LinkedIn has evolved beyond a mere networking platform: It has become the largest B2B sales battlefield.

Selecting the right CRM can determine whether you excel in your pipeline or get drowned out by competitors. When comparing Salesforce and Clarify, the crucial aspect isn't just the features; it's about which platform provides you with the smartest advantages for building relationships, tracking engagement, and converting LinkedIn conversations into successful deals.

While Salesforce and Clarify are both excellent options, if you're seeking a CRM specifically designed for LinkedIn workflows, folk CRM often sets a new standard.

Why a CRM Tailored for LinkedIn Is Essential in 2025

LinkedIn has transformed into the command center for B2B sales. By 2025, almost every decision-maker you aim to connect with will be actively engaging, sharing insights, and making buying decisions in real-time on the platform. If your sales strategy isn't optimized for LinkedIn, you're missing out on valuable opportunities. A CRM designed for LinkedIn is no longer just a luxury; it's the foundation for effective prospecting, relationship-building, and pipeline expansion.

The true strength of such a CRM lies in its capacity to facilitate a multi-touch sales journey. Simply sending a cold email and hoping for the best is no longer sufficient. With the right CRM, you can effortlessly track, manage, and engage prospects across multiple channels:

• Initiate conversations on LinkedIn. Connect, comment, and establish rapport where your buyers are most active.
• Follow up through email or calls. Your CRM retains context, ensuring each interaction is personalized.
• Foster relationships over time. By syncing LinkedIn activity, you can determine the best moments to engage or close the deal.

In 2025, the champions will be the teams that engage prospects where they spend their time online. LinkedIn is the epicenter of business interactions. Without a CRM specifically crafted to maximize its potential, every outreach effort becomes sluggish, less targeted, and increasingly challenging to scale.

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is the leading enterprise CRM globally, renowned for its unparalleled customization and scalability. Its powerful platform encompasses sales, service, and marketing clouds, all supported by the AppExchange ecosystem. With advanced analytics and AI-driven Einstein, Salesforce equips teams to create personalized customer experiences at scale.

What is Clarify?

Clarify is an AI-native CRM designed to streamline LinkedIn prospecting and networking for sales teams. It provides a Chrome extension that enables users to capture and enhance contact details directly from LinkedIn profiles with a single click, automatically adding new prospects to Clarify. Its AI analyzes your interactions on LinkedIn, suggesting optimal times to reach out when prospects are most likely to engage. Furthermore, Clarify offers intelligent follow-up recommendations based on prior conversations, ensuring you maintain warm connections effortlessly.

Feature comparison of Salesforce and Clarify

AI Follow-ups

Salesforce lacks native support for capturing LinkedIn profiles, meaning there’s no simple one-click option to import a contact from LinkedIn into your CRM. Even with the Sales Navigator integration, you can only view LinkedIn data within Salesforce; extraction isn't possible. To convert LinkedIn profiles into CRM leads, you'll have to copy the data manually or utilize a third-party Chrome extension like Surfe or Wiza, which can significantly hinder workflow for outbound teams.

In contrast, LinkedIn Profile Capture in Clarify uses a Chrome extension that allows users to create or update people records directly from LinkedIn profiles. While browsing, a representative can add a contact to Clarify in just a few clicks and link them to the appropriate company. This process transfers key profile information into the CRM automatically, eliminating the need for manual entry and ensuring LinkedIn sourcing is integrated with structured records that can be easily utilized in lists, filters, and pipelines.

Automated Contact Enrichment

Salesforce lacks the capability to enrich CRM records with LinkedIn data. While the Sales Navigator integration allows you to view job titles, company information, and shared connections within the contact view, none of this data synchronizes with your database. Consequently, you cannot transfer that information into fields or automate the enrichment process. Teams that depend on LinkedIn for sourcing are left needing separate tools or manual entry to effectively enrich their records, introducing unnecessary friction in lead management at scale.

On the other hand, LinkedIn Lead Enrichment in Clarify is designed to transform captured profiles into actionable CRM contacts. When a user saves a profile from LinkedIn using the extension, Clarify automatically creates or updates the record with essential identity and company information derived from the profile. This approach aims to minimize manual edits for fields like name, role, and employer, ultimately providing sales teams with cleaner, LinkedIn-sourced data for their outreach and follow-up efforts.

Smart Fields

Salesforce cannot automatically track LinkedIn conversations. When a sales representative sends a message or InMail, it requires manual logging for activity capture, as the integration provides visibility rather than tracking. You can view profile data and send InMails, but none of that information syncs back to the CRM, creating a blind spot for sales managers who seek a comprehensive view of multichannel engagement.

LinkedIn Message Templates are not natively managed within Clarify. Typically, teams create and organize their LinkedIn templates using dedicated outbound or social selling tools, with Clarify serving as the central CRM. The contact and deal data stored in Clarify can be leveraged to personalize messages drafted in those external tools, allowing Clarify to concentrate on data and pipeline management instead of fully automating LinkedIn messaging.

AI-Powered Message & Sequence Generation

Salesforce cannot automatically track LinkedIn conversations. If a representative sends a message or InMail, there is no logging or activity capture unless they do it manually. While the integration provides visibility, it lacks tracking; you can view profile data and send InMails, but none of this information syncs back to the CRM. This creates a blind spot for sales managers seeking a clear overview of multichannel engagement.

Clarify's LinkedIn Engagement Tracking relies on integrations and workflows that transmit activity data into the CRM. When LinkedIn messages or events are sent to Clarify, they are displayed alongside emails, meetings, and other touchpoints on the contact timeline. This enables representatives to easily review who has been contacted on LinkedIn and when. Clarify effectively organizes this history without replacing the specialized tools used for daily LinkedIn messaging.

Next Best Action

Salesforce lacks a dedicated Chrome extension for LinkedIn workflows, meaning there's no overlay on LinkedIn profiles, no capture button, and no messaging support in the browser. Although the Sales Navigator integration functions within Salesforce, it doesn't enhance your browsing experience. To achieve true LinkedIn productivity in Chrome, you'll need to rely on multiple third-party plugins, adding both cost and complexity.

The Chrome Extension for LinkedIn serves as the primary link between Clarify and the LinkedIn interface. It enables users to effortlessly capture prospects directly from profile pages and transfer the data into Clarify in a single step. Contacts created through this method are automatically added to the CRM with key fields pre-filled, reducing the need for manual data entry. This extension is tailored for simple, one-by-one capture of LinkedIn profiles into Clarify, rather than handling bulk operations.

folk CRM: The Ultimate CRM Alternative for LinkedIn!

Introducing folk, the sales assistant your team has been eagerly anticipating. Crafted for simplicity, integration, and proactivity, this CRM handles the repetitive tasks, allowing your representatives to concentrate on what truly matters: building authentic relationships on LinkedIn and beyond. With an impressive 4.5/5 rating on G2, folk stands out as one of the most reliable AI-powered CRMs for lean and ambitious teams.

Designed specifically for startups, agencies, and sales-driven teams, folk makes AI practical, efficient, and easy to manage. It accelerates the process of turning LinkedIn connections into qualified opportunities while ensuring your workflow remains seamless.

1. Instant LinkedIn Prospect Capture with the folkX Extension

Prospecting on LinkedIn can be time-consuming, but folk simplifies the process. With the folkX Chrome extension, capture leads from LinkedIn or Sales Navigator and add them to your CRM with just one click. Whether you're saving a single profile or hundreds from a filtered search, every detail is automatically inserted into your database, including names, job titles, companies, and emails.

Say goodbye to tedious copy-pasting and juggling multiple spreadsheets. Your entire prospect list is kept in one organized space, fully synced with your workflows, allowing your team to act swiftly and focus on converting connections into opportunities rather than wasting hours on manual data entry!

2. Smart Data Enrichment and Always-Clean Contact Profiles

Effectively reaching out to decision-makers requires complete and accurate data. folk eliminates tedious research by automatically enriching your LinkedIn contacts with verified emails, company details, phone numbers, and roles. With just one click, you gain everything necessary to personalize your outreach and initiate meaningful conversations.

The platform also employs intelligent deduplication to maintain a clean and reliable database, even when multiple team members add the same contacts. Instead of managing messy spreadsheets or guessing lead ownership, folk ensures your data remains organized and current, making every LinkedIn outreach relevant and impactful.

3. Personalized LinkedIn Outreach with AI-Generated Message Templates

folk revolutionizes your approach to prospects on LinkedIn by providing AI-powered message templates right within the LinkedIn inbox. When you initiate a conversation, you instantly receive smart suggestions for connection requests, follow-ups, and outreach messages tailored to your prospect’s profile and context.

You can edit, personalize, and send these messages manually to ensure compliance with LinkedIn’s policies—no risky automation or copy-pasting between tools. Everything occurs where the conversation begins, making your outreach faster, more relevant, and entirely natural.

👉 Try folk CRM for free

Summary: folk CRM's LinkedIn Features

• Capture leads instantly with the folkX Chrome extension, importing profiles from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator in one click, while automatically organizing every detail within your CRM.
• Effortlessly enrich contact data by retrieving verified emails, company details, and roles, all while keeping your database clean and accurate through smart deduplication.
• Send smarter LinkedIn messages using AI-powered templates directly within the LinkedIn inbox, enabling you to personalize outreach quickly without relying on risky automation!

Conclusion

When comparing CRM solutions, Salesforce excels in customization and scalability, while Clarify offers streamlined LinkedIn prospecting with automated contact enrichment and AI-driven follow-up suggestions. However, for teams focused on LinkedIn workflows, folk CRM emerges as a standout alternative. It provides instant prospect capture, smart data enrichment, and personalized outreach tools, making it an ideal choice for maximizing engagement and efficiency on LinkedIn.

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