Nicki Renna and Vivi O’Donnell, co-founders of the recently launched women-owned social media agency, Honeyed, say their business strategy is based around helping small businesses use social platforms to grow their brand and their revenue.
“It’s small businesses that want to grow and sometimes don’t understand the value of social media and the fact that you do need a strategy to expand,” O’Donnell said. “It’s not just posting content. There needs to be a strategy behind it.”
Renna expanded the idea.
“Social media has become an essential part of how businesses connect with their customers,” she said. “If a business wants to drive sales and bring brand awareness, they need to have smart, strategic social media.”
Renna and O’Donnell point to Honeyed as a proof of concept.
Launched earlier this year, the NJ/NY-based agency has already begun building its client base, with additional prospective clients in the pipeline. Much of that early interest has come through Honeyed’s own social media presence, demonstrating the same approach the agency uses to help its clients grow.
“Social media has allowed us to reach people beyond our personal networks and introduce Honeyed to an entirely new audience,” O’Donnell said.
Honeyed offers businesses comprehensive social media management, from content strategy and planning to content creation and day-to-day account management. They also offer headshots and brand photography days.
Renna and O’Donnell, 2025 graduates of the University of Delaware, told BINJE that Honeyed continues to grow and is on the upswing. Looking ahead, the co-founders hope to bring on interns in the spring as the business continues to develop.
Here’s more of the interview, edited slightly for space and flow.
BINJE: You two were in college together for four years. When in your journey did you decide to start a social media agency?
O’DONNELL: We actually didn’t decide in college. In college, we were just doing our own socials and creating on our own. We didn’t until postgraduate time when we were both working part-time and wanted to do something more that felt more meaningful to us.
So, we came up with the idea to start our own social media company because we were both struggling to find where we belonged outside of postgrad, and this really helped us because we were able to do it together, which also made it a lot of fun. And it was exciting.
RENNA: We met in the first few days of college, and we were both majoring in psychology. We both switched and ended up being in communications, concentrating in public relations.
We liked it, but I just think postgrad, especially in this economy and everything, the job market’s really hard, and social media is one of the most competitive jobs right now. We were on FaceTime one day, and we were like, ‘Why don’t we just do this? And just fully leap into it and see where it takes us.’
It was very immediate. That night, when we decided we wanted to do this, we were like ‘Oh, let’s brainstorm a name.’ Then we got Honeyed. We thought, ‘Let’s brainstorm some more,’ but we just kept coming back to that. So it was a very decisive thing.
We’re not decisive people, and it felt like everything with Honeyed was decision after decision. We thought we must be making the right choices for ourselves because they’re easy to make. Sticking with the first name we talked about felt like fate. We launched in January. We came up with this idea in December, and we just fully went right into it.
BINJE: How do you guys normally reach out to your clients?
RENNA: In the beginning, we were looking up some businesses that were around us and their socials. We were gravitating more towards small businesses because we know they probably need some more social media help.
We started researching some companies and did more pro bono work just to build our portfolio and have things to post on our own social media to build trust. We reached out to companies on Instagram, and in the last two months, we’ve really decided to utilize our network, which we have found to be the best way to get clients.
O’DONNELL: I feel like clients started coming to us more through our website, which was not happening before. Our network definitely expanded our visibility, where people would see us who had no connection to our network at all.
We have a lot of friends who work as influencers. We knew people who own small start-up businesses who would post, and our first client did a post on her own to spread the word about us. Even word of mouth or clients posting for us is great.
RENNA: Word of mouth is huge in this type of industry when people see work that you’re doing for someone else, and they’re like, ‘Oh, who is doing your social media?’
Even just having clients and building good relationships is a huge thing that we try to do because then they want to go and spread the word about us. We got really lucky with our first client.
BINJE: It sounds like you’re just starting out. Is it just the two of you right now?
RENNA: We’ll be a year in January, and we’re hoping to bring on some interns in the Spring and give some people in college or even postgrad some experience, because it is a hard industry to get into.
O’DONNELL: We also hope to continue to grow our clients and bring people on. It’ll be a larger workload, so having that extra help will make a big difference.
BINJE: I’m sure of that. I was curious, how has your friendship changed since starting Honeyed? What benefits do you see in running the agency with your best friend?
O’DONNELL: I don’t think our friendship has changed a lot. I think, if anything, Honeyed brought us closer together, which I’m very thankful for.
I think there’s a lot of background noise where people are like ‘Oh, maybe you shouldn’t mix friends and business.’ In the beginning, we were definitely nervous about disagreeing. We would never want to ruin our friendship. But, I think being best friends during college, a very pivotal moment, made our friendship so strong already.
We have a very sisterly type of relationship. If there’s something that I don’t agree with her on, I can easily say it. If I weren’t working with her, I’d be a little more reserved on how I feel, which would probably make me more annoyed. I think the largest benefit you get from working with your friend is that you can be completely honest. You can tell your side, and they’ll hear it and receive it. You don’t feel awkward or like you’re overstepping.
RENNA: We already talked all the time before this business, and now it’s fun because we have conversations all day about twenty different things, whether it’s business or personal life.
BINJE: Can you talk a bit about some of your clients?
O’DONNELL: We’re on month two, just starting with Pooch Parlor, a dog grooming company. They were fantastic; they were the ones who first reached out to us. We’ve done two content dates with them, our next one’s coming up. It’s been really amazing.
We started completely fresh with them, so there were no followers. We created their Instagram from scratch. It’s definitely a lot to build it from the beginning and to see those improvements, and I feel like with views, you see “Oh, you got two hundred views, that’s not a lot.” But then you think two hundred people, that’s a lot of people. Imagine speaking in front of two hundred people. It takes time to correct your brain, but we’ve been growing a lot.
RENNA: Also, having such a good relationship with [our client], she’s awesome and she’s given us full creative direction. No micromanagement, no nothing. Every time I drive to a content shoot or anything, I’m so excited to go to work and when I leave, I’m so excited.
And then two days ago, we just signed another client for three months called Say Simon. It’s a dating app for neurodivergent people. It hasn’t launched yet, but they’re hoping to launch it in November. So we’re doing the social media marketing prior to their launch and a few months after that. It’s really exciting, and it’s also a really rewarding client to have, getting to work with people who are creating something to make a difference in the world.
O’DONNELL: I feel like Say Simon will, in a way, be easier because there’s such an organic story that’s formed because the creators made the app for their older brother. So there’s such a good story to tell there. For clients like Pooch Parlor, we create storylines that bring the feeds together, but this one will be naturally able to do that.
RENNA: It goes with our slogan, ‘Content that sticks.’
BINJE: I’ll keep an eye out for updates on your socials! What does your plan for growing your company look like? You mentioned taking on interns.
RENNA: We’re hoping by the end of this year, a year after we started, to have ten to a dozen clients. We’re hoping to continue growing our own social media because we think a lot of clients come in that way if they can see our work and ourselves and our personalities.
O’DONNELL: We just want to continue to grow and help as many companies as we can along the way.
BINJE: You seem to have a diverse selection of clients. Is there a specific target audience you want to reach?
O’DONNELL: Small businesses that want to grow and maybe don’t understand the use of social media and the fact that you do need a strategy to expand. It’s not just posting a cute photo, there’s so much more that goes into it.
BINJE: Awesome! Is there anything else you would like to say to our readers?
RENNA: I think we mainly want to say, if anyone has the idea of starting their own business, don’t listen to outside noise and just do it. We fully leapt into this, and it’s paying off for us. Also, social media is not just for kids, it’s for businesses. If a business wants to drive sales and bring brand awareness, they need to have a smart, strategic social media.
O’DONNELL: It sounds cliche but follow your dreams. It’s what we did and how we got to where we are.
