Big news has flown fast and furious this week, led by the FCC’s decision to turn its back on Net neutrality and support a “fast lane” for companies willing to pay for it. With all that, it’s even easier to miss some posts, stories and studies that could be useful. That’s why I produce the Friday Wrap, a summary of items of interest to communicators that may have flown by under the radar. I collect all the stories from which I cull the items for the Wrap on my link blog, Links From Shel, which you’re welcome to follow.

Breaking News

The end of the line for Plus?—Google+ earns the second highest engagement levels (behind YouTube) of any social network, and Google will add Google Voice to the list of products that is fully integrated into Plus on May 15. None of that has stopped speculation that Google is about to shut down Google+. Vic Gundotra, the father of Google+, announced he’s leaving the company, kicking off rumors that Google is preparing to undo much of what Gundotra built. As one anonymous source put it, the company plans to “refocus its social media efforts soon. Its Hangouts messaging and video-chat app will be given greater prominence, alongside photos, while the Google+ branding may take a back seat.” Google denies it has any plans to change its Google+ strategy. Read more here and here.

LinkedIn tops 300 million—Business social network LinkedIn announced it has surpassed 300 million registered users, only about one-third of whom are based in the U.S. 41% of that traffic came from mobile devices, which account for 15 million profile views, 1.45 million job views and 44,000 job applications daily from 200 countries. Read more

Facebook rules mobile advertising—Ad clicks on Facebook rose 70% for the year ending March 30, despite considerably slower growth in the number of ads—just 40%, meaning “Facebook has developed a certain knack for showing ads that people actually want to click on.” Much of that activity is occurring on mobile devices. Read more

Will they never learn? If you have a large base of vocal critics or you’ve been the subject of bad news, don’t undertake a hashtag campaign because it will be appropriated by your critics and turned against you. Is that a difficult concept? Apparently, since so many organizations continue to try. The new York Police Department is the most recent, launching #myNYPD, in which the department asked New Yorkers to post pictures of themselves with cops and apply the hashtag. Critics flocked to the hashtag, sharing images of people apparently being abused by officers. It gets worse. The hashtag was adapted for other police departments (like #myLAPD) for the same purposes. Read more

New business focuses on TLD security—New top-level domains (TLDs) are cropping up everywhere—.farm is one of the more recent, for example. With more than a thousand set to appear this year, it’s more likely that someone with nefarious intentions will scoop up one of your company’s trademarks without your knowledge. That’s where DomainSkate comes in. Co-founded by Social Media Club co-founder Howard Greenstein and attorney David Mitnick, DomainSkate will help customers get access to domains before they’re offered to the public. Read more

Trends

Reddit launches location-targeted promoted posts—Advertisers on Reddit can now target readers by country or city on the link-sharing site’s home page through promoted posts. The program will eventually expand to include subreddits. The idea, according to Reddit’s ad sales manager, “is that an independent film opening only in new York City would now be able to grab only the relevant eyeballs.” Read more

Real-time marketing coming to TV—Social media has been the flash point for real-time marketing, but Turner Broadcasting plans to bring the concept to TV. “Real Time Now” will help marketers get spots on Turner networks that “align with fresh pop culture trends, events like major storms, national holidays and breaking news.” The messages will run within 24 to 48 hours across the company’s various digital and social channels in addition to TV. Read more

Content marketing works—A recent study proclaimed earned media is far more effective than content marketing, but don’t try to convince IBM. Big Blue created a content destination, the Big Data & Analytics hub, which led to a 291% increase in social referral traffic, a 151% increase in organic search and a 269% increase in average time spent on the site. Read more

Most Facebook brand posts include photos—Photos were the most common content posted by brands to their Facebook pages, making up 75% of posts from around the world. Links took second place in a Socialbakers study, accounting for only 10% of posts. Photos tend to attract more interaction, which increases the likelihood that they’ll make it into the news feed of someone who liked the page, but with every brand employing the tactic, those odds decline again. Try more than one photo to raise the odds back in your favor. Read more

GAP plans in-store online experience—Using what it knows about a customer who willingly identify themselves when they enter a store, America’s largest specialty retailer plans to offer deals along with style and product information in a way that’s “cool, not creepy.” GAP will pilot test its concept at select Banana Republic stores. Details are still being worked out. Read more

Research

More to like about Fridays—Friday is the best day to post to a Facebook page, since that’s the day people are most inclined to like, comment and share brand-page posts. According to Adobe, Friday accounts for nearly 16% of each week’s total posts impressions. In second place: Thursday, with 14.5%. Of course, your mileage may vary, so use this kind of data as a launching point for experimentation, not as gospel. Read more

Negative reviews aren’t necessarily all that bad—Online reviews are assuming a hugely important place in the marketing ecosystem, often mattering more than anything else when it comes to a purchase decision. It turns out that those reviews that may be negative but are written politely might actually help sell a product or service and have a positive effect on consumers’ perception of the brand. According to a study in the Journal of Consumer Research, “brands might benefit when polite customers write reviews of their products—even when those reviews include negative opinions,” the study’s authors said. Read more

Email sharing plummets—The growth of tweet sharing is outpacing other social networks by a factor of almost two, but the news isn’t so rosy for the use of email to share content. Sharing via Twitter rose 43% in the first quarter of 2014. Reddit took second place, with 25% growth. Email sharing fell by 25%, the only sharing channel to record a decline. Sharing from mobile devices rose by 28%; sharing from the desktop rose 11%. Read more

Your employee engagement efforts need work—Only about half of employees feel their companies are honest with them, and a quarter just don’t trust their employers. The American Psychological Association’s study finds that one reason for the rising distrust and cynicism is that companies are making money again, but they’re not sharing in the riches. “People are willing to suck it up during tough times, but as things get better and companies become profitable again, they want to share in the benefits,” according to David Ballard, who runs the association’s workplace initiative. Read more

Great ideas

GE hosts one-day social/video campaign—The campaign is dead, is it? GE made headlines this week when it ran a one-day digital and social media campaign designed to showcase its super materials. Under the #SpringBreakIt hashtag, the campaign employed video from the company’s test labs “to demonstrate the durability of products used in making jet engines.” The campaign ran only on Wednesday across multiple channels, including Twitter, YouTube, Vine, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, and LinkedIn. Read more

JW Marriott launches photo curation app—Brands are rushing to deploy their own branded apps, and hotel chains are no exception. How do you make yours stand out? If you’re JW Marriott, you launch CUR8, “an experience-oriented app that allows guests to share their favorite travel moments through digital videos on their social media networks.” Read more

Buick, Ford get results from Vine—Ford and Buick both teamed up with Vine stars to produce 6-second videos that performed well. “Half of Buick’s 10 posts garnered more than 1,000 revines…while the top performer accrued an impressive 23,700 revines and 43,700 likes,” according to Adweek. The artist Ford worked with posted his work to his own Vine account in an effort to tap into his huge following, with Ford revining the spot to its own 25,000 followers. “The strategy worked well, picking up 87,500 revines and 179,700 likes.” Read more