Most business owners understand the value of using social media to market their business. They create Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, and dutifully fill out their Bing business listing – all in the hope of expanding their marketing efforts. However, did you know there are many more benefits of social media than marketing? With proper use and deployment of social media, any business can do all of the following and probably more.

Find contractors and employees – Need to fill a position fast? Use social media to help. Create a detailed listing of what you’re looking for and post it on your social media accounts. Ask your friends and followers to share. It’s more than likely that the person(s) who answer a call like this will be more compatible than using a huge impersonal job board.

Create more sales – You may think that sales and marketing are the same thing, but they’re not. Marketing is increasing your reach so that you can get more leads, but sales are different. Social media can increase sales outside of your marketing efforts just because your clients might share with others what they bought. And if they like what you are talking about on social media, they might like to buy from you more.

Reward customers – Provide games, badges, stickers, pins, discounts and more for your customers using social media to “check in” or communicate with you via social media. People love getting free things and they love collecting things, so take advantage of that by using social media to encourage more interaction with your customers and between your customers.

Brand your business – It’s important that your business spends the time to brand itself across all social media accounts as honest, relevant and even generous. Be aware of how consumers, as well as your employees and contractors, view your business via all your social media interactions. Listen to your customers and be perceived as a company that does so. Demonstrate these things as often as possible as a way to brand your business on social media.

Motivate employees – Calling out successful employees on social media is a great way to encourage employees to do good. If you have an employee of the month program, don’t just post the notice in the break room; put it all over social media. They’ll share it with their family and friends and it might even be picked up by the media, making employees even more motivated to do good.

Speed up communication – You can set up private closed groups using Facebook that only employees can see. It’s a great way to speed up communication between employees and to build a community. Encourage your workers to follow each other and encourage each other and publically acknowledge them.

Easy project collaboration – Another use for private Facebook groups is easy project collaboration. In Facebook groups you can upload documents and communicate easily in one spot about various projects, without ever having to have a face to face meeting – but still be able to keep excellent records of the events and ideas as they unfold.

By being involved with social media, your business can increase employee happiness and satisfaction as well as consumer perception. Use social media to form a connection with your community and your employees. Your business can be an integral part of your community in every way that it can – be it government, social, business, or charity. Pick and choose to stay aligned with your purpose and target market, but do get involved.