Social media agency / Instagram + TikTok
Free audit
Varmerk/About

Varmerk is a founder led social media agency for Instagram and TikTok.

For DTC brands, local businesses and other agencies. The prices are published, the first audit is free, and the person you email is the founder, Marko Ristic.

Why it exists

Read first, post second.

Most small brands run social in the gaps between other work. When they hire help, they are usually sold volume: more posts, more platforms, a bigger calendar.

Volume is easy to sell and easy to deliver, and it rarely fixes anything. An account that posts five weak Reels a week does not need ten.

Varmerk is built around the opposite order. We read the account before we propose anything, we write down what we found, and the plan that follows is usually smaller than the one the brand expected: fewer formats, a rhythm the team can keep, and a weekly look at what moved.

That is also why the first audit is free. It is the only honest way to show how we think before anyone pays for it.

Varmerk, in short.

What we doSocial media management for Instagram and TikTok: audit, plan, content, weekly review.
Who we work withDTC and ecommerce brands, local businesses, and agencies that need white label social.
How we are paidMonthly plans with published prices. The first audit is free.
What we publishFree guides on how the platforms behave, every claim sourced to the platform's own pages, and independent teardowns of public brand accounts.
Founded2026
TeamFounder led.
FounderMarko Ristic.
How we workRemotely, in English, with everything written down. Email is the front door, and the contact page has the addresses.

Founder led.

Varmerk is run by its founder. The person who audits your account is the person who plans it, and the person you talk to.

That keeps the agency small on purpose. We take on a limited number of accounts, and we say no when the fit is wrong.

That founder is Marko Ristic. He reads the account before proposing anything, writes down what he finds, and puts forward the smallest plan a team can actually keep every week.

Nothing on this site is recommended on the strength of having read it somewhere: a claim either names the page it came from or waits for a test on our own accounts. That is a slower way to write and the only one we trust.

Marko RisticFounderAudits and plans every account and does the work. The person you email is the person doing it.

What we believe.

Five opinions that decide most of what we do on an account.

  1. 01The account is for the buyer.Not for the brand team, the founder's taste or the agency's portfolio. Every post answers something a buyer wants to know.
  2. 02Rhythm beats bursts.Three posts a week for a year does more than thirty posts in a launch month followed by silence.
  3. 03Reach you cannot repeat is luck.One viral post is a nice week. We look for the format that works the fifth time.
  4. 04Read weekly, judge quarterly.A week tells you what to try next. It takes about ninety days to know whether the direction is right.
  5. 05We would post it on our own account.If not, it does not go on yours.

How we work.

The same four steps for every account, in this order.

  1. 01Audit.We read the account post by post and write down what we find. Free, and yours to keep.
  2. 02Plan.One page: who the account is for, what it posts, how often, what stops.
  3. 03Content.Scripts, editing, captions, scheduling. Nothing goes out without your approval.
  4. 04Growth.A weekly review. What worked gets repeated, what did not gets cut.

What working with us is like.

The practical side, so there are no surprises in week one.

Email firstEverything important is written down. Decisions made on a call get an email afterwards, so nobody has to remember.
One shared planA single page that says who the account is for, what it posts, how often and what stopped. It changes when the numbers say so, and you can always see the current version.
Approvals in batchesYou see a week of content at a time, not a stream of single posts. One sitting, one round of comments.
A weekly reviewA short email: what went out, what moved, what we change next week. No dashboards to log into unless you want one.
Calls when they helpAt the start, after the audit if you want one, and whenever something is faster to say than to write.
Access by roleMeta Business Suite and TikTok Business Center roles. You can remove us in one click, and we never hold a password.
Footage from your sideYour team shoots with our shot list, because nobody can film your kitchen, workshop or shop floor better than the people in it.

Who we work with.

And who we turn down, because saying it here saves everyone a conversation.

DTC and ecommerce brands

A product, a store, and an account that posts when someone remembers to. We make it a steady source of product discovery.

Local businesses

Restaurants, salons, studios, clinics, shops. People check the Instagram before the website. We keep it current and make booking obvious.

Other agencies

Web, SEO and PR agencies whose clients ask for social. We do the work under your name and never contact your client.

We turn down accounts that want follower numbers more than customers, anything that needs bought engagement, personal creator accounts, and industries we would not be comfortable posting about on our own account.

The name

Why it is called Varmerk.

"Merk" means brand, in Dutch and Afrikaans. It shares a root with the English word "mark": the sign a maker puts on a thing to say who made it. The agency works in English and for clients anywhere; the name is about the idea, not a place.

That is the job. A social account is where most people meet a brand for the first time, and every post either sharpens the mark or blurs it.

The logo is a V, and the homepage is made of three hundred of them. It is the same idea said with shapes: many small pieces, sorted, planned and stacked until they read as one mark.

The guides

Why an agency publishes how to pages.

Running an account well means constantly checking how the platforms actually behave: what notifies, what is visible, what the limits are. Most of what is written about that online is copied from older pages.

So every claim here names the help page it came from, and anything those pages leave undocumented is marked as waiting for a test on our own accounts, on iPhone, Android and desktop. Those first tests have not been run yet, and each guide says so on its own page. When the platform changes, we say what changed.

If you find something on this site that is wrong or out of date, tell us at [email protected]. We fix it and note the correction on the page.

Editorial method

How a guide gets made.

  1. One question per page. If two questions share an answer, they share a page.
  2. We read what the platform says, in its help center and its announcements, and note the date.
  3. Anything undocumented waits for a test on two of our own accounts, on iPhone and on Android, and on desktop where it applies.
  4. We screenshot our own accounts only. No other person's profile appears in a guide.
  5. We write the answer first, in the first sentence, then the detail, then the exceptions.
  6. We date the test, and repeat it every quarter or when a reader tells us something moved.
We useWe never use
Official help centers, platform newsrooms and changelogs.Another site's claim we could not reproduce.
Our own test accounts, with versions and dates recorded.Third party apps that ask for a login.
Reader reports, after we confirm them.Screenshots of other people's accounts or private messages.

Corrections

When a guide turns out to be wrong or out of date, we fix it and note on the page what changed and when. The log below lists every correction across the site.

Corrections logNo corrections yet. The log starts on launch day.

What we will never do.

It is here so you can hold us to it.

  1. 01Buy followers, likes or views.They do not buy anything, and they teach the algorithm the wrong audience.
  2. 02Promise a follower number.Nobody controls the algorithm. We promise the work and the reporting.
  3. 03Ask for your password.Access goes through Meta Business Suite and TikTok Business Center roles.
  4. 04Show a logo or a result that is not real.Until we have client results we can show, we publish teardowns instead.
Questions

About us.

Is Varmerk an agency or a publisher?

An agency that publishes. The services are the business. The guides exist because the work means checking how the platforms behave anyway, and writing it down properly is useful to more people than us.

Why is there no client list?

Because we are new, and we will not show a logo or a number that is not real. Until there are results we are allowed to share, the teardowns show how we think.

Do you work with businesses outside the United States?

Yes, anywhere, as long as the account posts in English. Varmerk works remotely and everything important happens in writing, so a time difference changes little about how the work runs.

Can I quote or reuse your guides?

Yes. Quote what you need and link to the page you took it from. Tables can be reused with a credit.

Say hello.

A question, a correction, or an account you want us to read.

Contact