Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
Contact management is the critical factor that determines whether a CRM remains effective or devolves into chaos. Monday CRM and Zoho CRM
Social selling thrives at the intersection of your CRM and your network. If your tool can’t keep pace with LinkedIn activities, comments, and warm introductions, you risk losing visibility — and ultimately, deals to teams that maintain stronger relationships.
folk and Clarify both position themselves as modern, relationship-first CRMs. Clarify emphasizes 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 location.
In this comparison, we will explore how each CRM facilitates genuine social selling workflows, helping you determine which one best aligns with your team’s approach to building and nurturing relationships.
Why is a social selling CRM essential in 2026?
Most B2B deals don’t originate from a cold email or a demo request; they begin with a LinkedIn comment, a repost, a direct message, or even a silent profile visit. If your CRM cannot capture these signals and connect them to real individuals and pipelines, your team is operating in the dark while competitors cultivate relationships right before your eyes.
A social selling CRM provides a centralized location to convert those interactions into structured, actionable insights: who engaged, their origin, their interests, and their proximity to making a purchase. LinkedIn shifts from being merely “nice-to-have awareness” to a measurable, repeatable action within your revenue framework.
With a social selling CRM, your team can:
✔️ Identify buying signals from likes, comments, and profile views, transforming them into follow-ups
✔️ Track which prospects are familiar with you from content versus outbound efforts, allowing for tailored messaging
✔️ Map relationships across accounts, champions, and influencers—beyond just contacts in a list
✔️ Report on deals influenced by social activity, rather than attributing all success to last-click channels
What is Monday CRM?
Monday Sales CRM is designed on the monday.com work management platform, offering teams a visual approach to managing pipelines alongside their projects. The Emails & Activities app integrates with Gmail and Outlook, enabling users to send, receive, and log emails directly from boards while tracking opens and replies in real-time. With templates and automation features, follow-ups can be standardized, ensuring that lead statuses, tasks, and email histories remain synchronized.
What is Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM is a robust platform known for its extensive features and competitive pricing. It caters to businesses seeking a comprehensive toolkit for sales, marketing, and support all within a unified ecosystem. However, the interface and configuration options might seem overwhelming, particularly for smaller teams.
Feature comparison of Monday CRM and Zoho CRM
Profile Enrichment & Lead Insights
Monday CRM’s Emails & Activities app seamlessly connects up to six Gmail or Outlook accounts for two-way synchronization, allowing emails sent or received to appear as items on your boards alongside calls and tasks. Although it lacks native in-CRM calendar syncing, you can create simple automations or utilize Monday’s Calendar view to visualize your scheduled events.
Zoho CRM enhances data through third-party tools such as Clearbit and Zoho DataPrep, providing enrichment that includes details like name, title, company, social handles, and more.
Social Listening & Real-Time Alerts
The Emails & Activities app in Monday CRM syncs your inbox every few minutes by default, regularly polling Gmail and Outlook for new messages to convert into board items. Although this results in a slight delay compared to push-based systems, updates typically appear within two to three minutes. For those requiring sub-minute responsiveness, you can modify polling intervals or implement custom webhooks for quicker updates.
It's important to note that social alerts and listening are managed by Zoho Social, rather than the core CRM. Users must establish a connection between the two to receive real-time updates from social platforms.
Social Selling: Which channels?
Monday CRM’s Emails & Activities app allows you to sync up to six Gmail or Outlook accounts, and includes a Group Emailing feature that enables bulk messaging to board items and contact lists. You can automate follow-ups using monday.com automations or integrate with Mailchimp for comprehensive email marketing capabilities. However, note that without Mailchimp or a similar add-on, you will only have access to basic send logs for campaign analytics on your boards.
Zoho offers support for outreach on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram through Zoho Social, although this feature operates outside the main CRM interface.
In‑Context Messaging with Templates & Sequences
Monday CRM’s Emails & Activities app seamlessly integrates up to six Gmail or Outlook accounts, along with a Group Emailing feature that allows you to send bulk messages to board items and contact lists. You can streamline follow-ups using monday.com automations or connect with Mailchimp for comprehensive email marketing functionalities. However, be aware that without Mailchimp (or a similar tool), you will only access basic send log analytics on your boards, lacking native campaign insights.
On the other hand, the Zoho CRM extension does not support messaging templates or social sequences, necessitating that outreach be managed separately through Zoho Social.
Activity & Engagement Tracking
Monday’s Emails & Activities app tracks message opens when you send emails directly through the board interface; however, it does not natively monitor which links are clicked. To obtain click-through rates, you need to embed links with UTM parameters and either pull the data into your board using automations or integrate a marketing tool like Mailchimp.
In contrast, Zoho inherently logs email, call, and calendar activities. Social engagement is only recorded when Zoho Social is integrated.
folk CRM: The Ultimate CRM for Social Selling!
folk CRM is an innovative social selling platform that transforms your social selling activities into a streamlined and repeatable process. It quickly captures contacts, keeps the context of conversations at your fingertips, and minimizes manual tasks through enrichment and smart fields, ensuring timely follow-ups.
Designed for outbound initiatives driven by LinkedIn, folk enables teams to consolidate leads from various sources, organize them in tailored pipelines, and monitor every interaction in one convenient location. Automatic contact enrichment fills in the blanks, deduplication maintains a tidy database, and shared notes along with tags facilitate warm introductions and relationship tracking across the team.
For effective daily social selling, folk ensures consistent performance: segment leads, personalize outreach, set reminders, log interactions, and advance opportunities through the pipeline while retaining the human touch that ultimately secures deals.
Conclusion
In summary, Monday CRM excels with its visual organization and email integration, making it ideal for project-focused teams. Zoho CRM provides a comprehensive toolkit for larger businesses but can overwhelm smaller teams with its complexity. In contrast, folk stands out as the premier choice for teams reliant on email integration, automation, and systematic follow-ups. Its emphasis on relationship management and seamless social selling workflows allows for swift lead capture and engagement, ensuring teams never lose momentum. Experience the difference with folk CRM today!
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