Greetings from Orlando, where I spoke twice yesterday at Ragan Communications’ annual Social Media and Communications conference. This Friday Wrap—a little shorter than usual and a bit more hastily prepared—is your weekly source of curated news, research, reports and posts that may have slipped by unnoticed, but that could prove useful to communicators and marketers. I collect items that I consider including in the Wrap (as well as my podcast) at my link blog, Links From Shel, which you’re welcome to follow.

News

SEC approves third-party social media endorsements—The financial services industry has been one of the latest to the social media game, held back by a snake pit of regulations. One hurdle for one segment of the industry has just been cleared, though, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announcing that investment advisers can now publish public comments about their services that were originally posted to independent websites, as long as both positive and negative reviews are included. Read more

Here’s why your content shared on Facebook may get more reads—You’re scrolling through your news feed and see an article that’s interesting, but you just don’t have the time to read it now. If you worry that your content just isn’t getting the exposure it should even when it shows up in the news feed, there’s good news. Facebook is experimenting with a “Save” button that will create a list of bookmarked content on your profile. Read more.

NPR tries voice recognition-enabled ads—National Public Radio is rolling out mobile ads that will appear on its smartphone app. After hearing the ad, which runs at the end of a report, listeners can simply say things like “download now” or “learn more” to produce an immediate action. The potential for voice response in mobile apps is huge and extends well beyond advertising. Read more.

Trends

Social media drives brands to take stands—Companies are increasingly taking stands on social issues, and the direct connection brands have established with customers via social media is the reason. Brands “are placing bold bets as an active player in shaping a culture that aligns with their products,” MediaPost reports. Coca-Cola’s celebration of multi-lingual culture is just one example. “By keeping a close ear on the comments consumers share prolifically online, brands can see for themselves that the public isn’t nearly as divided as politicians would lead a casual observer to believe,” according to the report.

Advocacy groups embrace brand journalism—Perhaps your company hasn’t started producing brand journalism, but now may be the time as advocacy groups are embracing the practice. Companies from Coca-Cola to Cisco Systems are employing journalists to report on the company just as they would if they were writing for a media outlet, injecting journalism-quality material into the content mix. Organizations like Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union and The Cato Institute are increasingly producing their own journalism—and some of it could be aimed at your company or industry. Read more.

GE goes big with native advertising—General Electric has been one of the most prominent brands to become a serious content creator, so it’s no surprise to find them diving into native advertising, embracing in-stream advertising as long as four years ago on Buzzfeed and Tumblr. According to Global Brand Marketing Executive Director Linda Boff, native advertising has become a primary means of orienting people to just who GE is. “Great content can come from a lot of different places, but funnily enough, it seems to be traditional media can get a little more attention when it comes to native,” she said in a Digiday interview.

Brands start experimenting with Twitter photo collages—Now that you can share up to four photos in a single tweet without using up those precious 140 characters, brands are starting to try out the feature. Among those aggregating multiple images in a tweet are General Electric, Meow Mix and sparkling-juice brand Izze. Read more.

Research

Where are the whiners?—If you’ve ever wondered which of the dominant social networks attract most complaints aimed at brands, you may be surprise to learn that they’re all pretty much the same. Research conducted for Forrester about Google+ included data that didn’t make it into the final report shows the sentiment of user interactions with brands is 49% positive on Facebook, 53% positive on Google+ and 55% positive on Twitter. On the negative side, Twitter and Facebook both attract 20% negative sentiment while on Google+, it’s 18% negative. The data is covered on Nate Elliott’s blog.

Digital omnivores crave content—A digital omnivore owns three devices—a computer, a tablet and a smartphone—and research from Deloitte reveals that their numbers have expanded to 37% of the U.S. population, and their hunger for content is also on the rise. Read more.

30% of Americans use Facebook to get news—Of the 64% of Americans who use Facebook, almost half use it to stay current with news. Only 8% look for news on Twitter, according to a new report from Pew Research. Read more.