LinkedIn Corp., which plans to raise as much as $175 million in an initial public offering, or IPO, may become the first social media company to sell shares, Bloomberg reported.

In a filing Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, LinkedIn said it planned an IPO after posting a profit in the first nine months of 2010.

For that time period, net income attributable to common shareholders was $1.85 million, LinkedIn said, and revenues totaled $161.4 million, nearly double the $80.8 million the company posted a year earlier.

The company’s revenues tripled between 2007 and 2009, the filing said.

LinkedIn, a professional networking site with more than 1,000 employees and about 90 million users in more than 200 countries, is used to search for jobs, recruit employees and locate industry experts.

Other social networking companies may consider going public as more Web development and technology start-ups work to achieve the level of success demonstrated by Internet giants such as Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

“LinkedIn is bringing the very hot concept of social networking to the practical business world,” said Dixon Doll, co-founder of DCM, a venture-capital firm. “The whole social networking phenomenon may be in the fourth or fifth inning and none of these have gotten public yet.”

Citing unidentified sources said to be familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that SharesPost Inc., a private exchange, is trying to auction LinkedIn shares at a valuation of almost $3 billion.