We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marina Mulaire. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marina below.
Hi Marina, thanks for joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
Over the last 4 years I’ve turned my first venture into entrepreneurship as a virtual assistant into an established social media management business and a bridal and lifestyle content creator in NYC.
After graduating from The University of Pittsburgh in 2015, I started my first job as a marketing and events coordinator for an award-winning wedding venue and catering company in Westchester, NY. I would use that experience as a stepping stone in discovering my dream career. Since then I worked in roles spanning a PR firm in New York City, a department supervisor at Anthropologie, and what I considered my dream job on paper — an assistant buyer at Bloomingdale’s.
When 2020 happened and I found myself furloughed and eventually laid off from what I believed at the time was my “dream job”, I went back to my roots in the wedding industry.
I blame quarantine for the amount of time I spent on social media but it led me to my next big thing — starting my online business. Which was something I honestly never saw myself doing.
I tapped into some of my past contacts in the wedding world, made connections on Instagram and started to see my virtual assistant business take off. It didn’t take long for me to realize that wedding vendors needed a personalized approach to high-impact social media strategies and that I was uniquely equipped to offer just that.
In less than I year, I went from a virtual assistant to a social media manager partnering with incredible clients from New York to Belgium, Spain, and beyond.
I’ve molded my business to grow and adapt with the ever-changing shifts — not only within the social media landscape but also within my own life.
2022 was a pivotal year for me. I got engaged to my best friend and experienced another full circle moment — becoming a bride to be and seeing the wedding industry in a whole new light as I planned my own dream wedding.
With my years of experience in the industry — working both in person and bts on wedding days to helping clients market their own wedding businesses on socials — I knew I had a unique perspective as a bride. So after a few months of enjoying our engagement-bliss, I started documenting my wedding planning experience on TikTok. I shared everything from trying on wedding dresses, selecting our vendors, DIY wedding projects, the list goes on and on.
At the time I thought it would be a fun, creative outlet to share ideas, connect with other brides and most importantly document a super special and fleeting chapter of my life. What I didn’t realize is that it would lead to the expansion of my business, brand partnerships and countless other opportunities.
Since then, I’ve created an incredible community of wedding vendors, brides and newlyweds and worked with some dream brands like Zola, Artifact Uprising, and Anthropologie Weddings (another full circle moment!)
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m a social media manager primarily focused on helping wedding professionals create meaningful content on their social platforms that call in their dream clients. I have a very personalized approach to planning strategic content for my clients. I want their content to feel like a true representation of them and their brand so they can attract new people to their community while nurturing and connecting with their current audience. We work very closely to create content they’re super proud to share with their audience.
This was a natural transition for me as my first job out of college was working in the wedding industry as a marketing coordinator for a high end venue and catering company in westchester ny.
I also have another side of my business centered around creating bridal and lifestyle content for my own brand. This started when I began sharing my bridal journey as I was planning my own wedding. I love connecting with a community of brides, newlyweds and like-minded people! This newer venture in my business has lead to so many great opportunities, partnering with incredible brands I love and opened me up to a whole new community of people as well!
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I’ve made many pivots throughout my career.
Over the last few years I’ve navigated a career with roles in PR, wedding, and fashion spaces, which ultimately lead to me starting my own social media business with many full circle moments along the way.
After graduating from The University of Pittsburgh in 2015, I started my first job as a marketing and events coordinator for an award-winning wedding venue and catering company in Westchester, NY. I would use that experience as a stepping stone in discovering my dream career. Since then I worked in roles spanning a PR firm in New York City, a department supervisor at Anthropologie, and what I considered my dream job on paper — an assistant buyer at Bloomingdale’s.
When 2020 happened and I found myself furloughed and eventually laid off from what I believed at the time was my “dream job”, I went back to my roots in the wedding industry.
I blame quarantine for the amount of time I spent on social media but it led me to my next big thing — starting my online business (something I honestly never saw for myself).
I tapped into some of my past contacts in the wedding world, established real connections on Instagram and quickly saw my virtual assistant business take off. It didn’t take long for me to realize that wedding vendors needed a personalized approach to high-impact social media strategies and that I was uniquely equipped to offer just that.
In less than I year, I went from a virtual assistant to a social media manager partnering with incredible clients from New York to Belgium, Spain, and beyond.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I started my social platform by creating a business account on Instagram to market my virtual assistant business back in 2020. I made some early connections with fellow entrepreneurs and wedding professionals but only hade a few hundred followers during the first few months. Starting to post more reels after they were introduced to the platform led me to grow my audience to 1K in less than a year.
Over the course of the next year, I began to get more comfortable sharing more personal things and the bts of my daily life on instagram alongside my business content but it wasn’t until I began sharing my wedding planning journey in 2022 where I started to see a big growth in my audience! This was also attributed to sharing videos on TikTok and growing an audience on there. I found that sharing personal and value-driven connect was what resonated with my content the most. Wedding professionals were seeing how well versed in the industry I was & I also was creating content that resonated with fellow brides which grew my audience even more. Now I have a combined audience of over 26k followers.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://marinakatherinecreative.com
- Instagram: @marinaakatherine
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marinamulaire?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Other: TikTok: @marina.katherine
Image Credits
Olivia Steuer (brand photos)
Rachel Joy Monet (wedding photos)