Over in Montreal, entrepreneurial #GirlBoss Mariella Katz is running a social media agency with a difference. Frenzr was created when Mariella was just 23 years old, and 2 years down the line they are busier than ever…
You only need to look at Frenzr’s Instagram account to see why they’re featuring in Hopper HQ Spotlight. With amazing engagement and a beautiful feed made up of their client content creation, they’re leading the way for B2B Instagram marketing.
What sets Frenzr apart from other agencies is its focus around one simple philosophy: friendship. Not only are their clients their friends, but their social media strategies are designed to make their clients friends with their target audience.
I was particularly excited to chat to Frenzr CEO and founder Mariella. Since learning that she manages over 30 brands’ social media accounts with a team of 5, whilst also running marketing workshops and networking events — not to mention a business — I am even more grateful to her for sparing the time to chat to me! As a 23 year old woman myself, I found the whole encounter truly inspirational, and I hope you do too ✨
Hey Mariella! Could you please introduce yourself…
Hello! So my name’s Mariella, a lot of people call me Ella. I’m a millennial, I’m half Russian and half Bulgarian and a first generation immigrant in Canada. Although I moved here when I was 10 so I consider it my home. I have a background in advertising and PR. I now run a lifestyle social media agency called Frenzr, offering a full 360 social media service for brands, from content to account management to influencer marketing and events, we do it all!
Mariella Katz, CEO and Founder of social media agency Frenzr
What were you up to before starting Frenzr?
Social media has always been a big part of my life. When I was just 15 I was a beauty vlogger and a Youtube partner. I grew a really good following but stopped after about two and a half years. There was a lot of pressure to be good, to be creative, and it was a lot of work to put on myself as a teenager. However, it really gave me a good insight into the world of social media, personal branding and marketing.
I went on to study advertising and PR which was sparked by my Youtube journey. This led into corporate advertising when I graduated which is what I was really passionate about. I’m a do-er, and I’ve always been good with people and understanding their brand!
When deciding to set up your own social media agency, what gap did you see in the market, and how has Frenzr filled that gap?
When I started Frenzr, the gap I saw was for small businesses that didn’t have the big budgets to pay for social media management but were still creatively open and proactive. They were really the people I was looking to reach, and it was a perfect fit. These days we don’t work with start ups as much as we did in the past due to budget restirctions. Frenzr’s clients are now medium to bigger scale businesses, however pricing can still be an issue because a lot of larger companies have this big budget and spend it on equally big digital agencies that offer every service possible but aren’t specialists in any. Our unique selling point is that we’re a boutique agency, we are experts at social media, we’re flexible and can work last minute or on the go.
Frenzr’s boutique and stylish creative space
So how many people work at Frenzr?
Right now we’re 5 and I’m currently hiring 2 more. We have a mix of expertise but are predominantly all from a communication or photography and video background. 95% of our clients’ content we create in-house. We sometimes collaborate with a client’s photographer or something, but mainly we manage it all ourselves.
Wow that’s seriously impressive in such a small team! So you’ve obviously built Frenzr to be this intimate agile agency – where do you see it going? Will that always be important?
The goal is obviously to continue growing and working with more and more amazing brands. It’s not about the clients with the big money, it’s about the fit. We want to create relationships — Frenzr literally stands for friends — it’s what the name means. I’m proud to say our clients are all people that we personally get along with, and that’s always going to be necessary. I see us being 10 – 20 people working really closely with each other and with our clients to create an amazing community of likeminded people. I’d also like to start running influencer events in Montreal – basically fill events with influencers and invite brands and small businesses along to socialise and create opportunities!
The fabulous Frenzr team!
Awesome. And what would you say has been your biggest challenge as a young female entrepreneur?
Age played a big part for me. I was only 23 when I set up the business. It’s hard to be taken seriously, especially walking into meetings with big brands. They’d seen the work we’d done and were impressed, but then when I turned up they were shocked. I found that I was always having to prove myself, and the agency itself. But our clients have always been satisfied so it’s paid off.
It was a real personal growth journey. I had to start feeling confident with the fact that I was in charge, and not let my age and gender define me. I never even feel it anymore – people never ask me how old I am and I think it’s because once you have personal confidence people don’t doubt you. Anyway, I never saw a problem with being young in this industry, who can do a better job at social media than a 25 year old?
Mariella doing what she does best at a recent conference: talking about social media!
I totally agree, and so must your clients! So what is Frenzr’s process for producing unique content for its customers?
It obviously varies depending on the client, but the first thing is always understanding our client’s brand and their DNA. From there we build on visual inspirations from both ends and put them together into a mood board. Once both parties agree on the vision that’s when we start producing content!
Frenzr stands for friendship, and a big part of that is building and managing our client relationships. We create an atmosphere that is open and honest, and we want to be with our clients every step of the way. If their visual inspiration changes, we want to be there to help them, so every month we catch up with where they’re at and see if anything has changed. We are so flexible and understand that things can change very quickly. If you don’t react in that moment and adapt with the client, you’ll fall behind.
That’s the beauty of being such a small team I guess, you can quickly adjust and change course if you need to! And do you manage and post their existing content too? Or when you take on a client will their content be all Frenzr?
Exactly and we’ve found that’s something that really sets us apart. No their social media content will be 100% Frenzr. We work with over 30 active businesses who we produce content for every month. It’s all about planning in advance and organising calendars for photoshoots and videos so we have enough content for the month to make their feeds look great.
I see you also run workshops to help brands grow their digital marketing skills, what was the thought behind this?
Yeah we started the workshops about a year and a half ago. At that point we were probably starting to become a little bit too expensive for the average person that wanted a consulting session. And it’s hard to get a full grasp of a person’s brand and requirements in 2 hours, so it got me thinking how we can share this information with more people and be more accessible. The first training programme I gave was mainly just because I wanted to give value to the people who were eager to learn and wanted to take action for their brands or startups.
One of Frenzr’s workshops being taught by Mariella
That’s great, so how has it grown since then?
We now have 600 unique students and 3 different workshops: Personal Branding, Social Media Masterclass, and Content Creation. From time to time I’ll also do something exclusive or trend orientated. It’s definitely a different audience to our clients – mainly entrepreneurs, a few uni students, and also big companies who send their employees. The aim has always been to be accessible and highly valuable, so you can come along for 3 hours and learn all of these awesome things and meet a group of amazing people. Everyone in that room could be a group of friends, and (as with everything) that’s what we’re all about!
Frenzr gets great engagement on Instagram and you clearly have a loyal following. What are your secrets to producing high quality content and making your feed look amazing?
Thank you, I actually take care of the Frenzr account myself personally. It really reflects my vision and how I see my brand. I predominantly repost a lot of client work, as well as use it to promote our events and workshops. The number one thing is to really understand where you want to be positioned visually. Your Instagram feed is a window into your brand in one look. Someone’s first look at those 9 squares sets an instant perception of who you are, what you do and what you’re all about. So they always need to reflect who you are as a brand, and I think a lot of people lack that simple understanding. Then you need to be organised – spend 3 hours per week planning, producing, finding inspirations, creating mood boards, making sure it all matches. It really makes or breaks a profile. For Frenzr’s account, there’s creative design and art direction in the photos that will make our feed bright and airy, we have a strong hashtag strategy, and we always interact with customers and followers.
'Your Instagram feed is a window into your brand in one look. Someone's first look at those 9 squares sets an instant perception of who you are, what you do and what you’re all about' - Read the full interview with Mariella Katz of… Click To Tweet
We’ve featured Frenzr over on our Instagram as part of our #HopperHQSpotlight – head over and give it a like and check out Frenzr’s profile while you’re there!
That’s so true, at Hopper HQ we always say those initial 9 squares are as important (if not more) as a website home page! So finally, what social media tips or advice would you give to other B2B companies who might not have a physical product to photograph? Such as software tools or online services.
What’s cool about today’s age, is that everyone has a cell phone you can go to any website on – just that alone is one branding material that you can use in photography. Then it’s about going out and creating these visual things you can post, whether it’s business cards in a cool location, phone screens with the company website on or laptops featuring the brand logo. All of this makes great content and makes the end user see through the brand’s eyes. And it’s easy to do! You don’t need expensive content creation or high budgets to do it. For example one of my clients who runs a coffee shop recently went on a trip, and he photographed his c0ffee cup all over the place with these amazing backdrops. So simple but really effective!
That is all amazing advice thanks Mariella! Really appreciate you taking the time to chat to me. Good luck with everything.
No problem Nicola!
📸 Keep up to date with Mariella and Frenzr on Instagram 📸
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