5 Best Social Media Marketing Tools for Dentists

Next to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM) is one of the most effective ways to promote your dental practice. This is because SMM has many facets – from content marketing to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising – that allow for large-scale, comprehensive marketing campaigns. In fact, social media marketing is so widely used that an estimated $229.56 billion will have been invested in the strategy by the end of 2022.

Running a successful social media marketing campaign is challenging, especially if you have limited resources and knowledge of digital advertising. However, there are several tools available to give you a helping hand. This article lists five of the best tools available to aid your social media marketing efforts.

Why Dentists Need Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an excellent way to promote any business. So, what makes SMM worthwhile to dentists?

Generate Leads

Using social media platforms is one of the easiest ways to  generate more leads for your dental practice. This is done by creating compelling content that calls users to action or encourages them to visit your website. Those users that organically follow through are more likely to inquire about your services than those found through pay-per-click (PPC) ads because they are part of your existing following, and already have an interest in your practice.

Increase Website Traffic

Social media can be used to increase website traffic in multiple ways, including through PPC ads and posting backlinks to your site. PPC ads allow you to advertise direct links to your website to a targeted audience. While backlinks (links on posts) help to strengthen your site’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) score, which encourages organic promotion from search engines.

Improve Reputation

Did you know that 35 percent of patients view dentists that actively use social media as more caring?

This is likely due to the credibility that dental clinics can create by posting educational and specialized content on social media. So, if you want to improve your reputation as a dental professional, posting on social media is an excellent way to do so.

5 Best Social Media Marketing Tools

Loomly

Loomly is a content management and planning system that allows users to schedule social media posts and view post analytics. The platform enables users to connect to multiple social media accounts and manage all associated assets, such as photographs and videos. As a management system, users can collaborate on posts through mock-ups as well as an  intuitive commenting system.

The platform was initially developed in 2015 by two social media managers who grew frustrated with the status quo of SMM software. They decided to create Loomly to solve the problem of broken workflows and awkward-to-use marketing applications.

Main Features

• Post scheduling
• Calendar view
• Post creation with Loomly Studio
• Commenting system
• Data analytics view

Pros

• Integrate multiple social media accounts
• Post collaboration options
• Mock-up posts before posting
• Automated posting

Cons

• Learning curve
• Unlocking all features is expensive

Pricing

Base: $26 per month.

The Base tier comes with all the platform's essential features, such as Loomly Studio and automated posting.

Standard: $59 per month.

The Standard tier includes more advanced features like third-party integrations and advanced analytics.

Advanced: $129 per month.

This tier comes with all the previous features plus custom workflows, custom branding, and an increased number of social media accounts that can be connected to the calendar.

Premium: $269 per month.

The Premium tier unlocks all available platform features, as well as an increase to the limit of connected social media accounts.

Canva

Unlike the above-discussed Loomly, Canva is more concerned with design than social media marketing directly. Still, it’s included on this list for a reason: it’s an excellent and easy-to-use tool for creating social media posts. You can’t advertise on social media without content, and Canva is a convenient way to produce content without using specialist tools like Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.

The platform is designed to simplify content creation and comes with many expert-made templates to get you started. It also has an extensive asset library to help you create and organize original content.

Features

• Reusable templates
• Video edition options
• Auto-resize content for different platforms
• Post scheduling

Pros

• Lowers the barrier-to-entry for design
• High-quality template posts
• Affordable alternative to hiring designers
• Collaborative access

Cons

• Templates can limit creativity
• Limit post-export options
• Correctly aligning elements is difficult

Pricing

Canva Free

Canva Free offers users access to an extensive range of features, from more than 250,000 template posts to over 1 million graphical assets. It even provides more user capacity than the pro version. With Canva Free, multiple people can access the account, whereas only one person is granted access to pro accounts.

Canva Pro: $119.99 per year.

Canva Pro is targeted toward “solopreneurs” and freelance designers. It has several advanced features, such as scheduling posts for up to eight social media platforms. Additionally, the Canva Pro library has significantly more templates and graphical assets.

Planable

Planable is focused on the social media post approval process or the checks put in place to ensure that posts are appropriate and correct. The platform offers a simple solution to an important issue without superfluous and distracting features. Planable is an excellent service for project and social media managers rather than designers and content creators, which the previous two applications cater to.

Features

• Calendar view
• Post review and collaboration
• Workflow management
• Automatic posting

Pros

• Mobile app option
• Easy-to-use calendar
• Convenient post-approval process
• Access to many tutorials

Cons

• Limited publishing options
• Limited analytics view
• Fewer features than other tools
• Bigger teams mean a bigger expense

Pricing

Free

Planable Free allows users to create and schedule up to 50 posts per month while granting access to essential features.

Basic: $11 per user – $1383 per month

The Basic plan allows users to create and schedule unlimited social media posts and gives access to additional calendar views and more post-approval options.

Pro: $22per user – $1,933 per month

The Pro tier gives users access to everything in the previous two, plus additional calendar views, social media ad options, and even more post-approval options.

Enterprise: Quote must be requested

The Planable Enterprise tier is for larger businesses that need more features and capacity than the pro and previous tiers.

Hootsuite

Founded in 2008, Hootsuite claims the title of the world's first social media marketing platform. At the forefront of SMM, Hootsuite has undergone many changes and refinements to keep up with social media platforms. The service offers users an all-in-one dashboard that enables them to schedule posts on several social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest. It’s designed for all sizes of businesses.

Features

• App store for wider social media integration
• Post scheduling
• Manage social media accounts
• Post collaboration

Pros

• Proven track-record
• Many third-party integrations
• All-in-one solution
• Collaboration options

Cons

• Confusing interface
• Learning curve
• Bigger teams mean a bigger expense

Pricing

Professional: $29 per month

Suitable for one user. Gives access to up to ten social media accounts and basic Hootsuite features, such as post scheduling and accessing social media messages.

Team: $129 per month

Team tier gives up to three users access to the platform and the ability to integrate up to 20 social media accounts. This tier also gives users additional features, such as robust user permission controls and task management options.

Business: $599 per month

Business tier ups user capacity to five and increases social media integration to 35. It comes with all the previously mentioned features, plus workflow management, a content and asset library, as well as inbound and outbound tagging.

Enterprise: Contact for a quote

The Enterprise tier starts at five users and 50 social media integrations. It gives users advanced features, such as ad management, ad analytics, employee advocacy, and team productivity reporting.

VistaCreate

Like Canva, VistaCreate is primarily concerned with helping users create professional-looking social media posts and designs. The platform turns intricate image and video design into an easy-to-understand process, reducing the need to hire dedicated and often expensive designers.

Features

• Content templates
• Animation options
• Extensive photo and video design options
• Audio editing

Pros

• Simplifies the design process
• Large database of templates
• Extensive free version
• Team collaboration

Cons

• Occasional performance errors
• Limited animation templates

Pricing

Free

The VistaCreate Free tier offers all the essential features of the platform, including the photo and video editor, as well as over 75,000 design templates and 1 million graphical assets.

Pro: $10 per month

The Pro version includes everything from the Free tier, plus over 70 million graphical assets and access to additional features, such as a sticker maker and version history.

Which Is Best?

Every one of the tools discussed in this list serves its purpose well, but which is best?

• Best value for money: VistaCreate
• Best for design: Canva
• Best for scheduling: Planable
• Best for enterprise: Hootsuite
• Best for collaboration: Loomly

Social Media Marketing from The Dental SEO Experts

Don’t want to spend the time mastering social media marketing? At The Dental SEO Experts, we know that you need to focus on running your dental clinic. That’s why we offer comprehensive SMM and digital marketing services. Schedule a free consultation with us today to learn more.