5 Best Social CRM Platforms for 2022
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
Bianca is a staff writer at Fit Small Business who specializes in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
Social customer relationship management (CRM) platforms connect with social media sites to allow you to track engagements, monitor audience behavior, and manage your social campaigns. This integration also helps provide richer contact data and lets you respond to customer concerns on social media. We evaluated dozens of social CRM platforms to identify the five best options for small businesses, which are:
- HubSpot CRM: Best overall option for sales and marketing teams that routinely utilize Facebook Messenger
- Zoho CRM: Great all-in-one choice for small businesses wanting to manage social channels and streamline other operations
- Agile CRM: Best for sales teams that prospect on LinkedIn but don’t require LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- Salesforce Essentials: Excellent tool for social-savvy customer service and support teams
- Nimble: Solid option for teams wanting to access CRM information from within social media browser windows
Best Social CRM Software Compared
Provider | Free Plan | Free Trial for Paid Plans | Starting Price for Paid Plans | Social Features | Help & Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Yes (unlimited users) | 14 days (content management system, or CMS, and Operations Hubs only) | $45 per month, includes 2 users seats*, $23/month for each additional user | Social media management, engagement tracking, and performance reports on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube (Marketing Hub Enterprise only) | Community, knowledge base, HubSpot Academy; extended tier-based support via email, chat, and phone (7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time, M-F) |
 | Yes (up to 3 users) | 15 days | $14 per user, per month* | Social engagement monitoring, social post management, add leads from social media; integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google My Business | Self-help guides, community forum, training videos and webinars, tier-based customer support via email (24/7), phone and live chat (24/5) |
 | Yes (up to 10 users) | No | $9.99 per user, per month | Social campaign management, social listening, and audience behavior tracking on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ | Setup guides, weekly training workshops, scheduled online consultations, support via email (24/5) and phone (M-F, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time) |
 | No | 14 days | $25 per user, per month* | Automatically turn social interactions into cases; integrates with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube | Community support, online learning, demos, and technical support |
 | No | 14 days | $19 per user, per month* | Social listening, social profile matching, and profile enrichment; integrates with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn | Demos, webinars, blog, knowledge base, video tutorials, onboarding assistance, one-on-one consultations, and email and phone support on weekdays (4 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time) |
*Based on annual billing. Monthly pricing is also available at slightly higher rates.
HubSpot CRM: Best Overall Social CRM & Best Free Option
HubSpot CRM
Overall Score: 3.99
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Free plan supports an unlimited number of users and Facebook Messenger integration
- Offers social post scheduling features
- Social campaign return on investment (ROI) reports
What's Missing
- Free plan lacks access to customer support and is only limited to forums
- No Pinterest integration
- Social media management tools are available in Marketing Hub’s higher tiers only
HubSpot CRM Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Supports an unlimited number of users
- HubSpot for Startups: Ranges from $40 to $89 per month
- Marketing Hub: Starts at $45 per month (up to 1,000 contacts)
- Sales Hub: Starts at $45 per month (up to 2 users)
- Service Hub: Starts at $45 per month (up to 2 users)
- CMS Hub: Ranges from $270 to $900 per month
- Operations Hub: Starts at $45 per month
- Free trial for CMS and Operations Hub: 14 days
Add-ons for paid plans:
- CRM Suite: Starts at $45 per month
- API (application programming interface) Limit Increase: $500 per month for up to 1 million API calls per day
*Based on annual billing. Monthly pricing is also available at slightly higher rates.
HubSpot CRM is our top recommended social media-friendly CRM because of its robust integrations with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. You can publish social content within the CRM, monitor keyword mentions, and compare the performance of different platforms, campaigns, and publishing times. Its social management tools are available in the Marketing Hub’s Professional and Enterprise tiers.
One of the disadvantages of using this platform for advanced sales and marketing is its pricing, which can be limiting for small businesses. Its free edition offers Facebook Messenger integration, but you need to pay at least $800 per month to access its social media management capabilities. If you need a lower-level pricing tier, consider using Zoho CRM, which offers social data enrichment, lead generation, and engagement starting at $14 per user, per month.
HubSpot CRM Features
- Core CRM: Contact management, contact website activity, companies, deals, tasks and activities, company insights, prospects, ticketing, reporting dashboard, email tracking, email templates, documents, and calling
- Social CRM: Integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube (Marketing Hub Enterprise only); social media management, keyword monitoring, and social media return on investment (ROI) reports
- Sales: Live chat, basic bots, team email, quotes, calling, email scheduling, email tracking, shared inbox, canned snippets, document, meeting scheduling, reporting dashboard, deal pipeline, Messenger integration, sales analytics, CPQ (configure, price, and quote), predictive lead scoring, conversation routing, and goals
- Marketing: Web forms, email marketing, ad management, shared inbox, list segmentation, basic bots, mobile optimization, reporting dashboard, email reply tracking, Messenger integration, team email, live chat, campaign management, collaboration, contact and company scoring, A/B testing, website traffic analytics, and teams
- Service: Ticketing, email scheduling, live chat, shared inbox, calling, canned snippets, tickets closed reports, rep productivity reports, reporting dashboard, email tracking, ticket pipelines, channel switching, meeting scheduling, basic bots, help desk automation, custom surveys, conversation intelligence, goals, and playbooks
- Content management system (CMS): Premium hosting, content delivery network (CDN), website builder, personalized customer experience, website optimization, content strategy, web apps, team management, and multi-domain traffic experience
- Operations: Data sync, contact management, deals, ticketing, email reply tracking, email health reporting, custom user permissions, custom field mappings, list segmentation, multiple currencies, programmable automation, and custom reports
- Mobile app: Android and iOS apps; mobile CRM, caller ID, live chat, team collaboration, voice notes, emailing, and meeting outreach
- Help and support: Community, knowledge base, comprehensive HubSpot Academy library of video tutorials and articles, developer documentation, and blog; tier-based customer support via email, chat, and phone weekdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time
While HubSpot CRM’s marketing automation and social media capabilities are extensive, it is also an excellent tool for managing customer relationships, leads, deals, and pipelines. Read our HubSpot CRM review to discover some of the other ways this software benefits growing businesses.
Zoho CRM: Best All-in-One Social CRM With Operations Support
Zoho CRM
Overall Score: 3.96
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Cost-effective CRM solution with a free plan and low price-per-user options
- Social listening tools
- Messaging features
What's Missing
- Social integration is not available for Free plan users
- Mobile app does not include visual pipeline
- Customer support in lower plans is limited to self-help resources and phone support
Zoho CRM Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Up to 3 users (minimal features)
- Standard: $14 per user, per month
- Professional: $23 per user, per month
- Enterprise: $40 per user, per month
- Ultimate: $52 per user, per month
- Free trial: 15 days
Special CRM Editions:
- Bigin: $0 to $12 per user, per month
- Zoho CRM Plus: $57 per user, per month
Add-ons:
- Additional file storage: $4 per month per 5GB
- Additional data storage: $2 to $4 per 100 MB
- Additional data backup: $12 per request
*Based on annual billing. Monthly pricing is also available at higher rates.
Zoho CRM is one of the most affordable and feature-rich CRM software options on the market. It enriches your CRM data with information taken from your Twitter and Facebook profiles. It also offers tools for social monitoring, messaging, and automatically converting social activities into new leads. A paid Zoho CRM subscription gives you access to Zoho Social Lite, which allows you to publish an unlimited number of posts on all social sites from your CRM.
While Zoho CRM offers a Free plan, this tier does not include social tools. HubSpot CRM’s free tools, on the other hand, include a Facebook Messenger integration. Its premium Marketing Hub plans also offer solid social campaign reporting capabilities.
Zoho CRM Features
- Sales automation: Leads, contacts, accounts, deals, tasks, events, call logs, notes, sales forecasting, email insights, multiple currencies, scoring rules, assignment rules, email parser, and multiple pipelines
- CRM customization: Page customization, rename tabs, custom fields, custom modules, page layouts, and custom list views—Zoho CRM tops our list of the best customizable CRMs
- Social CRM: Enrich data with Twitter and Facebook profiles, social tabs, automated lead generation from social media, and social interaction with leads/contacts; Zoho Social Lite (for paid plan users only) allows you to manage your brand’s social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google My Business (GMB)
- Zia AI (artificial intelligence): Data enrichment, conversational CRM AI assistant, reminders, best time to contact, smart automations, assignment suggestions, AI for emails, and best recommendations
- Reports and analytics: Standard and custom CRM reports, scheduled reports, charts, key performance indicators (KPIs), funnels, target meter, comparator, cohorts, anomaly detector, dashboard, webform analytics, webform A/B testing, and workflow reports
- Marketing automation: Email templates, email opt-out, mass email, marketing campaigns, customer segmentation, and auto-responders
- Web forms: Web-to-lead, web-to-contact, and web-to-case forms
- Team collaboration: Motivator (gamification), calendar, status updates, direct messages, attach files to leads, tagging, and groups for team collaboration
- Inventory management: Products, price books, sales quotes, sales orders, invoices, vendors, and purchase orders (Professional and higher plans only)
- Integrations: Apps for online meetings, telephony and PBX (private branch exchange), team collaboration, office productivity, storage, analytics, email marketing, customer service, finance, business operations, website visitor tracking, and maps and route planning
- Mobile app: Android and iOS apps manage deals, contacts, tasks, analytics dashboards, RouteIQ (route planning), and mobile card scanner (convert business cards into CRM contacts)
- Customer support: Knowledge base, FAQs, community forum, training, videos, webinars, e-books, and Zia on-screen tips; tier-based customer support via email (24/7), phone (24/7 for critical cases only and 24/5 for others), and live chat (24/5)
Zoho CRM is an all-in-one CRM that gives startups the option to begin with a free CRM software and upgrade to higher plans as they scale up. Head over to our Zoho CRM review page for more details on its pros and cons, features, and integrations.
Agile CRM: Best Social CRM for LinkedIn Prospecting
Agile CRM
Overall Score: 3.83
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Social listening tools
- Has social media post and publishing capabilities
- Inbox and direct messaging
What's Missing
- Social tools are not included in the Free plan
- No Instagram integration
- More than one social media integration requires higher-tier pricing plans
Agile CRM Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Up to 10 users (limited features available)
- Starter: $9.99 per user, per month
- Regular: $39.99 per user, per month
- Enterprise: $64.99 per user, per month
*Based on annual billing. Monthly pricing is also available at slightly higher rates, and two-year contracts are available at slightly lower rates.
Agile CRM allows you to interact with your customers and monitor brand mentions on Facebook and Twitter. Its publishing tools allow you to cross-post, schedule social posts, and send direct messages to your customers using your CRM. You can also add its LinkedIn widget so you can use your CRM to check profiles, connect, get updates, and send LinkedIn messages to your contacts.
Like Zoho CRM, its social listening tools are available only with paid plans. On the other hand, Agile CRM allows up to 10 users with its free plan, which is better than Zoho CRM’s three-user free plan. Another disadvantage of Agile CRM is the absence of built-in social campaign reports. If this is an important feature for you, consider using HubSpot CRM.
Agile CRM Features
- CRM sales essentials: Contact management, centralized database, calendar, documents, and deals
- Social CRM: Social monitoring, lead capture, social campaign management, social activity tracking, lead interaction, lead conversion, post scheduling, and social widgets; integrates with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn
- Sales enablement: Lead scoring, appointment scheduling, gamification, project management, lead prospector, CRM reporting, e-Docs and proposals, document signing, and email finder
- Telephony: Inbound CTI (computer telephony integration), auto-dialer, voicemail drops, call recording, call scripts, post call automation, call conferencing, and virtual PBX (private branch exchange)
- Marketing: Marketing automation (email marketing, email tracking, and newsletters), web engagement (landing pages, web forms, and CRM analytics), and mobile marketing
- Service: Help desk, service automations (canned responses and ticket feedback), live chat, and knowledge base
- Mobile app: Android and iOS apps offer a mobile dashboard, contact management, deal tracking, events and tasks, and Google Calendar sync
- Help and support: Setup guides, training workshops, and 24/5 customer support via email and phone
Check out our Agile CRM review to explore the other benefits your company can gain from using this software.
Salesforce Essentials: Best Social CRM for Customer Support Teams
Salesforce Essentials
Overall Score: 2.94
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Multichannel customer support
- Automatic case and ticket creations
- Messenger integration
What's Missing
- Pricing is limited to one paid plan
- No social listening and social posting capabilities
- Does not offer native integrations
Salesforce Essentials Pricing at a Glance
- Annual pricing: $25 per user, per month
- Monthly pricing: $35 per user, per month
- Free trial: 14 days
Add-ons:
- Lightning Dialer for Essentials (inbound and outbound calls from Salesforce phone channel): $2.80 per 100 minutes, per month
- Lightning Dialer (click-to-dial and automatic logging): Starts at $7 per user, per month
- Inbox: $25 per user, per month
- Social Intelligence: $35 per user, per month
Salesforce Essentials is a robust CRM for small businesses focused on providing support and interacting with their customers. Its social customer service feature allows you to turn social interactions into cases (similar to a ticketing or task system). These interactions include posts to your Facebook page, mentions and direct messages on Twitter, comments on YouTube, and comments and replies on Instagram.
What Salesforce Essentials lacks are social listening and social posting capabilities. In addition, it only offers a single pricing plan, limiting the choices of small businesses either looking for a free option or a scalable solution that fits their budget. Meanwhile, Zoho CRM offers both free and affordable paid plans. Under its paid options, you can also monitor social mentions and publish posts on social media.
Salesforce Essentials Features
View social updates and interactions from within your CRM. (Source: Salesforce)
- Lead management: Lead qualification, lead assignment and routing, web-to-lead capture, mass email, campaign management, email templates, and rule-based scoring
- Core CRM: Account and contact management, opportunity management, customizable sales processes, task management, activity feed, deal collaborators, and calendar
- Sales forecasting: Collaborative forecasting, custom opportunity fields, and enterprise territory management
- Quotes and orders: Contracts, sales orders, products and price books, and quotes
- Reports and dashboards: Real-time configurable reports and dashboards; advanced reporting features include cross-filters, joined reports, and history tracking
- Collaboration: Files, topics and recommendations, and the Chatter apps (Salesforce’s real-time collaboration app)
- Automations: Business processes, customizable profiles and page layouts, roles and permissions, and approval automation
- Mobile app: Android and iOS apps; team collaboration, deals, customer service tools, personalized marketing, offline access, and sales forecasting
- Help and support: Community support, interactive webinars, events, guided journeys, online learning, demos, and technical support with two-day response time; paid support plans include 24/7 phone support and expert coaching sessions
If customization is important for your business, check out the features and benefits of using this platform in our Salesforce Essentials review page.
Nimble: Best Social CRM for Simplified Outreach & Lead Capture
Nimble
Overall Score: 2.59
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Has robust social media integration for customer profile enrichment and social media posting
- Social listening feature for Twitter
- Feature-packed yet easy to use
What's Missing
- Only has one pricing option, which is not ideal for growing businesses wanting to scale
- No phone support
- Doesn’t offer Instagram integration
Nimble CRM Pricing at a Glance
- Annual pricing: $19 per user, per month
- Monthly pricing: $25 per user, per month
- Free trial: 14 days
Add-on:
- Prospecting enrichment credits: $10 for 100 extra credits
Nimble may be a simple CRM, but it offers excellent social integration features, which includes the Nimble Prospector. This is a browser extension that enables you to easily view Twitter conversations prior to engagement, monitor Twitter mentions, schedule Twitter and Facebook posts, as well as the ability to create and enrich contact records while on any social site. It can also search and match additional profiles for your contacts from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Its browser extension is one of Nimble’s greatest strengths, since you can install it on various platforms like Gmail, Outlook, and LinkedIn. This makes it easy to use the CRM while working on other tasks and eliminates the need to toggle from one platform to another. However, like Salesforce Essentials, its simple pricing structure could prove disadvantageous to growing businesses. Use Zoho CRM or Agile CRM for a social-friendly CRM with more plan options.
Nimble CRM Features
Nimble shows all the pertinent information about a customer, including details collected from their social media profiles. (Source: Nimble)
- Core CRM features: Unified message inbox, contact management, calendar sync, contact records, unlimited email message syncing, custom fields, unlimited saved search segments, and 2GB storage for file attachments, contacts, and email conversations
- Data enrichment: Social listening, social profile match, email signature capture, and business insights capture
- Marketing and outreach: Group messages, unlimited email templates, email tracking, activity tracking, follow-up reminders, task reminders, and call logging
- Prospecting: Verified business emails, phone numbers, and addresses for the companies and people you engage with via Nimble; 25 enrichment credits per user, per month
- Pipeline management: Deal pipeline management, sales forecasts and reports, and team permissions for bulk actions, API (application programming interface) access, deal pipeline configuration, and deal privacy
- Mobile app: Android and iOS apps; access rich profiles, research new contacts, conversation history, business card scanning, email templates, engagement tracking, visual deal pipeline, and sales intelligence
- Help and support: Online and email support, comprehensive support center, free onboarding assistance, weekly Q&A sessions, and one-on-one consultation
To explore the full extent of its benefits and capabilities, read our expert Nimble review to find out if it is the right fit for you.
How We Evaluated the Best Social CRM Platforms
To discover the best social media-friendly CRM platforms, we compared factors like pricing, general features, ease of use, quality of customer support, and expert scores. We also closely examined the social integration tools you can access through each provider, including social monitoring, social posting, and campaign reporting.
Overall, HubSpot CRM ranked as the best social CRM because of its comprehensive social integration features, availability of a free option with Facebook Messenger integration, and ease of use. It also offers premium plans that work with various social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. All these factors make it an ideal choice for small to large businesses.
The tabs below offer more insight into our evaluation process for selecting the best platforms:
40%
Pricing
20%
General Features
15%
Ease of Use
15%
Help and Support
10%
Expert Score
40% of Overall Score
It’s crucial that CRM providers come in all shapes and sizes from a pricing and subscription standpoint to meet the needs of businesses. Since social media platforms are free, we looked for social CRMs that offer both free and affordable plans that can scale with business growth. We also considered the availability of a monthly billing option for businesses with a budget that suits a pay-as-you-go pricing model.
20% of Overall Score
We evaluated CRM integrations, reporting capabilities, and collaboration tools of each provider. We also determined the availability of a mobile app, and which features can be accessed via mobile. In addition, we looked at standout features that make a provider better for some businesses than others.
15% of Overall Score
As a small business owner, running your business is already a lot of work. Thus, your CRM should be easy to use so you can dedicate more time running your business rather than learning a new platform.
15% of Overall Score
If you get caught in a technical issue while trying to connect social media platforms with your CRM software or accessing the benefits of the integration, we evaluated the support options you have. These include self-help resources as well as such as live chat, phone, and email support.
10% of Overall Score
Some CRM software options are more popular than others. To help us choose the right CRM for your businesses, we explored standout features and online reviews from real-life users and compared them to our own expert opinions.
*Percentages of overall score
