Journalists can’t write about whatever pops into their heads and still be successful, they have to write about stories and topics that are trending with the masses at the time, but how do you figure out what’s trending? Well, there are actually numerous tools that can help you do just that, the newest of which was created by Facebook. Known as Signal, this new feature allows journalists to keep track of emerging and trending posts on Facebook and Instagram, and integrate these findings into their own content. 

We’ve heard from journalists that they want an easy way to make Facebook a more vital part of their newsgathering with the ability to surface relevant trends, photos, videos, and posts on Facebook and Instagram for use in their storytelling and reporting. Today we’re excited to introduce Signal, for Facebook and Instagram, a free discovery and curation tool for journalists who want to source, gather, and embed newsworthy content from Facebook and Instagram, across news, culture, entertainment, sports, and more—all in one place. This step continues our collaboration with the journalism community just after last week’s launch of Mentions for Profiles. Journalists interested in seeing what conversations are resonating on Facebook can monitor which topics are trending and then quickly display related content that has been shared publicly—unranked and in chronological order— from both people and Pages for deeper context on those trends. Search functionality makes it easy to surface content directly related to a story or topic they are tracking.