We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Maria Fournier a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Maria, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s go back in time a bit – can you share a story of a time when you learned an important lesson during your education?
This isn’t necessarily about school, but I learned a lot about rejection and resilience from a young age, thanks to music.
I have been a professional singer since the age of 14. As a performer, you are constantly auditioning or trying to get gigs. Rejection is just part of the game.
The fact that I was used to rejection and criticism really helped me to ignore the critics online, while growing my social media platforms (and there are A LOT of keyboard bullies out there, let me tell you)!
I was really thankful that I had grown such thick skin at an early age and could keep getting back up when things got hard while trying to grow my own online business.
Also, when you learn a hard piece of music, It feels impossible at first. You have to learn to break it down, measure by measure, note by note.
Slowly over time, you learn the whole song. Something that felt impossible at first, just needed to be broken down into bite sized pieces. You just had to keep showing up every day and slowly work through it.
When I decided to start my own online business and grow my social media platforms, it felt extremely daunting. Thanks to the lessons that learning music taught me, I knew I just had to take it one day, one task at a time.
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 am a professional musician by night and food blogger by day.
I run the food blog and social media sites called Damn Tasty Vegan.
On the weekends, I sing and perform for all types of events: weddings, corporate parties, private backyard parties, funerals, you name it.
My food blog Damn Tasty Vegan provides easy and accessible plant based recipes for people that love food, but also want to minimize harm to animals and the planet.
I started my food blog when I wanted more control and stability in my income. I am also very passionate about veganism and how it can help save animals and the planet and I LOVE to cook.
I wanted a way to share my favorite recipes and tips on how to be vegan in a non-vegan world, so Damn Tasty Vegan was born.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I’m a professional musician by day. To make ends meet, I taught private lessons. I was teaching private music lessons at a music store with over 30 students. Literally, over night, I lost my job and all my income.
It was then that I decided I would never put my income in the hands of other people ever again. I decided to start my own online business. My food blog, Damn Tasty Vegan was born from the ashes.
I had been wanting to start my own online business for a while and had been researching how to make money from a blog. Losing my job made me have to jump all in overnight. I purchased a few courses that taught me how to set up my blog, listened to podcasts and began writing and posting recipes the next week.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I love video content, so I chose YouTube to be my first social media site to build. I was constantly watching YouTube on my free time, so I knew I already loved that site. I love filming content the most. It took me a while to grow my YouTube channel. I just stayed consistent. I tried to post once a week, and I paid attention to what types of videos got the most views.
When tik tok came out, that was right up my alley as well, since I could just film and edit all on my phone and in the app. No need to transfer files to my computer.
My advice would be to chose one social media site at a time. Find the type of site that you love being on first and go from there. Don’t overwhelm yourself with trying to be on all the sites, all the time.
Find one site and post regularly. Whatever that looks like for you. It could be a few times a day, once a day or once a week. Just keep it consistent.
Watch what type of content that you post, gets the most interaction and keep making content that is similar to that.
Be authentic and show who you really are. If you’re a big goof, show that off! If you’re super opinionated about certain things, let people know your thoughts!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://damntastyvegan.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DamnTastyVegan/?hl=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DamnTastyVegan
- Other: Tik Tok @damntastyvegan
Image Credits
Maria Fournier