intimate and authentic way of engaging and interacting with their Facebook fans. Queried as to when, or whether regular Facebook users too can get Live, Lavrusik replied: "We think this will be an awesome experience for both public figures and also users. We want to get feedback from both public figures and viewers as we evolve the product."