Females First: Meet Amy
As part of my ongoing series, this week we speak with Amy, who’s a brand marketer with a baking blog on the side!
Introduction
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Amy Meegan, I am a brand marketer working in a global organisation specialising in medical nutrition. On the side, I am the founder and face behind the blog The Baking Nutritionist.
What is the best part of what you do?
I enjoy both my 9-5 and my side-hustle in different ways, however, what is common between both is the ability to express my creativity through content creation, design and copywriting. Moreover, The Baking Nutritionist is first and foremost a food blog which by default means I need to cook and bake lots of dishes and I ain’t complaining about that, nor is my family or my housemate.
How did you get to where you are today?
Growing up, I always had a grá for baking. However, I was a typical fussy eater, refusing the vegetables in favour of baked beans up until the age of 16. After that, I became aware of all of the wonderful foods out there and decided to further my education in that field by studying BSc Human Nutrition in UCD from 2012-2016. In that time, I completed a 10-month placement in Nutricia Ireland as part of the medical affairs team. I knew then that medical nutrition was 100% for me and have never left since! I worked part-time until I got my degree and then pivoted from medical affairs to marketing and haven’t looked back, six years later.
The Baking Nutritionist actually started as an Instagram account called Noble Nutrition. I cringe at the name now! Only when I got my final year results did I change my name to The Baking Nutritionist and started sharing recipes on Facebook. With the support of Vicky Shilling and the need for a post-breakup distraction, I launched my website at the end of 2018, sharing not only recipes now but science-backed nutrition content, my annual reading challenge plus TV and podcast recommendations.
All in all, The Baking Nutritionist was a pipedream for many years and finally, in the last two years, I’ve watched it launch, bloom and grow beyond my expectation.
What did you find to be the most challenging?
The greatest challenge I face is my own Imposter Syndrome. Both in the 9-5 and with The Baking Nutritionist, I regularly struggle to see my own self-worth and constantly compare my worth with that of others, without fully understanding the other person’s background, experience, time in the job, etc.
In my 9-5, I can overcome this by having a coffee and a chat with my mates to talk out my, often irrational, concerns. However, with The Baking Nutritionist, it isn’t so straight-forward. Instagram is there showing the highlight reel of other bloggers with the thousands of followers and the hundreds of comments on every post. It is very easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole of comparison, and I believe I say that on behalf of most other bloggers and entrepreneurs.
How do I get over the Imposter Syndrome and comparison conversations in my head? I regularly go to my blog and look at my own stats. I look at the tiny amount of engagement I had in the first few weeks and I look at where I am now. My advice to similar creative in the micro-blogging space is to compare yourself with where you started not with other people.
Communication & Social Media
What have you found is the best way to engage with your followers?
My followers love new content. They’re not too specific to it being sweet, savoury or an opinion piece, they just want something new. I aim to share a new recipe every week and a new opinion or recommendation article every month. If I see stats slumping and I don’t have time to create something new, I repurpose with the old reliable - Brown Soda Bread. It’s been the most popular recipe on my blog this year!
What do you think has led to your success on social media?
I have had slow and steady growth on social media. I use Instagram and Facebook mainly, with a little bit of Twitter but I don’t find my followers are so engaged with the latter. I am very natural online, how I represent myself behind the screen is how you’ll find me in real life.
While I share the staged food pictures on my grid, I regularly share the fails in my stories to remind people that NOBODY IS PERFECT.
I also share personal content too to help bring personality to my brand, e.g. what I’m doing at the weekend, where I’m exploring, what I’m reading, what I’m wearing, etc. There are definitely conflicting opinions about whether you should focus solely on your niche but I enjoy sharing beyond that and to me, my enjoyment is more important than how quickly the follower numbers grow.
What is your favourite aspect of sharing your recipes with people?
I feel so humbled when people share their versions of the recipes with me. To know that people are actually going into the kitchen and baking or cooking my recipes is like a big virtual hug for me. I feel there are too many people in the country who can’t cook and if I can be a helping hand in changing that then I will feel like I’ve done a good job.
Have you found any trends in particular that people seem to resonate with more than others?
Unfortunately, people always buy into the latest media headlines and this is no new phenomenon. However, with my background in science, I cannot share content that I don’t believe in for the sake of a few likes. Therefore, I bake with butter and sugar, I add salt to my savoury dishes, I don’t avoid any foods or food groups and people seem to find that refreshing.
I have been approached by brands in the past that have not aligned with my values and beliefs and I’ve politely rejected the offers. I don’t even know how my followers would react if I started pushing “healthy pills” or “slimming smoothies” at them. They’d probably unfollow me and I wouldn’t blame them!
The Gender Question
Have you ever noticed you're treated differently to males in your industry?
In the food and health blogging space, I think males sometimes get more attention because society still thinks it’s “so lovely” to see a man in the kitchen and it’s just normal to see a girl cooking and baking. The food and health space online is more female dominated and therefore when a male comes in it’s like new blood to the public. Something that I am aware of but try not to let it bother me.
Do you know the ratio of male to females in your industry?
I’m not sure of exact figures but it feels to me more female dominated in the food, health and wellness space, with more males infiltrating as you move into the personal training, fitness space.
When it comes to subconscious bias, do you have any ideas as to how we can combat it?
I believe as a society, we need to forget about people’s gender. We need to stop praising women for taking “men’s jobs” and men for taking “women’s jobs”. There’s a huge amount of work to be done and there are a lot of people who will unfortunately never change their mindset. However, I believe that we have the opportunity to educate children and young people. These are the people who are going to shape the further that we 20- and 30-somethings will create. We need to ensure that they are not blinded by this notion of gender-specific roles.
What advice do you have for young women entering this industry?
The best advice I can give is for young women to just go for it. Don’t overthink the what-might-happen and the what-if. I procrastinated launching my website for years because I felt I didn’t have enough followers, I didn’t have enough content, I didn’t have enough time, I didn’t have the right experience. These were all excuses.
This really worked for me. If you find yourself making excuses, write down those excuses and think really long and hard about what the worst possible outcome could be. In reality, the worst possible outcome won’t even be bad.
Secondly, I would advise against comparing yourself to similar bloggers/entrepreneurs in your field. Yes, look up to them for inspiration and guidance and ideas but don’t compare you as a start-up to someone who’s been working for the past five years. That’s comparing bananas with pears - silly.
Thirdly, I would recommend having a mentor, coach or similar that you can be accountable to and who you can express your concerns and ideas too. The worst thing you can do as a solo-worker is to ruminate, that’s just counter-productive. Find someone who’ll give advice when asked for it, listen when required and give you a hug when you need it.
When I launched The Baking Nutritionist initially, I didn’t link it to my own name or share it on personal social media channels. I was terrified of what my friends and family would think of me. I was petrified for the criticism that they’d give. I was totally overthinking.
In reality, when you’re starting out, your family and friends are the people you NEED to be sharing your content with. They are the people who’ll give you a supportive like and share and help you get your blog/website/company off the ground in those first few weeks and months. The people who criticise you generally are the people who are jealous of your success, courage and determination.
If I could change one thing, I’d have introduced my family and friends to my blog much earlier on. They all know about it now and are beyond supportive. I can’t imagine trying to still do it as a faceless blogger.
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If you want to follow Amy you can do so on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. If you want to read the rest of the blogs in this series, you can find them here.