We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Leticia Vicotti a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Leticia, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

Looking back, I think most people would say, “if I knew what I know now back then, things would have been easier,” and for me, it is no different. However, I would never know what I know today if I had not gone through what I did. I started my corporate career in 2016 after graduating with a master’s in Marketing and Branding. I traveled the world visiting manufacturing plants to improve our marketing and communications. I absolutely loved traveling, but it does get old jumping from plane to plane, hotel to hotel, when you are not on vacation. That realization came during the pandemic. I believe, besides the first thought I shared, most people can also agree that the pandemic made us look within, and what I found is that if one of my dreams was to have a family, I also wanted to be a present wife and mom, but traveling like I was, I would miss a lot at home. This made me think about what I could do, which I could work from home while having the freedom to manage my schedule to be there for my family. I started studying again and discovered that I could combine my love for aesthetics with my marketing background, and so Social Boom Marketing was born. I quit my job in the middle of the pandemic, August 2020, to pursue something I did not know was going to work, and the interesting fact is…I didn’t have one single client. Would I do it all over again? Absolutely, but probably sooner, and besides starting the business, I would have invested in it sooner, too, because as soon as I did, I had substantial growth.

Leticia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When I graduated high school, I got the opportunity to work at a waxing salon and became an aesthetician as I pursued my Fashion Marketing bachelors. I always loved beauty and fashion, but I couldn’t draw to become a designer and didn’t believe in myself and in my resources at the time to become a dermatologist. Therefore, fashion marketing caught my attention from the beginning. I finished college in 2015, and I was completely lost. I had no idea what I should do, and the lack of confidence in myself persisted. But, one thing I knew. I had backpacked in Europe in 2014 and knew I loved it. So, I packed my bags and headed to continue my education in the continent I had felt in love with. In 2016 I finished my master’s program and continued to feel lost, but now an ocean apart from my family. I decided to move back to the US and started my corporate until I realized I could join my corporate experience and marketing background with my passion for aesthetics. Most people that study aesthetics or any health-related degrees often graduate without having a clue of how to start their own business and/or build their brand, so today, my team and I help beauty and health providers gain more visibility leading to more patients and brand opportunities using social media. We understand their field and have the marketing experience they need to expand their business.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

The first time I would say is that numbers don’t necessarily mean business. As we have access to multiple high-profile Instagram pages, we often see messages in their DMs of people offering to sell followers to them. Yes, I agree that when you go into a profile that has a lot of followers, you can instantly think, “wow, they are big,” but you know what the disappointing thing is? When they have 100k followers and five comments. It screams FAKE and lack of CREDIBILITY. So, the first piece of advice I would give is do not buy followers if your goal is patients. The second is consistency. I don’t believe you need to post every day but have a set schedule. If you can only post twice a week, then make the best two posts you can do. Don’t jeopardize your quality over quantity because you read from influencers that it is best to post every single day to increase reach.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the lessons I had to unlearn is that I no longer had a set schedule at work. It may sound silly, and often people believe that being an entrepreneur is a dream life on Earth. That we get to work whenever we want. The reality is…. being in the corporate world for many years made me feel guilty when I did not start work at 8 am on the dot, but the interesting part is that I did not feel guilty when I did not shut my computer at 4 pm when I used to work as a W-9. Nobody saw the nights I barely slept because I needed to finish something that there was nobody else to do for me. So for me, the swift from corporate to freelancer was and sometimes still is a constant battle.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.socialboommarketing.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/leticiavicotti
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/socialboomnow
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leticia-vicotti-a83745b1/

Image Credits
Raphael Coelho