Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
Contact management is where a CRM can either be effective or become overwhelming. Folk CRM and Pipedrive illustrate this point well.
Social selling thrives at the intersection of your CRM and your network. If your tool fails to keep pace with LinkedIn activity, comments, and warm introductions, you not only lose visibility but also risk losing deals to teams that maintain closer relationships.
Folk and Clarify both position themselves as modern, relationship-centric CRMs. Clarify emphasizes transforming unstructured interactions into organized records, while Folk provides teams with a flexible, social-selling-friendly workspace to monitor contacts, signals, and pipelines all in one place.
In this comparison, we will explore how each CRM supports genuine social selling workflows, enabling you to determine which one aligns best with your team’s approach to building and nurturing relationships.
Why is a social selling CRM essential in 2026?
Most B2B deals begin not with a cold email or a demo request, but rather with a LinkedIn comment, a repost, a direct message, or a quiet profile visit. If your CRM cannot capture these signals and connect them to actual people and pipelines, your team operates in the dark while competitors cultivate relationships openly.
A social selling CRM provides a centralized space to transform these interactions into structured, actionable insights: who engaged, their origin, what interests them, and how close they are to making a purchase. Rather than viewing LinkedIn as merely a “nice-to-have” for awareness, it becomes a measurable, repeatable component within your revenue engine.
With a social selling CRM, your team can:
✔️ Identify buying signals from likes, comments, and profile views, and convert them into follow-ups
✔️ Track which prospects know you through content versus outbound efforts, allowing for tailored messaging
✔️ Map relationships across accounts, champions, and influencers—rather than just maintaining a list of contacts
✔️ Report on deals influenced by social activity instead of attributing all credit to last-click channels
What is folk CRM?
folk CRM is an innovative and lightweight CRM designed for teams that operate across email, LinkedIn, and spreadsheets, all within a single shared workspace. It seamlessly connects with Gmail and Outlook, automatically logging emails and meetings, while its Chrome extension integrates a comprehensive CRM sidebar directly into your inbox for quick updates. Users can easily send personalized sequences, monitor engagement, and link every interaction to contacts, companies, and deals.
What is Pipedrive?
Pipedrive is a pipeline-focused CRM that enables sales teams to track deals through a simple and visual interface. It prioritizes user-friendliness, activity tracking, and clear reporting, making it ideal for traditional sales workflows, although it may lack flexibility for more complex or unconventional scenarios.
Feature comparison of folk CRM and Pipedrive
Profile Enrichment & Lead Insights
folk CRM offers a seamless one-click setup for both Gmail and Outlook. Simply authenticate, and all incoming and outgoing emails are automatically linked to the appropriate contact or deal record. Its integrated scheduler logs events directly into Google or Microsoft calendars and syncs with folk’s task list, providing a cohesive timeline of emails and meetings. You can send personalized bulk sequences, track opens and clicks, and respond directly from folk’s CRM inbox without needing to switch tabs. This streamlined experience reduces context-switching and keeps your team synchronized on every interaction. folk CRM stands out as one of the top CRMs for Email Integration!
While Pipedrive lacks built-in enrichment features, it can be enhanced through integrations like Surfe or LeadCRM, which allow you to enrich contact details from LinkedIn and other platforms, including job titles and company information.
Social Listening & Real-Time Alerts
folk CRM utilizes a direct OAuth connection for Gmail and Outlook, ensuring seamless and continuous synchronization. Emails are automatically logged to the correct contact or deal the moment they are sent or received, eliminating the need for manual input. Meetings arranged through folk’s integrated scheduler are instantly updated in both your calendar and the CRM timeline. Behind the scenes, folk employs push-notification webhooks from Google and Microsoft to reduce latency, ensuring that every interaction is recorded within seconds.
In contrast, Pipedrive does not offer built-in social listening capabilities. Real-time social tracking can only be achieved through third-party add-ons or tools available in its marketplace.
Social Selling: Which channels?
folk CRM’s email sequences feature acts as a built-in mail merge and campaign tool, enabling you to create multi-step sequences with personalized templates and scheduling rules. You can easily enroll contact lists directly from folk’s interface, and any opens or replies sync back instantly to each contact’s timeline. Detailed performance reports allow you to refine subject lines and content for optimal engagement—all of this is done natively, with no add-ons necessary!
Pipedrive facilitates LinkedIn-based social selling through integrations, but it lacks built-in functionality for posting or engaging directly on social channels.
In‑Context Messaging with Templates & Sequences
folk CRM’s email sequences feature acts as a comprehensive mail-merge and campaign tool: effortlessly create multi-step sequences using personalized templates and scheduling rules, then enroll contact lists directly from folk’s interface. Opens and replies are instantly synced back to each contact’s timeline. Detailed performance reports enable you to refine subject lines and content for maximum engagement, all handled natively—no add-ons necessary!
Pipedrive lacks an in-browser outreach or sequence builder. Instead, templated messaging is managed through email sequences or integrations, rather than from social platforms.
Activity & Engagement Tracking
folk CRM automatically integrates open and click tracking pixels into all outgoing emails, providing real-time metrics on contact timelines and campaign dashboards. You have the option to disable tracking across the entire workspace to enhance deliverability; however, when enabled, you benefit from consolidated reports, link-level CTR data, and individual engagement histories—all without needing external add-ons.
Pipedrive monitors email opens, clicks, and call logs, but social engagement is not tracked unless you incorporate a third-party enrichment tool.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while Pipedrive excels in pipeline tracking with a user-friendly interface for traditional sales processes, it falls short in social selling capabilities, requiring third-party integrations for enhanced functionality. Clarify effectively organizes unstructured interactions but lacks the integrated email and social features that modern teams crave. On the other hand, folk stands out as the best CRM for teams focused on email integration, automation, and sequencing, offering a cohesive workspace to capture signals from LinkedIn and streamline outreach efforts seamlessly.
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