I often come across interesting profiles on LinkedIn, but I’ve found it challenging to save profiles so I can easily come back to them later. Usually, I resort to bookmarking the profiles in my web browser or scribbling down names on a piece of paper.

Today we are launching Profile Organizer, a new Premium feature that lets you save profiles, organize them into folders, and add notes. Anytime you find an interesting profile, simply click “Save Profile” and the profile is bookmarked for you within LinkedIn.

When you click “Save Profile”, the profile is added to your Profile Organizer. You now see a module on the profile page from which you can save a profile into a designated folder, add contact information, and private notes that are visible only to you.  It’s a great way to remember relevant details about contacts, and develop your relationships.

The Profile Organizer is a workspace accessible through the Contacts tab, where you can manage all of your saved profiles organized into specific folders.

Profile Organizer also lets you save profiles directly from the search results page. With just one click, you can save a profile and add it to a folder directly from search.

If you do many searches on LinkedIn, the single-click “save profile” action can save you time. You no longer need to review each interesting profile in detail: just save from the search results page, and you can narrow down your list in Profile Organizer later.

A few of us at LinkedIn have started using Profile Organizer and find it particularly helpful after attending networking events or conferences.  In the past, I collected a stack of business cards and came back from the event unsure about what to do with them. Now, I find the contacts on LinkedIn, and jot down relevant information into Profile Organizer. The next time I go to a similar event, I simply glance through my notes to recall details about our past conversations.

If you have a minute, check out this short feature demo:

Get started using the new feature by clicking on the “Save Profile” link from any LinkedIn profile or search results. Alternatively, you can also check out your Profile Organizer page here.

Profile Organizer is a Premium Account feature, but we are offering a 30-day free trial for all of our members to try it out. Learn more here. We’d love to hear your questions and / or feedback at feedback@linkedin.com. Or follow us @linkedin.

This is part of our success story series where LinkedIn users share their best practices on using LinkedIn more effectively to advance their career or business. Today’s user story comes from Thomas Merlino, small business owner at InControl Technical, who discovered how LinkedIn could help his small business grow outside of where he lived.

How I used LinkedIn as a beginner

Never underestimate the power of social networking.  When I first signed up for a LinkedIn account, it was primarily to network with peers in my area.  I am now a small business owner who utilizes LinkedIn as a means to help gain customers outside of our local geographical area.

My business, InControl Technical, was started in February 2007.  My vision was to provide simple and straightforward technical services to the area where I live, work, and play.  I wanted to connect with other professionals and business owners in the local Erie, Pennsylvania area, so I decided to create and administer a group on LinkedIn called LinkedErie.  I, along with some others in the group, promote our individual businesses and discuss everything from politics to the local economy on the LinkedErie discussion board.  It has been a tremendous help to get to know some of my current and potential customers through this group on LinkedIn.

My Aha! moment: How a future client found me on LinkedIn

Soon the time came when I realized another advantageous benefit of social networking and LinkedIn.  While I was working towards building a sizable local customer base and getting our name out there, InControl Technical was contacted by a company out of Greenville, South Carolina.  They found us on the Web by doing a search for “computer repair erie pa” and found my LinkedIn profile that I link to from our Web site.  After viewing my credentials and seeing the recommendations on my LinkedIn profile, the company felt that InControl Technical would be a good fit for their clients in Erie, PA.  The company that contacted us installs and services equipment that is tied in with local servers at various law enforcement agencies.  Based on the recommendations and credentials posted on my LinkedIn profile and the pricing information that is readily available on our Web site, this company felt comfortable trusting us to service their installed server equipment at a reasonable cost.

Since then, we’ve received calls from other companies outside of our immediate area wanting to utilize our services to assist with everything from temporary small projects to dedicated ongoing support for field employees who don’t have access to a corporate information services department.  Without the enormous power and potential of social networking and LinkedIn, I truly believe that the task of expanding outside of invisible geographical walls would be much more difficult to accomplish.
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[LinkedIn Tip] Optimize your LinkedIn profile with appropriate keywords to be found easily by clients

I’m sure many of you reading this post may wonder how you can reap similar benefits by optimizing your LinkedIn profile for keywords pertaining to your consultancy (both for freelancers or small businesses). For starters, make sure your LinkedIn profile is up-to-date with the latest information on your small business offerings.

For example. Not only is Thomas’ profile summary up-to-date, but he’s also updated the “Specialties” section with a list of keywords related to the technical consulting offered by his small business. You may notice that the keywords he’s added are also localized mentioning Erie, Pennsylvania. This is a great way to come up in search results when prospective clients search for vendors in that particular location. In this particular example Thomas’ profile showed up when the prospective client searched for “computer repair erie pa” and found 14 results, the first of which was Thomas’s profile.

If you’re looking for vendors, don’t stop with basic search. Try advanced people search that allows you to slice and dice across multiple facets including location, industry; even groups that you belong to.

Update your LinkedIn Profile Summary and Specialties now

Kathy Robinson runs TurningPoint Career Consulting, working with mid- to executive-level job seekers who need help marketing their talents, finding interesting opportunities, and getting results in their job search. As a former HR executive, she’s seen the way that LinkedIn has changed the entire process of recruiting, for good. Read more success stories from our users here.

As a career coach, LinkedIn has proven to be a killer app for job seekers whom I counsel, with its immediate access to contacts, groups, events, and thought leaders.

The first thing I ask clients do is optimize their profile, then connect to as many relevant connections as they can, even if they’ve only worked with a former colleague briefly but have a trusted relationship. Other tips? Participate in groups.  Don’t just connect “to” people, but connect “with” people, letting them know what you’re looking for and turning a LinkedIn invitation into a longer conversation.

That’s the approach that worked for one of my clients Christine Midwood, a talented technology program director and product manager. In addition to networking with most of her real world professional connections on LinkedIn, and joining groups, she researched LinkedIn for company information and potential connections before applying for any jobs. She saw a dramatic difference in how many phone interviews or offers she got from traditional online boards (5% response rate) versus online and offline networking (31% response rate). During her search, she made a weekly goal of 3 meetings with her connections, to learn what might be happening in the job market. When she saw a job posting for what is now her current job, she looked up and connected to a former coworker through LinkedIn, who introduced her to the hiring manager. (connect with your former colleagues here)

As Christine found, LinkedIn’s power goes way beyond a profile and some contacts. For example, if you’re interested to know how people broke into a certain field? Look up their backgrounds on their profiles, and find out “how they did it”.

I can’t imagine the job search process for my clients today without the power of LinkedIn, can you? Share your experience in the comments below.

Have a LinkedIn experience you’d like to share with us? Submit your story here.

This is a guest post from our user, Linda Ruck, who runs her own Public Relations and Event Management consultancy in Singapore, Linda Ruck Communications (LRC)  with “a focus on personalized service”. In this post, she shares her best practices on how LinkedIn helped her win three global clients for her small business. You can find more of our user stories here.

Being a small business owner carving out a niche against the big players is very challenging. As with any small business you need to develop viable strategies, seek out opportunities and be creative on how to promote your business, all with a limited budget!

My LinkedIn profile has attracted clients and generated leads and referrals from the US, UK, Australia and throughout Asia seeking to hire expertise to organize their events or run their media and PR campaigns in Singapore and the region.

LinkedIn has proved to be an excellent marketing tool for LRC and more importantly has given me a global presence. My first success though LinkedIn was when I was contacted by a multinational company based in Boston which required a PR consultant in Singapore to support their Asian expansion plans. The company searched LinkedIn to find a PR company in Singapore who had expertise dealing with US based companies. LRC was one of a few companies short listed and after the initial contact and several conference calls they picked my agency to run their inbound media campaign. Having a robust, up-to-date LinkedIn profile definitely helped. Since then I have worked with this company every time they have had a project in the region.

Through opportunities in Linkedin, I have also worked with a $500 million company in the UK who contacted me through a respected mutual Linkedin contact to do their inbound media campaign in Singapore. We were also successful in winning the PR project to launch lavera, the fourth largest organic skincare company in the world.  And we have worked with several other multinational companies listed on LinkedIn, who either found us through common introductions or the LinkedIn’s advanced search.

In addition to my robust profile, I also actively participate in relevant user groups on LinkedIn. Groups is a great platform to engage in discussions and connect with like-minded professionals to learn and share, whether it’s for business or personal interest. And, most importantly, helps establish my thought leadership in a space I’ve carved out for myself as a small business owner.

Linkedin has definitely helped make my company, Linda Ruck Communications, a global player.

Have a LinkedIn experience you’d like to share with us? Submit your story here.

[Ed. note: This is part of our success story series where users share their tips and tricks on using LinkedIn more effectively. Today's user experience comes from Dan Gellert, a Grammy award winning audio mixer, engineer and producer. He's also the co-founder of Jitterbug.tv that he started with his partner recently, a venture that LinkedIn helped them greatly with]

Building the technical backbone of the site, I asked the LinkedIn community to comment on best practices for streaming media, advantages of different media players, budgeting bandwidth costs, etc. Taking advantage of the eyeballs and expertise on LinkedIn, the answers enabled me to understand the average mode of operation; and more importantly, gave me the vocabulary and right questions to ask moving forward on a variety of topics.

Moving to logo and brand design, through launching and especially now, marketing and spreading the word – LinkedIn has helped me waste less time on areas I am not an expert in.  Finding people who are influencing the kids music niche has been fairly easy using LinkedIn. Scanning peoples profiles, what and how they write quickly gives me a sense of their direction, expertise, involvement and relevance to me  – now that is useful!

As we started defining the navigation of jitterbug, LinkedIn was one of a few sites I referenced – noticing how it made potentially messy navigation simple and clear gave me understanding… and a bit of hope!  Adding my profile link on outgoing emails to people who I am trying to woo into action – I found this adds some credibility for those who need some prodding.

The fact that LinkedIn has a huge user base and that you can cross reference users answers with their profile – for me, this makes the experience transparent and helpful.

Have a LinkedIn experience you’d like to share with the community? Please submit your story here.