Social media is a vital aspect of any business, so you’ve got to have a flexible customer relationship management (CRM) platform to scale up.
There are a lot of options out there, and picking the wrong one can cost you some serious cash trying to recover.
I’m AJ—here to help. I’ve spent the last decade building my business to a successful multiple seven-figure exit.
With Small Business Bonfire (SBB), I aim to help you achieve financial freedom with no risk, all reward.
So, let’s look at how you can take your social media game to the next level while growing your business like a pro!
Stick around for some helpful tips for setting your sights on the right social CRM software.
After years of SBB testing, here is our list of the best (Article Title) CRMs:
- Best Social CRM for AI Content: Capsule
- Best Social CRM For All-In-One: HubSpot
- Best Social CRM For Campaign Automation: Creatio
- Best Social CRM For Social Integrations: Monday.com
- Best Social CRM For Social Media Campaigns: Freshmarketer
- Best Social CRM For Scaling: Engagebay
How Did We Test The Best Social CRM Software?
- Hands-On Experience
- Ease of Use
- Feature Assessment
- Third-Party Reviews
- Scalability
- Customer Support
How We Objectively Test Each Platform:
AJ's got a knack for kick-starting businesses, putting them on autopilot, and setting them up for acquisition. Over the past decade, he's been right in the thick of things with hundreds of small businesses, helping them with just about everything under the business sun. If you need advice on software suites and choices? AJ's your guy.
We roll up our sleeves and dive into the top CRM features we think are pretty crucial for small businesses. Stuff like reports and analytics, options to customize your pipelines, and the ability to link up with other apps and services. We know what makes small businesses tick, so we know what features they need to get the job done.
Money matters, folks! When it comes to picking a CRM system, price is usually the deal-breaker. We give a big thumbs up if a provider charges $30 or less per user each month for their starter plan. Extra brownie points for throwing in a freebie plan or trial, options to scale up or down as needed, and the freedom to pay monthly or yearly. We're looking for flexability for small businesses.
We all know support is mega important when you're choosing a CRM platform. This is especially true for those smaller businesses or sales teams who can't afford to have tech wizards on their payroll. We put our detective hats on to see if these companies offer round-the-clock support, and we looked at the different ways you can get help. We're talking live chat (like, real-time convo), email tickets, a good old-fashioned phone call, and self-service tools (for the DIY-ers out there).
When you're in the business of picking a CRM, integrations are like the secret sauce that takes your burger from 'meh' to 'mind-blowing'. Imagine, all your favorite apps and tools, working together in perfect harmony, making your workflow smoother than a fresh tub of Nutella. When we review a CRM, we look at the integrations most SMB owners are looking for.
When you're reviewing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, it's essential to pay close attention to its ease of use. After all, a CRM is as beneficial as its usability. A simple, intuitive interface saves you and your team a great deal of time and headache. When we're reviewing each CRM, this is a crucial aspect that we look for.
The importance of Mobile CRM cannot be overstated in today's digital age. It's essential for fostering strong customer relationships and managing business activities. Mobile access to CRM makes it possible for sales teams to update and access customer information in real time, improving efficiency and ensuring up-to-date data. Mobile CRM can have a massive impact on SMBs, so thoroughly testing it is essential for each one of our reviews.
Capsule CRM: Best For AI Content
Bonfire Rating: 4.6/5
Capsule is perfect for SMBs that want a no-frills CRM designed to help your teams succeed!
Capsule
Learn More Today!-
AI Content Assistant
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Project Management Tools
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Customizable Sales Pipelines
Why We Picked Capsule CRM
Capsule CRM is a streamlined CRM that offers plenty of features to help scale your social efforts.
Here are a few reasons why we chose it:
- Great mobile app
- Powerful AI Content Assistant
- Easy-to-use contact management
- Customizable dashboards & reports
- Affordable pricing plans
Capsule CRM offers you a user-friendly experience packed with powerful features.
Stay connected and organized effortlessly, even when you’re on the go!
Capsule CRM Features
An AI assistant can take your social media game to the next level by automating your content (while you scale to new heights).
Capsule CRM’s AI Content Assistant is designed to help you save time and effort while creating high-performing content (in seconds).
We tested this feature out (over six months) by creating all kinds of personalized social media posts using Capsule’s AI Content Assistant.
For example, we created a LinkedIn post with just a few clicks.
Capsule simplifies the task of creating social media posts by automating it.
It offers suggested content tailored to your industry/niche, making it easier for you to connect with your audience.
Capsule essentially eliminates writer’s block and lets your team focus on the overall message (rather than the arduous writing process).
The bottom line: If you’re stuck in a rut with your social media posts, Capsule’s AI Content Assistant can help you break through (and boost your engagement like a boss).
Contact management might not be the first thing you think of regarding social CRM software.
However, if you’re serious about scaling your social efforts, it’s important to have a centralized location for managing all of your contacts and interactions.
Capsule CRM offers just that with its easy-to-use contact management feature.
You can easily add, organize, and track all your contacts’ information (including social media profiles) in one place.
Check out a contact card we created, where we could easily add our B2B client’s social handle.
In fact, Capsule CRM makes it easy to add the following social media platforms to each card:
- X (Twitter)
- YouTube
With Capsule, you can stay connected and up-to-date with your clients’ social media activities, making it easier to tailor your communication and marketing efforts accordingly.
Integrating your favorite platforms with your CRM software is a game-changer.
Luckily, Capsule provides the ability to link your CRM platform with your social media accounts.
We got started by connecting our X (Twitter) account.
Here’s a quick look at the integration process (which took less than 5 minutes).
Once we were connected, we were able to accomplish the following with Capsule CRM:
- Schedule social media posts
- View social media analytics and metrics
- Monitor brand mentions and interactions
This integration helped us streamline our social media management process, making it easier to stay on top of our online presence and engage with our audience.
Our only complaint was that Capsule doesn’t offer as many social media integrations as some other CRM software.
However, it still covers the major platforms and provides enough functionality to make a positive impact on your social media efforts.
Capsule CRM Pricing
Capsule CRM offers four pricing plans.
They are the following:
- Starter – $21/Month
- Growth – $38/Month
- Advanced – $60/Month
- Ultimate – $75/Month
Capsule CRM Pros and Cons
- Easy-to-use contact management feature
- AI Content Assistant for automating content creation
- Affordable pricing plans
- Limited social media integrations
- Lacks advanced marketing to help with social campaigns
HubSpot CRM: Best for All-In-One
Bonfire Rating: 4.8/5
HubSpot CRM has everything you need to help manage customer relationships. Seriously, it's got it all.
HubSpot
Learn More Today!-
Tons of Free Tools From Each Hub
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Live Chat Capabilities
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Robust Integrations
Why We Picked HubSpot CRM
HubSpot is much more than your average social CRM.
It’s an all-in-one software that combines sales, service, marketing, and CMS to create the perfect recipe for scaling your social media game.
Here are some reasons HubSpot belongs on this list:
- Fantastic customer support
- Great mobile app
- Tons of free tools
- Customer surveys & A/B testing
- Handy social media templates
- Multichannel support
HubSpot’s got it all! Add on the fact that it’s free and easy to use, and you’ve got yourself a social CRM software worth talking about.
HubSpot CRM Features
HubSpot’s social media templates stand head and shoulders above the competition.
Some of our favorites offered by the social media management platform include the following:
- Social media content calendar
- Marketing campaign template
- Social media customer service
- Startup content calendar
Here’s how the interface looked from our perspective.
During our six-month testing period, we found several standout aspects of this feature that elevated our social game.
Here’s a quick run-through of what we loved:
- Search functionality: HubSpot’s template library offers an easy-to-use search function that helps you find exactly what you need (when you need it). No more wasting time scrolling through irrelevant templates.
- Variety: HubSpot offers a wide variety of templates catering to different social media platforms, ensuring you have the right tools no matter which channel you’re focusing on.
- Customization: The templates are not just “one size fits all.” They’re fully customizable, allowing you to inject your brand’s unique voice and personality.
- Ease of use: Even with its vast array of features, HubSpot maintains a user-friendly interface. This makes managing multiple social media channels a breeze, even for beginners.
- Scalability: As your SMB grows and your needs evolve, HubSpot’s templates adapt, allowing for seamless scaling of your social media presence.
In our experience, HubSpot makes it easy to manage multiple social media channels (while easily scaling your SMB).
Its social media templates are fantastic, providing flexibility and control in your social media strategy.
Understanding what your customers want (and need) is crucial for any successful business.
With HubSpot’s customer feedback surveys, you can gather valuable insights to improve your social media strategy and overall customer experience.
Here are some key benefits of this feature:
- Easy customization: You can easily create surveys tailored to your customers’ specific needs and interests.
- Automated follow-ups: Follow up with customers automatically to gather more information or thank them for their response.
- Real-time reports: Get instant access to detailed, real-time reports of survey responses so you can stay on top of customer feedback.
- Integrations: Connect your survey results with HubSpot’s CRM to keep track of valuable customer data and improve your interactions.
We could create and send surveys via email or social media platforms, allowing us to easily gather feedback from multiple channels.
Here’s a snapshot of the customer survey creation process.
Our takeaway: HubSpot’s customer feedback surveys are a powerful tool to ramp up your social media strategy and increase customer satisfaction across the board!
A/B testing is a crucial aspect of any social media strategy. After all, you need to know what works (and doesn’t) to connect with your audience effectively.
With HubSpot’s A/B testing feature, you can easily test different versions of your content to see which one performs best.
Here are some reasons we love this feature:
- Ease of use: Even if you’re not tech-savvy, HubSpot’s interface makes A/B testing straightforward (no need for coding or complicated processes).
- Analytics: Track and analyze how your content performs with detailed analytics so you know what changes to make for optimal results.
- Customization: You can test various elements, such as headlines, visuals, and calls to action. This allows for a more targeted approach that resonates with your audience.
- Multichannel testing: HubSpot allows you to test content across multiple channels, not just social media. You can also test emails, landing pages, web pages, and web forms.
Here’s an example of A/B testing we ran on one of our X (Twitter) posts.
We were able to easily customize the following for each test:
- Name
- Distribution %
- Winning metric
- Duration
- Fallback version
Our final thoughts: HubSpot’s A/B testing feature is a must-have for SMBs looking to up their social game. It takes the guesswork out of content creation and helps you tailor your strategy to what works best.
HubSpot CRM Pricing
HubSpot CRM offers a free plan in addition to three paid plans:
- Free Plan – Free Forever
- Starter CRM Suite – $30/Month
- Professional CRM Suite – $1,335/Month
- Enterprise CRM Suite – $5,000/Month
HubSpot CRM Pros and Cons
- User-friendly interface
- Extensive variety of features and tools
- Great customer support
- Free version available
- Tons of customization options
- The free version offers limited social media features
- Advanced pricing plans are expensive.
Creatio: Best For Campaign Automation
Bonfire Rating: 4.8/5
Creatio makes it easy to manage every aspect of your business in one convenient place!
Creatio
Learn More Today!-
Tons of Automation
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Sales, Service, and Marketing Tools
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Powerful Analytics & Reporting
Why We Picked Creatio
Creatio offers an all-in-one CRM solution for businesses of all sizes.
Here are a few reasons we chose it:
- Comprehensive automation capabilities
- Strong social media marketing features
- Customizable workflows and processes
- Advanced reporting & analytics
- A variety of pricing plans to fit different budgets
With Creatio, you can streamline your social media efforts and increase efficiency with their powerful automation tools.
Creatio Features
Creating powerful landing pages and web forms is a vital part of generating leads from your social channels.
Luckily, Creatio makes it easier to design and publish landing pages with their drag-and-drop editor.
The best part is that Creatio’s landing pages are mobile-friendly (meaning they’ll look great on any device).
Plus, you can easily embed your landing pages on your social media profiles or share them in posts to drive traffic and conversions.
Once you’ve captured leads, Creatio also offers fantastic analytics to see exactly where your leads are coming from and how they interact with your landing pages.
For example, here’s a screenshot of our lead traffic.
As you can see, most of our traffic came from social media channels (proving that our social efforts with Creatio were paying off).
At the end of the day, Creatio allows you to easily track and measure your social media success, making it a valuable tool for any business looking to grow its online presence.
I’ve always believed that effective campaign management is crucial for social media success, and Creatio really gets it.
They have powerful features that make managing social media a breeze.
With Creatio’s campaign flow designer, we created automated workflows and processes to supercharge our social media marketing efforts.
It’s an awesome social CRM tool to have in your arsenal!
Here’s an example of a campaign we were able to create for a social media event at Small Business Bonfire.
The whole process took less than 30 minutes to set up (and included many useful automation features).
We could even track each prospect’s interactions with our social media channels as they went through the campaign, giving us valuable insight into what was working (and what needed improvement).
The need to know: If you want to create robust social campaigns, Creatio is the CRM software for you.
It offers a range of features that make it easy to stay organized and automate your marketing efforts, giving you more time to focus on engaging with customers and developing strong relationships.
Creatio integrates seamlessly with YouScan, a powerful social media listening tool.
This integration offers an array of functionalities, enabling you to accomplish the following:
- Discover trends: With YouScan’s advanced AI and machine learning algorithms, you can uncover the latest trends in your industry or niche. This helps you stay ahead of the game and make smarter, data-driven decisions.
- Analyze market sentiment: YouScan’s sentiment analysis provides deep insights into how your brand, product, or service is perceived in the market. This helps you understand customer needs better and tailor your communication strategy accordingly.
- Identify opportunities from millions of social media posts: The integration allows you to sift through countless social media posts to find potential opportunities or threats. You can then create cases based on these discoveries, enabling you to respond swiftly and effectively to specific customer needs or issues.
Creatio’s YouScan integration offers a wealth of data at your fingertips, enhancing your social media strategy and driving your business forward.
We tested this feature out (over six months) by monitoring social media mentions of our brand and tracking the sentiment.
The integration worked seamlessly, providing us with valuable insights into how our audience perceived our brand.
Our takeaway: Creatio gives SMBs a huge edge over the competition with its powerful integration with YouScan, allowing businesses to monitor and analyze social media conversations like never before.
Creatio Pricing
Creatio offers three paid plans.
They are the following:
- Growth – $25/Month
- Enterprise – $55/Month
- Unlimited – $85/Month
Creatio Pros and Cons
- Comprehensive automation capabilities
- Strong social media marketing features
- Customizable workflows and processes
- Advanced reporting and analytics
- There's a bit of a learning curve to the platform
- No free plan
- Customer service was slow to respond at times
Freshmarketer: Best For Social Media Campaigns
Bonfire Rating: 4.6/5
Freshmarketer is a marketing platform with a ton of automation for tech-savvy folks.
Freshmarketer
Learn More Today!-
Free Plan Available
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Contact & Account Management
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Behavioral Targeting Capabilities
Why We Picked Freshmarketer
Freshmarketer offers some powerful social media marketing features in addition to a fully-fledged CRM platform.
Here’s why it made the cut:
- Great free plan
- Powerful social media campaigns
- Tons of marketing automation capabilities
- Great reporting & analytics
- Affordable, scalable pricing
Freshmarketer provides a comprehensive approach to scaling your marketing and social efforts (while making data-driven decisions).
When it comes to advanced marketing capabilities, it’s a force to be reckoned with.
Freshmarketer Features
Freshmarketer offers a social media marketing suite to help you easily manage your campaigns.
You can track, analyze, and optimize your social media performance across multiple channels, all from one place.
Here are some features we loved (throughout our testing period):
- Lead generation campaigns
- Social media listening & monitoring
- Advanced targeting options
- Social media automation
- Performance analytics (to track ROI)
Freshmarketer’s social media campaigns module is just what you need to amp up your lead generation and conversion game on social platforms.
It’s designed to help you drive more leads and conversions (so you can make the most of your social media presence).
To get started, you simply link your Facebook or Instagram account with Freshmarketer, and you’re in business.
Next, simply create a business account through Meta (shown below).
From there, you can easily manage the following aspects of your social media platforms from Freshmarketer:
- Accounts
- Ad accounts
- Pages
- Forms
This gives you a great overview of your marketing campaigns and lets you make data-driven decisions based on real-time analytics.
Our final verdict: If you’re in the market for a robust social media marketing platform with advanced automation capabilities, Freshmarketer is a perfect fit.
Freshmarketer provides the ability to create, schedule, and send out powerful email campaigns, guaranteed to get you the results you’re after.
Here’s what we loved about it:
- Easy drag-and-drop email builder
- Personalization options (to cater to specific customer segments)
- Advanced A/B testing capabilities
- Detailed reporting & analytics
We created a great email (in less than 5 minutes) that showcased our newsletter and all of our social links.
Here’s how it looked (to give you some context).
We were able to easily add the following with the hopeful drag-and-drop interface:
- Text
- Social links
- Custom code
- Video
- Images
- Buttons
We saw a huge boost in our social media following once we started adding social links to our campaigns using Freshmarketer.
It worked so well that we decided to take it a step further and send out personalized emails to different customer segments, thanks to Freshmarketer’s awesome personalization options.
The brass tacks: Freshmarketer offers the ability to create powerful email campaigns (with added social features) to help you connect with your audience in a meaningful way.
If you’re trying to scale your social efforts, it’s important to have access to detailed reporting & analytics.
Here’s what Freshmarketer has to offer:
- Detailed campaign performance metrics (including social media campaigns)
- A/B testing results
- Email performance metrics (including social media interactions)
- Website performance analytics
We were able to easily track our overall social media impact on our website traffic (as well as the success of individual campaigns).
It was great to have all of this information in one place so we could make data-driven decisions (and optimize our efforts accordingly).
We created several reports during our testing period.
Here’s an example of how it looked from our perspective.
With Freshmarketer, we had a bird’s eye view of our social media performance and actionable insights to help us improve and grow.
Freshmarketer Pricing
Freshmarketer offers 3 paid plans and a free plan.
The paid plans include the following:
- Growth – $23/Month
- Pro – $179/Month
- Enterprise – $359/Month
Freshmarketer Pros and Cons
- Robust social media marketing capabilities
- Advanced automation options
- Affordable pricing plans
- Detailed reporting & analytics
- There's a slight curve for beginners
- Limited social/marketing integrations
Monday.com: Best For Social Integrations
Bonfire Rating: 4.8/5
Monday.com was made for the dreamers, the folks who get stuff done!
Monday.com
Learn More Today!-
Tons of Project Management Tools
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Affordable Pricing & Free Forever Plan
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Powerful Analytics & Reporting
Why We Picked Monday.com
Monday.com offers some great social CRM tools to help you manage your social media channels and keep track of customer interactions.
Here’s why we picked it:
- Extremely affordable, scalable pricing plans
- Fantastic user interface
- Great social integrations
- Powerful content calendar planner
- Stellar customer support
Monday.com is as easy to use as it is affordable and powerful. You could say it’s a triple threat in the customer relationship management market.
In fact, it’s one of our favorite CRMs to recommend to SMBs for advanced social media marketing.
Monday.com Features
Monday.com offers several native integrations to help you scale your social efforts as your business grows.
The social CRM software offers a fantastic app store (shown below) where my team and I could search for the necessary integrations.
Some key benefits of these integrations include:
- Seamless integration: With Monday.com’s native integrations, you can effortlessly connect your social media accounts and data—no complicated processes required.
- Increased efficiency: By automating tasks through integrations, you can save yourself time and effort on manual data entry and instead focus on the important aspects of your business.
- Real-time updates: Integrations make it possible to sync data in real-time, so you always have the most up-to-date information at your fingertips.
- Flexibility: With various integrations to choose from, you can easily customize your social CRM to perfectly suit your unique needs and preferences.
Some popular native integrations Monday.com offers include the following:
- Mailchimp
- Slack
Monday.com also offers a fantastic integration with Zapier, allowing thousands of additional third-party apps.
This means you can connect your social CRM to even more tools and platforms, opening up endless possibilities for customization and automation.
The bottom line: Take your customer engagement to the next level with Monday.com.
The social media management tool provides a seamless integration experience, making your workflow more efficient and effective.
Monday.com offers a comprehensive content calendar planner to help you stay organized and plan your social media posts ahead of time.
Some features we found particularly useful include:
- Drag-and-drop functionality: Easily move and rearrange tasks and posts on the calendar, making it simple to adjust your schedule as needed.
- Collaboration: Team members can easily view and contribute to the content calendar, ensuring everyone is on the same page.
- Automated notifications: Reminders and notifications can be set up to keep everyone accountable and ensure tasks are completed on time.
- Customization: You can create and use templates for different types of content, making it easy to plan and schedule posts for various social media platforms.
We tested this feature (over six months) by adding in some of our social media campaigns and tracking them.
We loved the flexibility and ease of use, making it effortless to plan and manage our social media posts.
Here’s a quick look at our dashboard, where we could get an overview of each campaign at a glance.
Our Two Cents: This feature is great for SMBs with multiple team members involved in their social media strategy.
It keeps everyone organized and on track while allowing flexibility when needed.
Any social CRM strategy worth its salt will have some form of social/marketing automation available (to help streamline processes and free up time for your marketing and sales teams).
Monday.com provides the ability to automate social media tasks with ease (no coding experience needed).
One way the social CRM solution accomplishes this is by providing helpful pre-made automation templates (shown below).
We used many of these templates (during our six-month testing period).
By the end of our testing, we felt like automation wizards, able to create just about any automation we needed!
Here are some social media tasks that we were able to automate with Monday.com:
- Send a notification to subscribers when the status changes to “live”
- Add new leads to a designated email list when they are marked as “hot” on social
- Automatically post on social media channels when a blog is published
- Schedule and post social media content at optimal times for engagement
We really liked Monday.com’s unique automation creation interface (screenshot below).
The “If/Then” interface made it incredibly easy to create all kinds of social automation with just a few clicks (in seconds).
The nuts and bolts: Make tedious tasks a thing of the past with Monday.com’s powerful automation creation capabilities!
Monday.com Pricing
Monday.com offers four paid plans in addition to a free plan.
These include the following:
- Free – Free Forever
- Basic – $10/Month
- Standard – $12/Month
- Pro – $20/Month
- Enterprise – Custom pricing
Monday.com Pros and Cons
- Extremely affordable pricing plans
- Great user interface
- A wide range of social media integrations available
- Customizable content calendar planner
- Intuitive automation creation capabilities
- Limited free plan
EngageBay: Best for Scaling
Bonfire Rating: 4.7/5
EngageBay is perfect tool to help SMBs grow from the ground up!
EngageBay
Learn More Today!-
Excellent Pipeline Management
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Task Management Tools
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Robust Contact Management
Why We Picked EngageBay
EngageBay offers a comprehensive suite of sales, service, and marketing tools to help you manage customer relationships and take your social game up a notch.
Here’s why we picked it:
- Robust social media listening capabilities
- Powerful automation functions
- Great lead capture and management tools
- User-friendly interface
- Great social media management tools (social suite)
EngageBay is the perfect social media CRM software to help you scale your SMB from the ground up.
It’s powerful, affordable, and easy to use—what’s not to love?
EngageBay Features
EngageBay’s Social Suite is the hub for all your social activity.
We tested it out (over six months) to see how it stacked up.
Here are some things that we absolutely loved about it:
- Unified dashboard: All your social accounts can be managed from one place. This saves a ton of time switching between tabs.
- Post scheduling: We could plan and schedule our posts ahead of time. No more late-night reminders to publish a post.
- Performance analytics: Its in-built analytics gave us actionable insights to improve our social strategies.
Now, let’s walk you through our creation process.
We were able to integrate the following platforms with EngageBay:
Here’s a sneak peek into how the integration process looked.
It was straightforward and took less than 5 minutes!
Once all our channels were linked to EngageBay, we moved on to the exciting part—creating a content schedule.
Our schedule, shown below, was easy to create and modify, which made it simple to adapt to changing trends and strategies.
We saw a noticeable increase in our social media efficiency and engagement using the Social Suite.
It was like having a team of social media experts at our disposal, helping us to connect more effectively with our audience.
If you want to generate more leads with your social platforms, look no further than EngageBay!
With EngageBay’s web form creation, you can easily create the following types of web forms:
- Inline forms
- Popup forms
What’s even better is that EngageBay allows you to fully customize each form to include the following:
- Contact info
- Custom fields
- Checklists
This makes it perfect for creating powerful lead capture forms that can be shared on your social media pages with just a few clicks.
We tested this feature by creating a custom web form and sharing it on all our social pages.
Here’s how the creation process looked (to give you a better idea).
Within the first week, we saw an increase in leads from our social platforms, which was very exciting!
We were getting direct engagement from our social audiences, and EngageBay’s lead management tools made it easy to nurture these leads into customers.
Our final thoughts: EngageBay’s social suite and web form creation make it a top choice for SMBs looking to generate leads and scale their social media efforts.
EngageBay’s social CRM software provides powerful, simplified contact management capabilities to help you stay organized and build stronger customer relationships.
Here’s what we loved about it:
- Customizable contact fields
- Detailed contact profiles (with social media links)
- Automated lead scoring for easy prioritization
- Automatic syncing with social media interactions (to track the entire customer journey)
We especially liked the ability to easily create all kinds of custom fields to cater to our specific needs.
For example, here’s one we created to add LinkedIn profiles to our contacts.
This small customization made it easier for us to connect with our contacts on their preferred social channels.
Each contact card gave us a great overview of every client’s social media history with Small Business Bonfire.
Here’s an example of a new contact card where we could easily add our client’s LinkedIn account.
It was like having all the details right at our fingertips!
This made it so much easier for us to understand their interests and preferences, and you know what? That made it a breeze to personalize our interactions with them.
The nitty gritty: EngageBay’s contact management features are a game-changer.
With EngageBay’s social media management tools, you can focus on building meaningful relationships with your customers and let EngageBay handle the rest. Trust me when I say—it’s worth checking out.
EngageBay Pricing
EngageBay Sales Bay offers a free forever plan and three paid plans.
They are as follows:
- Free – Free forever
- Basic – $14.99/Month
- Growth – $49.99/Month
- Pro – $99.99/Month
EngageBay Pros and Cons
- Powerful social media listening and automation capabilities
- Affordable pricing plans
- Awesome lead capture and management tools
- Easy-to-use interface
- Robust contact management features
- Limited automation capabilities with the free plan
What is a Social CRM?
A social customer relationship management (CRM) platform is a tool that helps businesses manage their social media interactions and relationships with customers.
Why Use a Social CRM?
A social CRM allows companies to accomplish the following from one central location:
- Monitor and respond to social media mentions
- Track customer interactions across different platforms
- Collect and analyze data from social media to inform business decisions
- Create targeted marketing campaigns based on social media data
- Automate social media tasks for increased efficiency and productivity
A social CRM solution can help businesses improve their social media presence and build stronger customer relationships.
Benefits of a Social CRM
Let’s break down a few of the benefits of utilizing a social CRM.
Better Customer Service
With a social CRM, businesses can monitor and respond to social media mentions in real time.
This allows them to quickly address customer concerns or questions, improving customer satisfaction overall.
In today’s digital age, customers expect prompt and personalized responses on social media, and a social CRM helps businesses meet those expectations.
Better Customer Relationships
With the right tools and data, businesses can better understand their customers’ interests, preferences, and behavior on social media.
This allows them to easily accomplish the following:
- Create personalized marketing campaigns that resonate with their target audience
- Identify influencers or brand advocates to collaborate with
- Anticipate customer needs and tailor communications accordingly
Developing strong relationships with customers is crucial for business success, and a social CRM can help companies achieve this.
Increased Brand Reputation
As your business grows, it may become challenging to keep track of all the social media conversations surrounding your brand.
Using a social CRM solution allows you to accomplish the following:
- Monitor and analyze sentiment around your brand
- Quickly respond to negative feedback or complaints
- Identify and address potential issues before they escalate
By staying on top of social media conversations, businesses can build a positive brand reputation and maintain customer trust.
Improved Control Over Social Presence
Staying organized and managing multiple social media accounts can be overwhelming.
A social CRM helps businesses by providing the following features:
- Scheduling posts ahead of time for optimal timing
- Managing all social media channels from one central location
- Tracking and analyzing social media metrics for better performance insights
These capabilities allow businesses to have complete control over their social media presence, saving time and increasing efficiency.
After testing, we compiled a thorough list of our favorite CRMs for Small Businesses. Check it out now! The list might surprise you.
Top Social CRM Features to Look for
Here’s an overview of some important social CRM features to keep an eye out for when making your decision.
This one is a no-brainer, but it’s important to make sure that the social CRM you choose has robust capabilities for managing all your social media channels.
This includes features such as:
- Scheduling posts
- A hub for monitoring and responding to social media interactions
- Social listening and sentiment analysis
- Creating and publishing content
- Monitoring and responding to mentions
Great social CRM software will often have integrations with popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to make this process even more seamless.
Marketing automation can be a lifesaver for busy businesses.
Some social CRM solutions offer automation capabilities that can help you with tasks like creating targeted marketing campaigns and segmenting your audience.
Any social CRM worth its salt should be able to schedule social media posts in advance.
This is especially true for businesses operating in different time zones (or with a global audience).
You’ll want to make sure your CRM can do the following:
- Schedule posts for multiple social media channels
- Choose specific dates and times for posting
- Bulk schedule multiple posts at once
Great social CRM software will include features for monitoring your social media presence and tracking important metrics.
This allows businesses to measure the success of their social media efforts and make data-driven decisions.
Creating engaging and visually appealing social media posts can be time-consuming.
Some social CRM solutions offer customizable templates to make the process easier and more efficient.
HubSpot, in particular, is one platform that offers a variety of templates for social media posts, email marketing, and social campaigns.
Tracking and analyzing social media metrics is crucial for understanding the success of your efforts.
Look for a social CRM that offers detailed analytics and reporting features, including the following:
- Reach
- Clicks
- Engagement
- Conversions
With these insights, businesses can continually improve their social media strategy and drive better results.
It’s important to make sure your team can easily collaborate and communicate within the social CRM platform.
Look for features like task assignments, commenting, and real-time updates to make collaboration more efficient.
The best social CRMs will provide detailed analytics and reporting features to help businesses understand their performance on social media.
You’ll want to look for features like:
- Customizable reports
- Real-time data
- The ability to track key metrics over time
How to Choose a Social CRM
Choosing the best social CRM can be tricky.
Here are a few helpful steps:
- Step 1: Understand your social budget
- Step 2: Choose a social CRM from our list!
- Step 3: Test drive the social CRM features
- Step 4: Engage your marketing team
- Step 5: Finalize your new social CRM
Step 1: Understand Your Social Budget
The right social CRM software will vary in cost depending on the following:
- Business size
- Industry
- Specific needs
- Spending budget
Before researching different options, it’s important to clearly understand your social budget and what features are essential for your business.
Step 2: Choose a Social CRM from our List!
We’ve done the research for you and have put together a list of the best social CRMs on the market.
Take some time to compare the features and pricing plans of each option to see which one aligns best with your business needs.
Step 3: Test Drive the Social CRM Features
It’s important to try before you buy.
Most social CRMs offer free trials or demos, allowing businesses to test the features and see if it’s a good fit before purchasing.
Step 4: Engage Your Marketing Team
Your marketing team will be using the social CRM on a daily basis, so it’s important to involve them in the decision-making process.
Consider their input and feedback when choosing the best social CRM for your business.
Step 5: Finalize Your New Social CRM
Once you have chosen the best social CRM for your business, it’s time to finalize the onboarding process.
Make sure to take advantage of any training and support resources offered by the social CRM provider.
Social CRM Final Thoughts
There you have it—the best social CRM platforms on the market!
If you want to connect with your audience like never before, there’s no wrong choice here.
Plus, all these platforms offer a free plan (or a free trial) to take advantage of. So, what are you waiting for? Give your social efforts a boost by trying one today!