Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
Contact management is crucial; it's where a CRM either remains effective or devolves into chaos. Folk CRM and Zoho CRM exemplify this notion.
Social selling thrives at the intersection of your CRM and your network. If your tool can't keep pace with LinkedIn activity, comments, and warm introductions, you're not just losing visibility — you're also forfeiting deals to teams that maintain closer connections with their relationships.
Folk and Clarify both position themselves as modern, relationship-centric CRMs. Clarify specializes in transforming unstructured interactions into organized records, while Folk provides teams with a flexible, social-selling-friendly workspace to manage contacts, signals, and pipelines all in one place.
In this comparison, we will explore how each CRM facilitates genuine social selling workflows, helping you determine which one truly aligns with how your team cultivates and nurtures relationships.
Why is a social selling CRM essential in 2026?
Most B2B deals do not commence with a cold email or a demo request; they often begin with a LinkedIn comment, a repost, a direct message, or a quiet profile visit. If your CRM fails to capture these signals and associate them with real people and pipelines, your team operates in the dark while your competitors establish relationships right before your eyes.
A social selling CRM consolidates those interactions into structured, actionable insights: who engaged, the source of their engagement, their interests, and their proximity to making a purchase. Rather than treating LinkedIn as merely a “nice-to-have awareness,” it transforms into a measurable, repeatable process within your revenue strategy.
With a social selling CRM, your team can:
✔️ Identify buying signals from likes, comments, and profile views, turning them into follow-ups.
✔️ Monitor which prospects are familiar with your content versus those reached through outbound efforts, allowing for tailored messaging.
✔️ Map relationships across accounts, champions, and influencers—beyond just a list of contacts.
✔️ Report on deals influenced by social interactions instead of attributing all credit to last-click channels.
What is folk CRM?
folk CRM is a modern and lightweight customer relationship management tool designed for teams that operate across email, LinkedIn, and spreadsheets, all within a unified workspace. It seamlessly integrates with Gmail and Outlook to automatically log emails and meetings, while its Chrome extension provides a comprehensive CRM sidebar directly in your inbox for swift updates. Users can send personalized outreach sequences, monitor engagement, and ensure every interaction is linked to contacts, companies, and deals.
What is Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM is a comprehensive and feature-rich platform recognized for its extensive functionality and competitive pricing. It caters to businesses looking for a diverse set of tools for sales, marketing, and support, all within a single ecosystem. However, its interface and configuration options may seem complex, especially for smaller teams.
Feature comparison of folk CRM and Zoho CRM
Profile Enrichment & Lead Insights
folk CRM offers a seamless one-click setup for both Gmail and Outlook; simply authenticate, and every incoming or outgoing email is automatically linked to the appropriate contact or deal record. Its integrated scheduler directly adds events to Google or Microsoft calendars and updates folk’s task list, providing a cohesive timeline of emails and meetings. You can send personalized bulk sequences, monitor opens and clicks, and utilize folk’s CRM inbox to respond without the hassle of switching tabs. This streamlined experience reduces context-switching and keeps your team synchronized on all conversations. folk CRM stands out as one of the best CRMs for email integration!
Zoho CRM enhances its capabilities by integrating with third-party tools like Clearbit and Zoho DataPrep for profile enrichment, which includes details such as name, title, company, social handles, and more.
Social Listening & Real-Time Alerts
Folk CRM establishes a seamless OAuth connection for Gmail and Outlook, ensuring continuous synchronization. Emails are logged instantly to the appropriate contact or deal the moment they're sent or received, eliminating any manual steps. Meetings arranged through folk’s native scheduler are immediately reflected in both your calendar and the CRM timeline. Behind the scenes, folk utilizes push-notification webhooks from Google and Microsoft, reducing latency and ensuring that every interaction is displayed within seconds.
Social alerts and listening functionalities are managed by Zoho Social, separate from the CRM core. Users need to connect the two systems to receive real-time updates from social platforms.
Social Selling: Which channels?
folk CRM’s email sequences feature acts as a built-in mail merge and campaign tool, allowing you to create multi-step sequences with personalized templates and scheduling rules. You can easily enroll contact lists directly from folk’s interface, and opens and replies sync back instantly to each contact’s timeline. Detailed performance reports enable you to refine subject lines and content for optimal engagement, all natively—no add-ons needed!
Zoho facilitates outreach on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram through Zoho Social; however, this functionality exists outside the main CRM interface.
In‑Context Messaging with Templates & Sequences
folk CRM’s email sequences feature acts as an integrated mail-merge and campaign tool, allowing you to create multi-step sequences using personalized templates and scheduling rules. You can enroll contact lists directly from folk’s interface, and any opens and replies sync instantly to each contact’s timeline. Detailed performance reports enable you to refine subject lines and content for optimal engagement, all without requiring any add-ons!
In contrast, the Zoho CRM extension lacks support for messaging templates or social sequences, meaning outreach must be managed separately through Zoho Social.
Activity & Engagement Tracking
folk CRM automatically incorporates open and click tracking pixels into every outbound email, providing real-time metrics on contact timelines and campaign dashboards. You have the option to disable tracking across the workspace to enhance deliverability; however, when tracking is enabled, you receive consolidated reports, link-level click-through rate (CTR) data, and detailed engagement histories for each contact—all without needing external add-ons.
Zoho tracks email, call, and calendar activities natively, while social engagement is recorded only if Zoho Social is integrated.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while Zoho CRM offers extensive functionality for diverse business needs, its complexity may overwhelm smaller teams. Clarify excels at organizing unstructured interactions but lacks the comprehensive integration that many teams require. For those prioritizing seamless email integration, automation, and effective sequencing, folk stands out as the premier choice. It provides a unified workspace tailored for modern social selling, enabling teams to capture signals, nurture relationships, and drive results effortlessly.
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