Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: Brittney Castro’s Top Tips to Grow Business Using Social Media

When you’re networking in real life, you’re able to ask them to give you a call or schedule a meeting fairly soon after you meet them. But it doesn’t work that way in the social media world.

“If we do that online, it’s so obvious,” said Castro, who is the owner of the successful Financially Wise Women. You want to give things away to get your potential future clients buttered up before you ask for something.

It’s kind of like boxing, Castro said. You want to give them three jabs then a right hook.

“Give freebie, freebie, freebie, then ask for something,” Castro said. She’s managed to grow her two-year-old business to six-figures by utilizing social media, she said, and she has some tips to help you do it too.

Castro’s top tips include:

1.) Determine Your Ideal Client and Why You Serve Them. Why do you do what you do? In addition to knowing who you’re targeting, knowing why you’re targeting them and how you’re going to serve them is key.

“Create your ideal client avatar,” Castro said. This includes knowing their age, income, net worth, marital status, employment, pain and pleasure points in financial lives, what they enjoy in their lives and what kind of relationship they want with their financial advisers. Also know what services they use.

“Once you know who you’re trying to target, then you can create your hook,” Castro said.

2.) Create an Engaging Website with a Call to Action. Websites have to be engaging and have a call to action above the fold—meaning in the first page. “The more specific you can get about this, the more success I believe you’re going to have.”

A call to action above the fold—such as asking web visitors to sign up for a free financial kit—is the one thing people should do if they don’t want to do anything else.

“If you do nothing else but that, it will dramatically increase the way you’re doing social media marketing,” Castro said.

3.) Give Away Freebies. Forget about the old adage that if you give away the milk for free, nobody’s buying the cow. Turns out, the more you give people, the more they want. If it’s good, that is.

Castro gives general financial advice for free, but potential clients get hooked and want it to be geared just for them.

“I get a lot of clients that think, ‘Wow, she knows what she’s talking about so I’m going to talk to Brittney because she gets it,” Castro said.

4.) Speak the Language of the Different Social Media Platforms. Don’t make the mistake of thinking baby boomers aren’t on social media—if baby boomers are your target that is. Castro said baby boomers are the biggest proponents of Facebook and secondly of Instagram.

“My dad posts more on Instagram than I do,” said the 31-year-old. But do not use any platforms your ideal client isn’t using. You won’t get results that way.

The key to the frequency of posts on the different types of social media are: once a day for Facebook and Instagram, multiple times a day for Twitter and once weekly or monthly for YouTube.

Castro said Facebook is more for visuals and story telling. Use a picture every time you post a picture. Twitter is like the social media cocktail party—short, sweet and informal talk on this. YouTube is more for “educatainment”—posting advice for clients or informational videos. Instagram, Castro said, is the new blog. More personal posts to show your clients you’re a real person.

Also don’t use the social media platforms that your clients aren’t using.

5.) Determine with Contact Management Systems Work Best for You. Castro uses Infusionsoft, Hootsuite and iStockPhotos, among others. Do some research and figure out what works best for you.

6.) Your Website is you Hub. Every social media post should drive traffic back to the hub, which is your business website. Your website should be up-to-date and in line with the current trends. Just like you update your iPhone every few years, Castro said, you should update your website every few years.

Overall, when it comes to social media, give it a try, but make sure your website is up-to-date and ready to attract and retain the traffic.

If you’re not your own boss like Castro is. aybe your higher-ups might not be on board at first, but ask permission to engage customers in “real time” like Daniel Meerman Scott discussed in his presentation at the Sunday morning General Session.

“Social media has a negative connotation with bosses,” Meerman Scott said. Instead ask for permission to engage in “real time connection.”

“Start with a no pressure strategy,” Castro said. “Say, ‘I’m not going to pressure myself to do this every day.’” Try a few times a week and then if it’s working figure out you can change what you’re doing.

Ana Trujillo
Associate Editor
Journal of Financial Planning
Denver, Colo.