Web Design Business with Josh Hall

386 - Getting Web Design Clients on LinkedIn with Joe McKay

• Josh Hall

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I’m not currently active on LinkedIn but ironically, if I was starting a web design business today, it’s the place I’d spend most of my social media/online connection time.

Why? Well, mainly because I know it’s geared towards connecting professionals rather than social media algorithm entertainment.

If you’re interested in what’s working well for getting clients on LinkedIn today, my chat with LinkedIn expert Joe McKay is a great guide to follow.

Joe knows the platform, knows the ins and outs and how to practically set yourself up for success rather than burnout if you’re going to commit to making LinkedIn a large part of your social strategy.

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/386

Joe McKay:

On LinkedIn. I think a good 80-20 rule is three posts a week Monday, wednesday, friday. Post it around 8 am or sometime before the workday starts in your local time or wherever your clients are hanging out, and that can be. You can use scheduling on LinkedIn to manage your posts and that can be your kind of mini blueprint for content, because LinkedIn and all social media I think is like the one ring from Lord of the Rings like really, really powerful, but if you spend too much time in there you will turn into Gollum.

Josh Hall:

Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast, with your host, josh Hall, helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love. You build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love. Here's something that's a little ironic, and that is that I am not currently active on LinkedIn. However, if I was a web designer starting my business today, I would make LinkedIn my number one social media platform, and there's a lot of reasons for that. Mainly, I know that LinkedIn is geared towards connecting professionals and if you want to follow up with leads and potential clients and to get to people directly without having to sift through the algorithms of all other social media platforms or those people sifting through the algorithms to find you and connect with you, linkedin is kind of like the directory. It really is online networking in every sense of the word. So I want to take a deep dive into LinkedIn for those of you who are exploring it or want to make it a bigger part of your marketing strategy as well. Really excited to have a bonafide LinkedIn expert on this episode, joe McKay, who we really get into all the ins and outs of LinkedIn, and I'm so excited to hear how it helps you. Again, if you are currently using LinkedIn and you want to optimize it, or if you're brand new to it and you just want to skip all the fluff and go right to what works, you can go to the show notes for this episode, which will have all the links that we mentioned which are going to be found at joshhallco slash three, eight, six. And you can go to Joe's website, joe McKayinfo to check that out. We will have all his links in there and social media handles, including you guessed it his LinkedIn profile, so highly recommend connecting with him. He also has a free LinkedIn playbook. That is really really good. I checked it out after talking with him, so that link will also be in the show notes over at joshhallco slash 386. Without further ado, here is Joe and let's dive into LinkedIn strategies.

Josh Hall:

In to LinkedIn Strategies Well, joe, it's great to have you here. Man, we have a mutual friend and colleague in Eric Dingler, who is the CEO of my agency. Just found out you guys have some mutual entrepreneurial groups that you're a part of and similar. I know Eric is a full-blown digital nomad. You're not quite that level of digital nomaddom, but I think the cool thing about technology and just where the industry is today is that you can do anything from anywhere, including marketing, and I know we're going to focus on LinkedIn. I imagine there's so many opportunities, especially with social media and LinkedIn, to be, you know, location independent.

Joe McKay:

So, for all those reasons and more, I'm pumped to chat with you, man and I go to meet clients and things and I can just pop my laptop in the bag and kind of continue to run my agency and my business from anywhere. It's an amazing time to be alive. So, yeah, really excited to talk.

Josh Hall:

Can you give us just the lay of the land of what you do exactly, Joe? What is your business and what kind of services are you fulfilling for clients?

Joe McKay:

Yeah for sure. So the original part of my kind of solopreneur business and going out on my own was a high-end LinkedIn ghostwriting and content service. I've now kind of scaled that into a small agency serving founders, entrepreneurs who are trying to build their brand and find clients on LinkedIn. That's a key part of my offer. And then the other thing that I'm really passionate about is helping other solopreneurs in that zero up to 100K type range to get going, get more consistent revenue, feel less stressed and get themselves off what I call the revenue rollercoaster. So I do a lot of coaching with those earlier stage solopreneurs again to enable some of the lifestyle that I really enjoy and help other people on a similar path.

Josh Hall:

What? I'm asking this because, when it comes to LinkedIn, I think it may depend on different industries, but what industries are you serving? Are you across the board? Are you helping designers, agency owners, service providers, creators all the above? Who do you serve?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, look, I think typically my audience and the people that I'm serving are digital service providers in some capacity. So coaches, consultants, agency owners, entrepreneurs, you know. I think one of the key value adds for linkedin is you can is the global reach. So, um, typically businesses that are serving customers worldwide with some kind of a digital service is who I'm serving. I also do work with a couple of CEOs and C-suite leaders more in the corporate space as well on their personal brand and thought leadership content around that. So a couple of client profiles there.

Josh Hall:

Gotcha. So I'm going to warn you now, joe, I'm going to be a sponge in this chat with you just because I don't use LinkedIn. I would. If I were getting started in web design today, or if I had my own agency, I would definitely make LinkedIn a big time priority for all those reasons that you just mentioned as well, just with the interconnectivities of just professionals and decision makers connectivities of just professionals and decision makers. But for that reason, I don't really know the ins and outs of what's working well for LinkedIn, which is one reason I'm so pumped to pick your brain about this to see what's working. But I just want to start off with it's probably a very one-on-one, elementary question but why LinkedIn? What are some of the benefits for LinkedIn over Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or some of the other socials?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, look. So I think the key benefit that I see for LinkedIn at the moment is twofold. The first is really related to the professional identity that's kind of wrapped up in the platform. So there are no anonymous handles. There's a lot less, I find, random kind of keyboard warriors and lurkers that are out there kind of muddying the waters. It is absolutely a professional platform. It is absolutely a place to go and kind of build business relationships. So I think it's a logical haunt. I guess it's a logical place to hang out if you're looking to develop a business. So I love that about LinkedIn. If we get a little bit more technical, kind of algorithmically and this is shifting but historically LinkedIn has really focused on serving you content around your network, so your actual professional network, versus like TikTok and other platforms that really prioritize virality. So being able to leverage your network is a really powerful tool, as all business owners will know. Referrals, word of mouth, that kind of thing. I think of LinkedIn as really word of mouth on steroids and it is structurally functionally geared up to enable that more effectively than the other platforms that I see. So they're kind of the two key aspects for me.

Joe McKay:

I also just personally never really got into. Well, I got into Facebook, but Instagram, tiktok has never been a thing. I miss that boat. I feel a little bit more productive on LinkedIn than some of the other channels. How long have you been on LinkedIn? And this is the other really interesting part LinkedIn, I think, is now the longest standing social platform. Others have come and gone, but LinkedIn started in 2000. I probably joined in 2008, maybe.

Josh Hall:

Did it. Really I didn't realize it started in 2000.

Joe McKay:

Yeah, I mean you might need to fact check that, but I'm sure it's well over 20 years old, so very early 2000s, and so most of us do have from some level of 2002. And so most of us do have from some level of 2002. Okay, there you go, there you go, fact checked. Most of us have built a network over time. We've just accumulated an audience over time and so it's just really the place when I started a business was really the logical place for me to show up and just start hanging out, because I've been there for over 15 years now.

Josh Hall:

That's fascinating. So it began in 2002, but it looks like it was officially launched in May of 2003. Regardless, yeah, we're looking at well over 22, 23 years at this point. I did not realize it was that much of an OG. It is the.

Joe McKay:

OG now yeah.

Josh Hall:

So I wonder let's dive into that a little bit, because I can't help but wonder if LinkedIn has a base of folks who were early adopters even in the first 10 years. I wonder how many of those first 10-year adopters are still on LinkedIn. I would imagine a lot of them.

Joe McKay:

Yeah, and that also creates a big opportunity. So LinkedIn historically was like copy and paste your CV and add a photo and update where you work. It was just very much your CV online, I would say four to five years ago. That really flipped to. Hey, there's a feed in here and we can actually talk about stuff other than just like announcing that I've got a new job and updating my status. That opened a massive opportunity where you now have.

Joe McKay:

You know, I think the current stat is like 98% of all LinkedIn users never post content. So if you're trying to get share of voice, you're trying to get attention, which we all are in our marketing. Linkedin is a great place to hang out because so many of those kind of OG users are drifting away from other platforms that maybe have turned a corner Like I would think of X in that category where it doesn't feel as fun as it used to. Maybe they come to LinkedIn kind of looking for a bit of something, a bit of education and interest, and if you can show up there in the right way, um, there's, there's headspace there for you to kind of stand out. I think.

Josh Hall:

So you brought up something interesting there, which is that the majority, a high majority, are not creating content. I, regardless of the, I think my tone has changed over the last five years. I've never been against LinkedIn by any means. I've always appreciated it in the very limited capacity I've used it, but I just never made it a priority. And I think it's because when I became an entrepreneur and look at the landscape of different social media platforms, I viewed LinkedIn as just like headhunting territory or like you know, if you join a corporate job, you have a LinkedIn profile and then you make sure that's optimized and then if you get fired or let go or you leave, you have your LinkedIn profile to help you get another corporate job go or you leave, you have your LinkedIn profile to help you get another corporate job. That was kind of my interpretation of it back in like the 2010s and stuff, and I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling like it was just kind of like where corporate was. Has that changed over the last probably decade in particular?

Joe McKay:

Absolutely, absolutely. Look, there is still a large amount of, I would say, in that 1% to 2% that are posting regularly. There is still a large amount of, I would say, in that one to 2% that are posting regularly. There's definitely a lot of kind of recruitment and, more recently, kind of, I would say, b2b, saas, tech type sales people as well who are kind of filling the content void. But I think the key thing that creates opportunity here is who is on that platform.

Joe McKay:

So, yes, if it's a place where headhunters are hanging out, that's because they're trying to talk to high income. You know other entrepreneurs, business owners, experienced people so there are. I guess it's a high value audience in that sense. But I think the mindset has certainly shifted and LinkedIn is pushing this along with new features. You know we now have a TikTok style vertical video feed on LinkedIn which is helping people consume content in a very different way and it's kind of opening up as a blue ocean kind of media channel. I would say it's actually well and truly open and some of that ocean is starting to kind of muddy a little bit as more and more people realize the opportunity that's there.

Josh Hall:

Well, and something you mentioned just a little bit ago is really intriguing to me, and I'm sure a lot of others, especially now, which is that you don't get the anonymous profile riffraff and just pure and utter spam. I mean my DMs and Instagram and Facebook, and I have a very minimal following compared to a lot of like thought leaders and other industry experts in different niches and, my gosh, I can't imagine what their DMS look like. They they must have somebody who just manages their DMS full time. Um, and then the algorithms and everything else, like I'm just seeing, especially Facebook. I don't know what the heck has happened to Facebook, but I'm just seeing the weirdest stuff and I'm like why.

Josh Hall:

Like I remember recently my wife and I were joking, I just started getting like Indian guys with their cars in cities, like with my feet, was just like I'm like, why am I? Why am I getting nothing against you? That's your thing. Like that's fine, but it was just one of those parts Like I'm like, why am I getting this? I have what. Why? Like, what algorithm did I get into? So there's all this like just weird noise, both in the algorithms and behind your DMS and stuff. That's just. I mean, it's overwhelming sometimes to where I'm like I don't even want it, like I don't even look at my Facebook DMS anymore because it's just 99% spam. Um, I only say that to say it's intriguing to think that LinkedIn has protected a place where it's like real people. It seems like.

Joe McKay:

Yeah, and being able to control who's in your network and have that dictate the majority of the content that you're going to see. That's the real difference. You know, facebook and Insta and the others have completely unlocked their algorithms. They've changed their algorithms to just focus on hey, a large volume of people seem to like this content, so we're going to show it to you as well. Whereas if you're a web designer and you show up on LinkedIn and you're connected to other web designers, you know people that fit your ICP. That then shapes your feed kind of 80% of your feed versus Facebook, where you just feel completely out of control of what's actually going to appear at any any even moment. And if you think about as a marketer, if you're trying to get yourself heard amongst all that noise on other channels, it's a very I can imagine um, and the people you know, the business owners that I work with that have kind of tried other channels. It's a very frustrating experience to just have that complete lack of control.

Josh Hall:

So perfect setup getting yourself heard on, particularly LinkedIn, I would imagine. Is it fair to say that doing video or media that's going to stand out, is there more opportunity than ever on LinkedIn compared to these other platforms, especially as far as video goes?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, look, video has recently arrived on LinkedIn. I would say mid to late 2024 is when vertical video and the feed-based video showed up, so it's definitely an open market or open opportunity there. I'm working with clients a lot more around video. That's kind of become a core part of my LinkedIn ghostwriting and content creation offering is how do we get you on video? So that is absolutely a big opportunity. Having said that, I think the good, old-fashioned text post and I call this, I bucket this as like normcore content, kind of like Crocs and Socks style content, where it's just like it's really focused on. It's not pretty, it's not beautifully formatted, it's not any bold visuals, it's really just, I guess, more pure thought leadership, ideas, considered perspectives, opinions, experience and expertise that is shared in black and white, in text in a feed. I think LinkedIn is a special place in terms of the socials where you can find that. So they're kind of the two things that I'm seeing in 2025 as, I guess, trends around LinkedIn content.

Josh Hall:

For the actual, for the written content. I have a lot of colleagues and members of my community, web Designer Pro, who are really active on LinkedIn and there's a variety of strategies I've seen work for them. Some of them are treating LinkedIn as a place to house their newsletters and to have very, very like deeper, in-depth thought leadership type of posts. Some are doing more like, you know, tweet style posts that are just like quick thoughts. Um, and then I mean there's a variety of other strategies, but those those seem to be like the two trends I'm noticing is like a more sub-stack style, like newsletter written piece on LinkedIn. Are there any other strategies? As far as the text route that's working in LinkedIn, are those two pretty common Newsletter and quick posts?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, look, those are the key ones, I think. Um, the other very kind of short-term tactic that I'm seeing from a lead generation point of view is, um, I think of this as like mini gated content, so you might write a post that says I've written this. You know, I've pulled together this amazing swipe file of landing page templates, you know comment keyword, and I'll send you a copy. This is a little algorithm hack, kind of an engagement hack that really pleases the algorithm. It sends your content viral and is a short-term way for people to generate a lot of inbound interest, I guess, and attention and get their ideal client to raise their hand.

Joe McKay:

Now it's a very effective, but it's a very divisive tactic that we're seeing as well. It feels a little click-baity. It feels a little yeah, kind of bait and switch. Almost. It's sort of it is algorithm hacking, algorithm jacking a little bit, but it's certainly working. And my guidance there is always who's the target audience and how do you, if you imagine one of your actual real-life clients kind of scrolling the feed, how would they respond or engage to this and who are you trying to position yourself as being in the market and how you show up in content? So that's probably the other tactic I've seen recently.

Josh Hall:

And then what about images, carousels pictures? When I'm thinking about social media, marketing across any of these channels and just putting yourself out there online to build your network and to get clients, I think the big hang up that I've always seen and that I'm coaching a lot of members on is they're a little overwhelmed with, like what to do, whether it's focus on video or focus on short text or focus on like more meaty newsletter style approach, blog approach or carousel pictures and stuff like that. Do any of those work better than others?

Joe McKay:

on LinkedIn, so if I think specifically about web designers, a way that I think about creating content that resonates is to give people a tour of the workshop. And so what that can look like and I think this would really apply for web designers is really like raw, kind of in the wild, like screen grabs of it might be a Figma layout or you know a homepage template or things like that that give people an insight into kind of what's going on behind the scenes. That tour of the workshop. This can be a great way to produce content that you kind of just go looking for, rather than having to stare at a blank page and try and create from scratch. You might anonymize or de-identify. You know information if it's client specific or you can't share that confidential stuff.

Joe McKay:

But if you're feeling overwhelmed about like visual style content and how to kind of show a bit of what you do, um see if you can take a snippet of a deliverable or something that's a work in progress and give people a tour of the workshop.

Joe McKay:

I've even worked with clients to extend that to a very short Loom video that's just walking through a Figma layout, some font selections like whatever it might be, palette work to just give people that tour of the workshop, and so I kind of at a more strategic level yeah, that tour of the workshop, um, and so I kind of at a more strategic level, I try and help clients to harvest content rather than create from scratch. So, look around you all the work that you're already doing in your business, rather than thinking of as like marketing, is like this separate bucket that I have to go and find time to sit and create content. It's like, okay, while I'm delivering this thing for someone, how can I turn that into marketing? How can I, um, kill two birds with one stone in that sense, um, and harvest stuff from what I'm already doing for customers and then push that out as content?

Josh Hall:

Yeah, heck, yeah, I could. I totally backed that up, couldn't agree more. I've seen so many web designers, uh, do the same thing where they're like, what should I create? And I'm like, just look at your portfolio, case studies, before and afters. I mean, honestly, I totally agree, man. I like that analogy and terminology behind the work or tour of the workshop. I really love that approach because I think that separates us, as web designers too, from a lot of other designers and ai now is it's like this is really what's working. This is literally what clients are paying me for. Like you're, you know you could see what is actually working. Um, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the um.

Joe McKay:

I'm glad you mentioned ai because I was thinking about web designers and how to help them and I listened to your episode around kind of the functions, the functionality that ai's got and I think it's super easy now to create something that looks really pretty and visually appealing with ai. That's where I think this tour of the workshop that's going to be the differentiator. Um, they're like the finished product. I think web designers typically are always, are often great at like showc, that like the hero landing page and the beautiful finished product. That's an important part of social proof. I think, more and more, the tour of the workshop is going to be that separator. This is where I love looms. This is where I love anything that kind of narrates or almost gives people an insight into how you make the decisions that you make, why you choose certain things, versus like hey, I just prompted AI to give me something that looks beautiful. I think that's an opportunity for differentiation.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, I mean, we've all always been interested. I think most humans are interested in like, how did you do this, how did you make this? I mean, there's so many shows that are massive documentaries and series about how. How did it happen? How do you? I mean, I'm like, maybe it's age, I don't know but like when my wife and I stumbled across like how this was made, I'm like, oh, I would love to see how balloons are made. You know, like how, how does that work? I don't even know. I never thought about that.

Josh Hall:

Um, I think so there's obviously a massive opportunity for content creation of all these sorts on LinkedIn, but I still feel like the true value, prop and differentiator for LinkedIn is the connectivity, and I would imagine I mean I did this years ago when I was in a networking group I would connect with somebody I met on Facebook or, occasionally, linkedin. I did actually use LinkedIn more back then, I just never prioritized it. But is there maybe even more of an opportunity today to be able to follow up on LinkedIn compared to Instagram or Facebook or anywhere else?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, absolutely, because it is identifiable. We can search and find the individual, the person or the role title or the company, the person that has that job at that company that you want to work with. So absolutely, it is one of the key value props of LinkedIn. It also presents an interesting situation because you talk there about all the spam. On other social channels we do see nowhere near as much and it's a different kind of spam. But we do see, I would say, a relatively low bar in terms of what networking and what kind of cold outreach I guess can look like on LinkedIn. Like, we do see a lot of what I would call a pitch slap. You know the connection request comes in and you accept it and then all of a sudden it's like you know the connection request comes in and you accept it and then all of a sudden it's like, hey, would you like 10 more leads a month in your CRM and things like that. So very powerful tool. And I think a low bar is set by some people that are using automation tools and they're just not thinking about outreach in a smart way. So the one-to-one connection piece and like essentially getting into the DMs on LinkedIn is a huge opportunity for anyone running a business, any kind of agency, but you need to do it in a smart way, and the way that I think about that, and doing it in a way that's not sleazy, that's not slimy, is something called present commonality.

Joe McKay:

The most effective way to kind of share with you this idea of present commonality is, if I ask you a question, right, so maybe I'll give you a scenario. Imagine you're going to a wedding. You're going to this wedding by yourself, a friend's wedding, and you arrive a few minutes early at the venue and you look around and you realize that you don't know anyone else that's going to be at this wedding. So you're going to go and sit down next to someone that you've never met before going to be at this wedding. So you're going to go and sit down next to someone that you've never met. Before you go and sit down, you're sort of looking around and you want to start a conversation with this new person that you've never met before. What kind of question might you ask that random person that you sit down next to at a wedding? Yeah, would you like more leads?

Josh Hall:

Yeah, I'd probably. I mean, yeah, I guess in that sense I'd be like uh, hey, I'm josh. I'd probably just start with like hey, I'm josh, what do you do? Probably something to that effect yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe McKay:

So you would like. If it is in a specific situation, like a wedding or one of the you know, one of these random things that we find ourselves at when you're trying to open a conversation present commonality feels comfortable because it's the thing that we have in common at that present moment. So, like a lot of people in that wedding example would say something like how do you know the bride and groom? This is also the same reason we so often just end up talking about the weather, because the sky over our head is like the thing we have in common at any given moment. So present commonality is that thing that links you together with someone that you don't know.

Joe McKay:

So, on LinkedIn, if someone connects with you, if someone checks out your profile which is a really good signal of intent or if they like your content all that kind of stuff that can be a moment of present commonality that you can use to open with outreach. So you might say hey, josh, thanks for liking my post last week, and then from there, once you've established the present commonality, it would just be did anything stand out? I just want to hand you the microphone and give you an opportunity to say something, if you want to. I see that as being a really effective outreach strategy. That's the outreach strategy that I use. So if you're creating content regularly, if you've got people that are kind of orbiting around you and this is the thing about LinkedIn most people are just lurking. They're just hanging out and scrolling and they're never going to take that first step. So a simple one-to-one outreach, as you identified, is a massive opportunity and that's how I would approach it.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, that's a great approach. Yeah, no one do what I did. Please don't do that at a wedding or on LinkedIn. That was terrible. Follow Joe's advice.

Joe McKay:

I put you on the spot there.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, yeah, I'm like I'm a. I can't do small talk anymore. I just cut to the straight like hey, so what do you do? How much? How much do you make at your job? So, with, with, with these connection requests because I'm not active on LinkedIn right now and others who maybe are curious about it is it a closed DM? Like, do you have to? Is it basically closed request and you have to approve that request to come in? So I would imagine meeting somebody at a networking event. If I were to DM them a day later, they'd be like oh yeah, I met, you know, josh, at that event. Is that the way LinkedIn works currently with DMs?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, exactly. So you can pay for a premium feature that allows you to send what is called in-mail and so you can arrive in someone's inbox. But in-mail just is a massive alarm bell of pitch. So it is a gated kind of connection request. It has to be accepted before your message is sent. So I like that feature as well. It just cuts down the noise and the spam.

Josh Hall:

How do you recommend people getting started on LinkedIn or wanting to grow their network on LinkedIn with ideal clients. How do you recommend that they connect with them? There's a present commonality, like you mentioned, but are there groups or forums I'm trying to think of other than just cold DMing somebody? How would you practically connect with somebody other than I imagine? Sharing their posts or commenting on their posts, like other socials, is a great strategy, but I guess what other like hidden areas of connection are on LinkedIn that maybe people aren't thinking about other than commenting on posts, sharing posts or DMing?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, look, I think I mean you've you've touched on like commenting. Is is a big one actually, and so a lot of people I work with that are thinking about taking LinkedIn more seriously. They have, um, what I call FOPO, this fear of posting online, and that holds them back from like creating content themselves. I actually propose commenting as a great easy way to kind of dip your toe in the water around that, so you just get comfortable with. You don't have to create a whole post, but you can just share some thoughts. You can leave a genuine, specific compliment. That is actually.

Joe McKay:

It's very simple, but it's a great way to kind of get your headline, your photo, like your bio, in front of more people. So I strongly recommend commenting as a as an initial strategy, um, whether that's directly on the content of people that you're wanting to work with or just in other, like what I think of as centers, centers of influence or influential people in your space where your client is likely to be kind of hanging out and consuming their content, they can be great places to show up as well. Those would be key ones, and then the DMs we've covered as well. So, yeah, look, I think that's a pretty holistic strategy for me.

Josh Hall:

We've had a couple of members of Web Designer Pro talk about the sales navigator aspect of LinkedIn. So how does that work? That's not familiar to me at all. So, with the sales navigator, does that just purely get people who are ideal clients that you're looking for and then you would implement any one of these strategies, or does that give you a foot in the door to DMs? If that's the case, is it the cold outreach pitch problem? How's the sales navigator work? Have you used that, yeah.

Joe McKay:

So look to be perfectly transparent, I don't use sales navigator on my own profile.

Joe McKay:

Some clients that I'm ghostwriting for and handling their LinkedIn accounts for will have sales navigator and we're using it to really it's kind of a whole bunch of extra search filters and capability that allows you to build account lists, build target lists of contacts and then get really like forensic on who you want to target, so some more detailed search functionality that you don't have with LinkedIn or LinkedIn Premium.

Joe McKay:

You also get the extra messaging feature that's there as well. But, yeah, especially at the early stage, I don't think it's necessary. I think the search parameters that you can use on LinkedIn just out of the box are going to get you 95% of the way there. Sales Navigator is that kind of very high-end power user type experience and is not cheap either. I think it's like $100 a month and, yeah, I don't use it personally in my business because I'm trying to lean on content more, pull tactics, so getting people to check out my content and then implementing the hand-raiser outreach that we were talking about, more so than really getting forensic on like creating a prospect list and then cold outreach and that kind of stuff gotcha.

Josh Hall:

Um, speaking of you mentioned like searching for profiles and stuff. Are company profiles a thing on linkedin and are they popular in any way? Or is LinkedIn primarily like a personal brand almost for every profile?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, so this has a. Company profiles are absolutely a thing on LinkedIn. However, linkedin has recently adapted its algorithm to massively prioritize content that comes from personal pages, so individual creators pages. So I view the company profile as something that again like I don't have one for my agency, my business. It's another audience that you've got to kind of start from scratch. Posting content from company profiles is really deprioritized in the algorithm, so it just never gets great traction. So, depending on the scale of your business and who you're trying to talk to, if you want to have a lens of, I guess, credibility, you might have a simple company profile, but if you're creating regular content, I would absolutely suggest doing that from your own personal channel.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, I was just going to say so. For a web designer who's wondering should I set up a profile under my business name or just me as the owner of the business or the creative director, sounds like the solid strategy which I would say on all social media platforms, now more than ever. I just recommend doing a personal brand. Do you as the founder of such and such?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, absolutely. I think so many creatives and people generally just undervalue their own story and how much people like to learn and want to understand more about them. So, if you are a freelancer, if you're a solopreneur, you know you are the brand and your personal brand is going to be the thing that people want to kind of see a little bit of themselves in you and that's your differentiator versus a bigger agency or a bigger company, a bigger firm. And so, yeah, I absolutely agree that the personal brand is the best route for that.

Josh Hall:

Makes sense too, with LinkedIn being such a connectivity platform. If I were to see a business name in my inbox, I'm going to immediately think they're pitching something or they're just trying to sell something, versus seeing, you know, seeing Jim as a profile or a Sally or something.

Joe McKay:

Absolutely A lot more warmer connection initially right? Yeah, completely. And so that leads me to a question for you, josh. I always try and ask this question because, for me, my business just originated and has always grown on LinkedIn. It's the one place that I hang out. What would you say for your people, your web designers, that you're working with? How are they? If LinkedIn's not currently a client acquisition channel, what is the go-to client acquisition channel for web designers right now?

Josh Hall:

One is going to be in-person, one's going to be virtual. In person it's networking groups or referral groups, like BNI, something that is like a business-centric meeting, sometimes occasional or often ongoing, like in the case of like a BNI group. It is a referral group because it is where people are going to meet other business owners and get and give referrals. So that's key. That still works just as good, if not better, today than it did 20 years ago, and that's how I built my business was that route. The virtual route is typically either if they're not using LinkedIn and using it, it's generally what I found nowadays is Instagram or and this is just from the pool of web designers I'm thinking of top hand Instagram or a larger discovery platform like YouTube.

Josh Hall:

I think about one of my members, sam, who really loves SEO and more specifically, local SEO, and he built his network up dramatically with a YouTube channel focused on local SEO, so it brought people to him without him needing to one-on-one connect in a variety of other areas. So, yeah, those are some of the main aspects, but I mean LinkedIn could fit solidly in between each one of those, especially the in-person, in between each one of those, especially the in-person, because suddenly you could go from in-person and then follow up on LinkedIn and take that relationship virtual without having to do ongoing in-person meetups, potentially. And then in the case of YouTube or a larger discovery platform, if I were taking LinkedIn seriously, I would say if you want to connect with me, you see my YouTube channel. If you want to connect with me, here's my LinkedIn, that's I, I, I. What do you think Like? I feel like LinkedIn is a perfect next step for both of those scenarios.

Joe McKay:

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean I'm I'm a massive LinkedIn advocate. As I mentioned, that's the only place that I hang out. I've recently kicked off an email newsletter, which is which is growing well. But in terms of socials and those kind of mass distribution channels, yeah, linkedin is the place to be for me.

Joe McKay:

I think the other really interesting opportunity around this is like what I love about the work I do with web designers is there's that really tangible like launch moment. You know you hand over that beautiful, like a client getting their new website is just such a massive moment and every client assuming the project's gone. Well, you know, there is this, like I'm gonna go on linkedin, I can't wait to post this on linkedin and I would love and I work a little bit with web designers on this like how can you advise your clients on nailing that launch moment, that beautiful feel-good moment for your client? Because, let's say, the client they get the new website. You know, joshhallco, they jump in. I'm so excited. I've been working with you. Know, joe, tag, joe, like we've worked on this for ages. Here's my beautiful new website, joshhallco.

Joe McKay:

You press post on that LinkedIn post and then you're like awesome. The problem is only about 5% to 7% of your own network, your own audience on LinkedIn, is going to see that one post. So I see so many people, whether they're web designers or just clients, who've got something to share. They're like I've done it, I've posted, I've launched this thing, job done. When for me, like as a you know, as a real marketer at heart, it's like let's never miss a marketing moment and let's talk and talk and talk about this.

Josh Hall:

So keep it going, stretch it out.

Joe McKay:

Yeah, like, post multiple times. Just do not be shy. This is a really key asset for your business which, if you've worked with a quality web designer, it's going to be an important part of your journey. You need to make sure you've kind of saturated that message into your audience. So I think there's a really cool offer there for web designers, like leveraging that great feel-good moment that's going to get you a good testimonial and referrals and that kind of stuff. Say, hey, I moment that's going to get you a good testimonial and referrals, and that kind of stuff.

Joe McKay:

Say, hey, I know you want to talk about this on linkedin. Here's a bunch of little screen grabs or more assets, whatever you could share as well as just like, why don't you post about this three, four, five, six times? You know, here's some content behind the scenes that you might share from while I was building, like I love working on what are those like surprise and delight kind of moments that you can have beyond your, your core, and I just see so many launches. I guess that kind of fall flat. So we post about it once and then assume everyone knows what we've got and that's it, and that's just such a missed opportunity.

Josh Hall:

It's a great reminder because there's weeks, maybe God forbid, months, of work that goes into largely custom websites, and what a shame to just be like, alright, it's live, congrats, okay, move on to the next one and then you're back into work mode. I totally agree, stretch that out. We've actually been talking a lot currently about launchpacks and giving clients actual assets and scripts and posts that they just copy and paste. They could customize it and personalize it if they want to. But most busy clients if you just give them like five posts or offer to do it for them, if anyone's doing marketing or any sort of digital social management, or even just get temporary access to say like we'll post this for you and share it out and tag us there's a lot of opportunity for that.

Josh Hall:

I think it's a great reminder to stretch like when stretch wins out. Oh yeah, very timely too, joe, because we just recently had uh, at the time of recording this our big, first in-person event for my community, and I had the same thought as like I'm not just gonna say like it was a great weekend with one post and then share a couple pictures and not talk about it. I'm gonna talk about this thing for like months probably I'm just going to stretch this out. I'm going to continue to share little snippets and case studies and pictures and recap videos and thoughts. So a good reminder for me, too, that I need to hear like, yes, we're a couple of weeks out from it already, but I don't need to stop talking about it.

Joe McKay:

Yeah, absolutely yeah, that's a great reminder.

Josh Hall:

One thing on that I wanted to ask you about Cadence. Is LinkedIn, from what you know, are there pros and cons to a certain amount of posting? Are they rewarding two or three posts a day? Do they like one post a day with comments and follow-ups? Is it just about something that hits well? Tell me about cadence, with what you're seeing work well on LinkedIn.

Joe McKay:

For sure. So if you're sitting there listening to this and you're like, okay, I want to get onto LinkedIn, I need to start creating content on LinkedIn. My first guidance is a diet, a like a gym, like a health routine. The best routine is the one you can stick to. So there's no point like being there at zero and then going, okay, I'm going to post every day for a month, like it's just bound to kind of the wheels are bound to fall off, I think. So start small, you know, and if you commit to one post a week, for example, build that cadence, get comfortable with that.

Joe McKay:

Maybe two posts a week, I think, if we kind of go long-term, for me the 80-20 rule that has you kind of getting on with your life and delivering for clients and doing all the stuff around your business that is not going on LinkedIn, I think a good 80-20 rule is three posts a week Monday, wednesday, friday. Post it around 8 am or sometime before the workday starts in your local time or wherever your clients are hanging out, and that can be. You can use scheduling on LinkedIn to manage your posts and that can be your kind of mini blueprint for content, because LinkedIn and all social media, I think is like the one ring from Lord of the Rings like really, really powerful, but if you spend too much time in there you will turn into Gollum. And so I'm trying to help clients like let's do the work, let's get the marketing done on LinkedIn, but I don't want you spending your week in there posting all the time and showing up like let's batch it and let's get to three posts a week if we can.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, linkedin it's precious to me.

Joe McKay:

I say this as someone who spent way too much time in the last three years.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, joe's precious is his LinkedIn profile. On that note, the scheduling feature and stuff. One thing I'm wondering more and more and I've noticed this because I do right now currently just Facebook and Instagram are my two social hangouts and I've noticed that if I post to them directly and not using the business manager scheduler or whatever, I get better results. And I don't know if this is proven or if it's just coincidence, but if I post natively to Instagram and then I do the exact same post natively to Facebook instead of just sharing it, they both seem to do better. Are you helping clients with other social media at all or do you see them do that same approach? Or I guess I'm wondering these all-in-one scheduled social media kickouts Are there benefits or detriments to using that versus just natively posting via LinkedIn?

Joe McKay:

Yeah Well, so the cool thing now is LinkedIn has a native scheduling feature so you can use that. I don't use any other. There's no need to use a Hootsuite or any of those other tools that previously might have been necessary for LinkedIn showing up on schedule. What I see on LinkedIn there is this aspect of what some people would call warming up the algorithm, so to speak. So if you're kind of logged in and you look at a few posts and you leave a couple of comments and a few likes and then you like share a post, that typically can the algorithm can kind of reward that to an extent.

Joe McKay:

So but again, like I don't, I never want the algorithm to really drive too much of our decision making and how we show up and interrupt our energy and our flow during the day. So for me, the scheduling inbuilt on LinkedIn does the job Absolutely. What I might suggest you do is schedule your posts for a week, and this is typically my power routine for LinkedIn Go in, schedule your posts for the week, scroll the feed 15 minutes, leave some comments, engage with some people, manage your DMs and within half an hour a week you can kind of be done. You might tip that up to twice a week that you do that routine. But so yeah, I think that kind of covers your question around scheduling.

Josh Hall:

And let's wrap this up with a topic that we probably should have kicked off with a terrible host decision here, but profile optimization. I just followed you on LinkedIn and, again, I have a profile. I just I'm not currently using it, but I imagine you'd probably want to start before we do anything that we've talked about and covered, probably want to optimize your profile. So what are some of the recommendations that you help folks with with optimizing their profile? Is it a good header image? Is it a good lead generator? And email sign up? What are all the above? I imagine if you do too much, it's probably like ah, it's too much, I don't know what to do.

Josh Hall:

How do you optimize a good profile.

Joe McKay:

Yeah, so I mean clear professional photo is the first one. Linkedin loves people, love happy, smiling faces, so it's kind of start there your headline. You know that is a really valuable real estate and ideally you want to communicate as concisely as you can who you help and what you help them with, especially on mobile. There's very little real estate there that you've got to work with, so get straight to the point with your headline. So I think one of the key things and especially if I think about the web designer audience key things, and especially if I think about the web designer audience one of the great things about the profile versus content on linkedin is that it's a. It's a place to host external content. So linkedin will punish in content any external kind of link that you publish. So, josh hallco, for example, the algorithm wants you to stay on platform. Microsoft wants you browsing linkedin, so it will hurt content that has external links. That takes people away. Your profile is a safe space for that kind of stuff.

Joe McKay:

So, whether it's like portfolio, whether it's your homepage, other assets that you've got, use your profile and you've got a featured section there that you can turn on to guide people to external content. That would be the other kind of general principle that I'd look at. Then the final thing around the about section, which used to just be your list of achievements and all the jobs you've had since university. That is now much more. Think of that as almost like a mini landing page, like a mini sales letter, potentially for your target audience. It's not actually about you, it's about your audience and who you serve. I go really deep on profile in a bunch of the playbooks that I've got, because there's a million and one different ways and things you can look at there, so I'm happy to share that with the audience as well.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, and I figure we'll come to that, because you have a playbook that everyone can pick up at joemckayinfo and then it just takes somebody signing up for your email to get that right your LinkedIn playbook.

Joe McKay:

Yeah, yeah. So jump onto my. I have a weekly email called solo success school. You'll get my full like solopreneurs, entrepreneurs LinkedIn playbook when you sign up and you'll be on my list after that, so you'll hear a lot more. I talk honestly. I talk way too much about LinkedIn. I love it.

Josh Hall:

Well, look, there's so much opportunity. So I'm super glad, I mean already we've covered so much here. I'm definitely I've talked for a while that like eventually, once I can clear a little time, I'm going to take LinkedIn seriously. But this one even more has me like, okay, I'm getting very close to feeling like I want to optimize this or at least take the first steps on it. So we'll have that link in the show notes for sure, joe, and I'll bring it up again here.

Josh Hall:

But one thing I did want to ask was what you just mentioned, which is the strikes against external links in posts and taking that away from them. Now, when I think about, like a web designer sharing a case study or sharing a new website, I imagine the thought is to like check out the new website here, click here to go off to a different website. But is there room and how far would you recommend that people post content natively in LinkedIn? So, for example, I would think maybe, maybe, like a few featured web design projects might maybe live on your website and live on LinkedIn. That way everything's there on LinkedIn and you don't just say here's a new website, go to our full portfolio page. Would you advise that type of strategy for LinkedIn?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, absolutely so. How's you can? How house your portfolio on the profile and then, if you are, if it is like a launch moment and you're sharing a new story, it's great to drive people to that final asset. So, yes, you recognize less people are going to see this post, but the conversion, like the click-through, is going to be higher. So take that opportunity and you might even do that two or three times. But I would supplement that with some great screen grabs or a quick flyover video or even a carousel that lays out some of the key pages, so that you're kind of covering this content and, to your point, stretch it out as much as you can, get as much mileage as you possibly can. So I don't suggest that you completely ignore sharing external links. You just take that trade-off Less reach but better conversion and click-through. And then I guess if you're running retargeting or other strategies on your own website, that can also be valuable as well.

Josh Hall:

Yeah, that's a great, great, great point. So let's wrap this up here. Joe, you've got the LinkedIn playbook that you've put together. Folks can sign up for that. I'm actually looking at it now because I picked it up Optimize your LinkedIn profile, define your content strategy, which content types to use, how to write on LinkedIn algorithm lessons, how to comment on LinkedIn outreach playbook. I mean, this is like a meaty masterclass or course here that you made available, so I'm definitely going to go through this. I appreciate that, man. Again, one more time where can folks go to pick that up, joe?

Joe McKay:

Yeah, so joemckayinfo, j-o-e-m-c-k-a-yinfo, and otherwise, of course, you can find me inside the big blue box of LinkedIn.

Josh Hall:

And we'll have that linked in the show notes. So is there anything? While we wrap up Cause I know you got to catch a flight Is there anything that you're like? God, I wish Josh would have asked me about that. Is there anything we glanced over that you feel like people have got to know about LinkedIn?

Joe McKay:

I think we covered the major points. I'd actually I'd flip that to you and say what do you think? The web designer that's listened to this chat so far and they're like okay, there's this one piece missing.

Josh Hall:

Do you think there's anything in that category?

Josh Hall:

I don't know if there's anything missing, but I think we should double click on what we just talked about, which is like what to house natively in there, and maybe it is a a mix of like featured work, like maybe three awesome projects that are your ideal clients.

Josh Hall:

Maybe you have a whole portfolio on your website with everything and you just replicate that natively on LinkedIn just to appease the LinkedIn robots and the algorithms who want to stay on that site. I think most everyone knows social media 101 is that if you put an external link on a post, that platform isn't going to love it because you want to keep eyes on the platform. So that would probably be based off of this entire conversation both profile management, content strategy, where to content when you're DMing. Maybe you DM to a LinkedIn post and don't recommend that they go outside to a different website. I think that's probably my biggest challenge for everyone in takeaway who's using LinkedIn is to like let's see what we can keep native on the platform In the case of like a portfolio. Yeah, I feel like that's what I would do. I would have like three amazing projects duplicated on LinkedIn as case studies to always refer back to.

Joe McKay:

I think that's a strong strategy. You know, the DMs one is interesting. You got me thinking. Dm is another place where I mean no one's going to, they're not going to stop deliverability of your message. So if you are connected with someone one-to-one, you can say hey, here's my portfolio, or I saw that you're in X industry. Here's the last project I did for other people in X industry. Dm is another safe space, so to speak, to get your own external content out on platform as well. So, yeah, good pick up there, that's awesome.

Josh Hall:

Well, joe man, we just scratched the surface. This is great, though, dude, you definitely got me fired up. I know who I'm going to turn back around to when I have some more LinkedIn questions. So thanks for your time and your expertise. And yeah, I mean guys, this playbook, I'm looking at it right now. It's free. There's no reason not to get this. So, joemckayinfo, we'll have that linked in the show notes. But, yeah, I really appreciate your time. I'm so glad Eric connected us. Man, again, I think I said before we hit record, if Eric sends me a guest, it's legit. So I've really enjoyed meeting you and getting to pick your brain about this man. Thanks, joe.

Joe McKay:

He's a good man Likewise, Josh. Thank you Great to chat.

Josh Hall:

All right man. Safe travels, Safe flight.

Josh Hall:

Cheers See ya, well, I certainly do hope you enjoyed that one. My friends, a bit of a masterclass on LinkedIn marketing Again. Show notes for this one are at joshhallco slash 38 dot co. Slash three eight six. That will have all the links that Joe and I talked about and that he sent over and again. He has a free LinkedIn playbook. It is practical, it is no fluff and it's really good. I went through it after this. That's on notion. You can go to get that for free when you sign up for his email list. If you would like to check that out, that link is at Josh hallco, slash three, eight six.

Josh Hall:

Big thanks to Joe for coming on and sharing all the ins and outs and the nitty gritty little secrets of LinkedIn. Can't wait to hear how it helps you. You can leave Joe and I a comment on this episode. Joshhallco, slash 386. So do that if you would, and cheers my friends to LinkedIn. Maybe I'll see you over there when I finally start to be active on LinkedIn. Right now it's just not the big priority, but by golly it is going to be more of a priority for me Eventually. I can say that in confidence and again, if I was starting a web design business today. That would be my number one platform, so consider it for yourself and I hope it works for you. Cheers.