NN: More and more, we turn to social media for our news

[Logo]( More and more, we get our news from social media Hello, Typically, August is a slow month for news and we expected the social data to reflect that. Instead, the U.S. news cycle was dominated by stories about the Charlottesville protests and Hurricane Harvey. Perhaps this is not so surprising, given [Pew Research's latest report]( revealing that 67 percent of Americans getting their news from social media. Fox News rocketed to first place in our Facebook rankings, jumping from 17 million engagements in July to 31 million engagements in August. HuffPost and CNN took second and third places, respectively. Politics also played a part in the rankings, with the conservative Daily Wire emerging at 12th place, and Independent Journal Review returning to the rankings. For many publishers, there has been no slowdown in the number of links that they post, even with video taking up more resources. Despite the prevalence of video on Facebook, it seems as though engagement with traditional web content is far from fading for top sites. [For the full rankings, check out the blog.]( A boost for brands When we looked at sponsored posts on Instagram, we saw that these posts could drive 100x the engagements for brands. It appears that the effect of branded posts on Facebook is even more pronounced. This is good news for both publishers and brands. Brands reach a bigger audience, and publishers and influencers can prove that they deliver value. Out of the top 100 branded posts on Facebook in August, publishers and celebrities (primarily athletes, and yes, John Cena) were behind the majority of top posts. Sports, food, and tech/electronics brands were featured most in the top posts. The top format was almost unanimously visual content. Video, photo. What made the top branded content not flop? Again, it’s vital to make sure branded posts are genuine, aligned with the Page publishing the post, and something your audience would want to see. [For all the tactics, check out the full post](. How to supercharge your branded content for social How can you make branded content that won't sound like an ad? Our upcoming webinar shares how to create compelling posts. [Photo]( What we learned from 500 Instagram captions Instagram captions can provide a deeper engagement opportunity with your audience. Here's how. [Photo]( How we predict what will go viral on Facebook Going viral is the elusive, holy grail of content creation. Here's how you can use data to predict what will work. Noted - Messenger apps are [still proving big]( for publishers; the Economist has grown its audience on Line to nearly 1 million followers. - Missing Myspace's custom colors and graphics? Facebook is [testing colorful comments]( out. - As more [publishers pivot to video](, Vox addresses what this trend really means. That’s it from us for the week. Feel free to reach out to us over [on Twitter]( with any questions or thoughts you have, and please [recommend our newsletter]( onto a friend if you found it useful. Have a fantastic weekend, Gabriele and the NewsWhip team. Useful Links [NewsWhip Spike]( [NewsWhip Analytics]( [Resources]( [Blog]( [Contact]( [www.newswhip.com]( About Us Millions of stories, videos, and social posts are published each day, sparking billions of interactions. NewsWhip transforms this ocean of social data into actionable insights to inform your content strategy. NewsWhip products show you what audiences are engaging with in real time and what has performed best historically – in every vertical. This email was sent to {EMAIL}. If you no longer wish to receive these emails you may [unsubscribe]( at any time.