LinkedIn seems to be moving into the realm of a true CRM. If you are a premium user, you may have noticed a few changes being released on your profile earlier this month.
Profile Organizer allows you to build and organize lists of contacts based on whatever criteria you would like. I am in the process of using this to organize the connections I meet from conferences and speaking events. But, there’s also an opportunity to apply this new feature to prospecting and business development efforts.
So far, I like what I see. Profile Organizer has been designed to be integrated into a user’s normal work flow patterns with one to two clicks in mind to complete a task.
Ease of use takes down barriers to adoption and makes the feature easy for networkers to adopt into their LinkedIn patterns.
As I stumble across or specifically search for profiles, I now have the ability to save (or bookmark) those profiles on the spot.
This is particularly helpful when building prospect lists, or simply researching thought leaders in your industry whom you might want to connect with at some point in the future.
You can even capture the full offline contact information and store it in LinkedIn, along with notes for each profile you save. The ability to capture this data begins to position LinkedIn as more than just a network, but as a much more robust CRM-like tool for full relationship management.
Downfalls
What’s missing is built-in fields that allow users to add other social networking profiles like Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media outposts. Batchbook Blue, also a subscription-based service, and one which I use, falls around the same price point and does contain a feature that delivers this type of functionality via a “Super Tag” system.
Why LinkedIn has not yet decided to allow users to tag information contained in their network baffles me. The addition of a customizable tagging system would make profile and network organization a much easier process and improve the searchability of your existing contacts.
All in all, Profile Organizer is not a bad release, but there’s still a lot of room for additional improvements. I imagine that features like a tagging system will eventually be available to premium users at an additional cost. However, Profile Organizer was provided at no additional cost to premium users.
What do you think? If you’re not a premium LinkedIn user, is this enough to push you to upgrade? If you’re not a premium user, how are you managing your database today? What features would you like to see LinkedIn release?
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