It’s no longer enough to just use social media to interact with your pals and post pictures. The point of contact between companies and the general public is here. Social media management software may now be integrated into bigger CRM systems. Your options for the finest social media CRM software are expanding all the time. Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 CRMs featuring social media management features.
What Is Social CRM And How Is It Being Used?
Let’s start with a definition of social CRM before moving on to the best platforms and solutions for social CRM. We’ll go through specific examples of how social CRM is put to use after we’ve established what it means.
The CRM family includes social customer relationship management (SCRM). Social CRM is powerful marketing, sales, and customer service tool because of its unique position as an interface to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more.
All your social media posts can now be planned and scheduled in advance and receive detailed analytics on how each post is performing. Anyone who reads or shares your material is automatically added to your expanding network, which positively impacts your bottom line.
In addition to being a smart address book, social CRM collects profile data on all of your social connections and saves every interaction you’ve had with them for the next time you connect.
It’s all about keeping track of a slew of social media profiles on a variety of platforms in order to improve client interactions and satisfaction.
What Are The Two Types Of Social CRM?
CRM and social media management technologies may be divided into two categories. Many of today’s greatest social CRM solutions incorporate both features into their offerings. There is no limit to what one social media CRM tool can accomplish that a social media CRM program cannot, and vice versa, through interfaces and extensions.
CRM tools for social media
Commonly, social CRM tools are thought of as a collection of social elements integrated within a CRM application. As a result, the platform’s primary focus will be on customer relationship management, but it will also contain a range of other features, such as marketing tactics and sales lead creation.
CRM software for social networking
CRM might be overkill in several cases. Hence the existence of social media management systems that are not CRMs, but rather solutions designed to plan, post, schedule and manage material on social media, as well as to integrate all social activity. Most social CRM platforms will be able to seamlessly connect with your current CRM.
Benefits of social CRM software
Customer Service That Is Quicker
Social CRM gives customer support representatives the ability to hear what their customers are saying amongst themselves as well as talk directly to them. Social listening ensures that no one is left in the dark when it comes to getting their questions or concerns addressed. A presence on social media is essential since clients prefer to connect via these channels.
New Friendships Can Be Formed
Whenever a social media user connects with your content or utilizes keywords that you’re tracking with social CRM, there’s a chance to grow your network. You may also use social CRM technologies to discover the relevant people to contact. It’s also easier for you to provide customers with a more tailored experience because you can keep track of their information and behavior.
Better Understand Customer Needs & Issues
There is a lot of data that accumulates constantly in the social realm. To make sense of all this information, a social CRM provides you with a global, metric-based analysis of the most popular subjects trending on every social media platform. Aside from demographics and content categories relevant to potential consumers, you can also use it to find out what your potential customers are looking for.
Build & Improve Brand Reputation
If someone takes to social media to air their grievances about subpar goods or services, it’s likely that they’re doing it in order to be heard. It’s hard to think of a better approach to demonstrate your company’s openness to feedback than to not be afraid to take criticism. Instead, thank the person who gave you the feedback and express your appreciation for it. Additionally, social CRMs allow you to thank and re-share the kind words of consumers who have been loyal to your brand.
Improved Control Over The Social Presence
The number of social media outlets is growing. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn aren’t the only places where you can share your photos, videos, and other types of media. Because a social CRM integrates many accounts across every channel, helps you plan and post content for several outlets at once, gives you a single inbox for all conversations, and provides across-the-board analytics and reporting, it may save you a lot of time and effort.
Bring social media closer to marketing, sales & service
An intern working in solitude was once the norm for a company’s social media department, but things have changed. It’s been a long time since those days. New product and service development benefits from social media data. Using social media as a marketing tool is essential. Connections made through social media can lead to successful sales. Finally, clients prefer to reach out via social media when they need help.
Social CRM features
Customer profiles
All of your social media connections, including their age, location, demographics, interaction history, and ties to other social networks can be viewed in one place. When someone makes a modification to their profile, a good social CRM will automatically update their profile. Better tailored content means knowing more about your fans and following. This is where data mining comes into play.
Social listening
Online conversations containing particular keywords useful to learning about possible prospects and getting a handle on your industry may be monitored in real-time with capabilities available in social CRMs. Your brand or product should be mentioned at all times, no matter where it is printed up. Your eyes and ears are always on the digital content world with social listening tools.
Sentiment analysis
Using tools for sentiment analysis, you can gain a more detailed picture of how people feel about what’s happening, whether in the wider world or in the intimate settings produced by your brand experience.
Social selling
No matter how many different reasons we have to use social media for work and play, a company’s online presence should never lose sight of its ultimate goal: turning leads into customers and increasing return on investment. Customer interest may be funneled through social CRM platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
Management of social media
Using a single social CRM platform, several social media profiles may be linked together. A single post may make its way to every relevant channel at the optimum publishing time via simple scheduling actions. With the consolidated inbox, you can see the entire social profiles of all of your conversations. Last but not least, it provides comprehensive comparison metrics for all posts, posters, profiles, and platforms.
What are the best social CRM tools? Here’s our top 10 list:
The best social network contact management software is becoming better and better. A Google search may be a bewildering experience. As a result, we’ve put in the time. Consider the top social CRM solutions if you want to improve your social media strategy and grow your business.
Social Studio by Salesforce (Best CRM for social media overall)
Salesforce is a pioneer in CRM and other workplace SaaS services, possibly the largest planet in the CRM solar system. In addition to community interaction, marketing intelligence, and customer sentiment, the Salesforce Social Studio is part of the CRM giant’s Marketing Cloud branch.
Pros:
CRM capabilities like “listening” for remarks, reacting to interaction, and categorizing posts and statistics are all included in this social CRM platform. An AI technique developed by Salesforce called “Einstein Image Classification” is able to analyze social media photographs to identify the locations where certain items are being utilized. Automatically directing consumer behavior to the right department is made possible by machine learning, which recognizes the sentiment associated with a brand.
Cons:
The cost is a significant deterrent. So Salesforce, although being one of the greatest CRM systems available, is only accessible to larger companies with pre-determined budgets.
Pricing:
- A basic package costs $1,000 per month when paid for yearly.
- Annually, the Pro plan costs $4,000 a month, or $4,000 per year.
- The yearly fee for the corporate plan is $12,000 per month.
- The monthly cost of the Enterprise plan is $40,000, which is paid in one lump sum each year.
HubSpot Marketing Hub (Top social customer relationship management tool)
Inbound marketing is where HubSpot got its start, and it’s still where it’s known as now. They now have a plethora of resources at their disposal. Social media management is part of a larger marketing platform that also provides free CRM and service platforms for support teams.
Pros:
With the social media manager, you may post directly to LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram, and even administer a blog or landing page. The greatest post-time suggestions may be obtained by scheduling posts for a later date. In HubSpot, you can keep track of all of your mentions and comments in one place. In addition to Facebook and Twitter, YouTube is included in the reporting. The ticketing system is used to keep track of client information and contact requests from those contacting the support desk.
Cons:
HubSpot’s free plan puts it in the running for the best free marketing software. Unfortunately, there’s a significant price difference between the free version and the most expensive premium plans, where you’ll find the most useful functionality.
Pricing:
There is a free version of HubSpot available as well.
There is a $45 monthly fee for the Marketing Hub’s Starter plan.
$800 per month is the starting price for Marketing Hub’s professional plan.
Start-up costs for the Enterprise Marketing Hub plan are $3,200 per month.
Zoho Social (Great free CRM for social media management)
In addition to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and a little Instagram, Zoho CRM integrates with Slack, Zapier, Zendesk, and other workplace tools. As a user of this software, you may manually search via social media for new clients and import them into the main platform.
Pros:
There is an automatic feature that adds new leads depending on custom-defined triggers for new lead acquisition. For example, demographics, ‘likes,’ or buying patterns can be used to identify high-quality leads. As a result, you will be able to maintain tabs on consumer comments, as well as measure engagement and conversation history.
Cons:
Instagram’s latest features, like Instagram Stories, are still in their infancy, making the app a little sluggish in comparison to other social media platforms. Instagram Business accounts can only use a select few of the platform’s features.
Pricing:
There is a free version of Zoho available.
A yearly subscription to the basic plan is $10 per month.
Annually, the professional plan costs $30 per month.
It costs $40 a month to subscribe to the Premium plan, which is invoiced yearly.
Sprout Social (Best CRM for social media marketing)
CRM software Sprout integrates social media accounts from Twitter and Facebook to Instagram to LinkedIn to Pinterest to Google+. Composing, backlogging, and scheduling social media posts across numerous platforms and many accounts, as well as tracking client responses, are all hallmarks of this well-known social media management platform.
Pros:
In terms of social CRM, this is a large stack that covers nearly all of the most important aspects. Each contact’s social engagements and conversation history are stored in a smart mailbox. With the use of keywords, hashtags, and location searches, you can monitor your brand. With this package, you’ll receive rule-based automation for your workflow, as well as a bot creator. Assigning and prioritizing work are among the elements of team cooperation. Afterward, you’ll be able to see how your posts, adverts, and your team are performing.
Cons:
Sprout is certainly a force to be reckoned with. Higher players with bigger funds, but also time to understand all elements, will be able to make use of this option.
Pricing:
Annually, the standard plan is $89 per user/month.
The yearly fee for the Pro plan is $149 per user.
The Advanced plan costs $249 per user each month when invoiced annually.
Nimble (Good social media CRM software for startups and small businesses)
Nimble’s social CRM is meant to operate with Microsoft’s suite of products and has been hailed as a game-changer by Mark Cuban. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Google+ are just a few of the social media platforms that it connects to. Nimble, as the name implies, has a light and flexible feel that is popular with the modern business class.
Pros:
Nimble keeps track of mentions on social media. When a lead or customer logs into a social media account, the CRM will immediately look up and link that account to their contact information. Nimble also provides a number of “smart” search features, such as the ability to sort contacts based on their connectedness or their number of follows and followers. An excellent agenda manager and extensive analytics are both available here.
Cons:
It’s a great, light platform. It’s lovely and light. However, as a result of this, one gets the impression that Nimble’s capabilities are virtually limitless. However, it has a hard time scalability
Pricing:
The monthly fee for the business plan is $19 per user, invoiced yearly.
eClincher (A good social CRM tool for sales teams)
eClincher is a social media kit with a solid CRM tool that places sales and ROI at the forefront of its presentation. Facebook pages and groups, Twitter, Instagram Business, LinkedIn corporate pages and personal, YouTube and Pinterest, Google My Business, and Yelp are among the channels that are covered by this service.
Pros:
As an added benefit, you can keep track of all of your customers’ online chats through the social inbox and CRM. Keywords and hashtags may be tracked with a monitoring tool, which can lead to new interactions and exchanges. To help you prepare your own articles, eClincher can link you with influencers and propose relevant material. Analytics, media management, and collaboration are all included.
Cons:
You and your team will have to put in a significant amount of time to become proficient with all of the available features and tools. Is it really worth it in the end? For the benefit of the sales force? Yes. What about the rest of us? Maybe.
Pricing:
The basic plan is $59 a month for one user.
For three users, the Premier plan costs $119 a month.
For six users, the agency plan costs $219 per month.
Agorapulse (Top social media marketing tool for large businesses)
Agorapulse, as the name indicates, keeps you abreast of the newest trends, hot subjects, and innovative ideas in the online marketplace. Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Buffer aren’t hesitant to draw analogies with them.
Pros:
Agorapulse has a built-in social CRM platform, which is a strong selling point. Those with “fans and followers” contact cards and platform auto-labels can have public profiles with private messages. These options include publishing content, interacting with all commenters at once, and getting rapid analytics. As a final option, you can use an automatic inbox manager.
Cons:
There is a lack of customer relationship management functionality on account of this platform’s primary function as a social media management tool.
Pricing:
Agorapulse has a free version.
Annually, a medium plan costs $79 for two users.
It costs $159 per month, invoiced annually, for four users on the large plan.
The X-Large plan costs $239 yearly for 8 people.
It costs $399 a month for a total of 20 users, invoiced annually.
Buffer (A great free social media tool for customer engagement)
The reply is a component of Buffer’s three-tiered social media platform, which also includes publishing and analytics capabilities. React quickly and efficiently to social media comments using Buffer Reply. Although it is not a CRM platform in and of itself, Zapier and IFTTT allow it to be integrated with CRM systems.
Pros:
All incoming communications from social media platforms like as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter flow into a team inbox where you can allocate discussions, avoid rep clashes, and make notes together. Task automation, reused responses, and custom tags and folders are all readily available features. Responses can be reported on, too. Buffer Publish, on the other hand, allows you to organize and schedule posts for all of your social media accounts.
Cons:
Another con is that this isn’t a CRM in and of itself, but integrating it isn’t that difficult either. Buffer is compatible with Instagram, however, it does not upload your Instagram Stories immediately.
Pricing:
Buffer is available for free.
The yearly fee for the Essentials plan is $5 for each social media channel.
Hootsuite (Top social networking platform for customer communication)
When it comes to social media, Hootsuite isn’t really meant to be used for customer relationship management, but rather to manage social networks. Hootsuite is compatible with Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, WordPress, Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest, among other social media platforms.
Pros:
Apps like Nimble, Salesforce, Batchbook, and others may be added to the Hootsuite dashboard to make it more CRM-ready, all of which can be found in the Hootsuite app directory. You may utilize social media monitoring to keep tabs on trends and keywords, as well as plan and schedule postings. It’s simple to store, share, and promote other people’s material. In addition, Hootsuite offers bespoke reporting and analytics.
Cons:
For all of the typical customer management tasks, Hootsuite will need to be integrated with a CDRM. Premium plans get access to the most advanced features.
Pricing:
Hootsuite has a free plan, as well as paid plans.
Annually, the professional plan costs $49 per month.
There is a team package that costs $129 per month, is invoiced annually, and is available for purchase.
There is a starting price of $599 per month for a yearly subscription with the business plan.
Later (Great social media marketing tool with CRM integrations)
Marketing and marketing automation are the primary focus of Later’s Instagram strategy. As a result of this, the platform wants to increase the number of people you’re connected to.
Pros:
Later may be used with Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest in addition to Instagram. Posts may be planned and scheduled in advance using an easy-to-use calendar interface. You may bulk-upload files and organize them in a well-organized media library. Using Later’s features, you may interact with consumers who have contributed their own material and re-post their excellent work. Instagram stats are available as well.
Cons:
Later’s focus is narrowly defined. Consequently, the disadvantage is obvious when you want a more adaptable and comprehensive platform that integrates social media management and CRM.
Pricing:
The free version of Later is available.
Starting at $12.50 a month, invoiced yearly, is the cheapest option.
Starting at $20.83 per month, payable yearly is the growth plan.
Starting at $33.33 per month, payable yearly is the advanced plan.
Our Conclusion
Salesforce Social Studio, if your company has the money, is the greatest social CRM system on the market. The low price of HubSpot makes it an excellent choice if you’re on a tight budget.
A single system for managing both client relationships and social media is a huge advantage, no matter which platform you use.
Would you like to know the benefits of project management software? Read our blog to find out.
