Notable News for Your Business from July

Our second installment of Notable News for Your Business brings you important news that’s relevant for business from the first part of July.  This post will feature highlights that include an exciting RingCentral integration, Twitter update, new Instagram feature, a peek into upcoming Facebook changes, and a look at U.S. Department of Labor proposed overtime rules.

1) RingCentral Now Integrates With Office 365

Yesterday we announced our integration with Microsoft Office 365. Now, our customers who use Office 365 have a powerful best-of-breed solution for business communications and their productivity suite. Learn more about our integration and how your business can benefit here.

2) Twitter Turns off Timeline Background Images

This past Monday Twitter removed wallpaper from users Homepages, replacing them with blank backgrounds. What does this mean for your business? There’s one less opportunity for branding. Twitter backgrounds have long been a way to brand and engage. Featuring new products, contact information and even hours of operation was easy with custom wallpaper. If you relied on your Twitter background it’s important to make necessary adjustments and be aware it’s either gone or will be shortly.

But, all is not lost. If you absolutely need your custom Twitter background there’s already at least one workaround, and we expect to see even more.

3) Instagram Adds Web Search

On Monday Instagram announced an exciting new feature via Twitter.

Finally search capabilities are available on the popular photo-sharing platform. Everyone can now search people, places and hashtags on the web. This is great news for businesses using Instagram because, if your business leverages this new capability, you’ll finally have a way to be searchable.  And, if you haven’t been using Instagram now’s the time to get started.

4) Proposed Overtime Rules

On June 30, 2015 the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. This announcement will most seriously impact small businesses by requiring overtime pay for hours worked over the 40 hour workweek.

Currently this is change is only a proposed one, but it is imperative you become acutely aware of the possible impact for your business, voice your opinion, and have a plan in place to make the transition. Here are a few articles to get you started:

• Do You Have a Plan to Survive the Proposed Overtime Rules?
• Obama’s new overtime rules: How they’d work and who they’d affect
• Experts weigh in on how Obama’s overtime rule change could benefit millions of workers and employers

5) Facebook Testing Floating Video Feature

Earlier this month Facebook began testing floating videos. There’s no official announcement yet, but news outlets have been a buzz about this new feature popping up on various Facebook accounts.

This new button allows users to watch video while scrolling through their newsfeed. The video simply hovers to the side of a users newsfeed and continues to play while they browse. The new feature is huge news for businesses on Facebook. Engaging Facebook users can be difficult with so much noise. The floating video makes it easier for people to watch entire videos. We recommend putting even more time and effort into your video strategy on Facebook.

Stay tuned for our next installment of Notable News for Your Business. And, just in case you missed it, here’s our Notable News for Your Business from June.