We had the good fortune of connecting with Faith Thomas and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Faith, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
What’s great is that I get to work from home or out and about in the city. Creating that balance between work and home has been easy because I love what I’m doing and because sometimes homelife and worklife are the same thing. If I’m cooking something at home, I can always share recipes of what I’m making with my audience at the same time.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I don’t usually think of myself as an artist but I’ve loved taking pictures in restaurants and getting to highlight their best dishes and even baking at home and getting to share those recipes I think is kind of an art in itself. One of my favorite parts of running @actualfoodie has been exploring how to create content for other platforms besides Instagram. Tiktok has been another fun way to share longer and more detailed recipe videos that get great feedback. I’ve even had the opportunity to work with brands like Banza through Tiktok. And then Pinterest is also great, I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to reach a bigger audience through them and have grown my monthly viewers to over 990k. As far as challenges go, I think it can be easy to get caught up in the numbers, sometimes I’ll compare post insights or wonder why one got more engagement than the other. I’ve fallen into that trap a few times and at that point I always try to think about why I started in the first place. When you’re passionate about what you do and what you’re building, other people will start to feel that same passion. At the end of the day, I post what I like and what I know my audience likes and relates to as well and not what I think will perform the best online.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’m a big fan of being a tourist in my own city, I love finding new coffee shops or restaurants to visit and I definitely have a sweet tooth so places like JOY Macarons, Milky Treats Ice Cream in Plano and Cake Bar are always at the top of my list.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The food community in Dallas has been really great! I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of them at food events and even just grabbing a cup of coffee has been a fun way to connect with other foodies. Also listening to podcasts and reading articles from other content creators about social media strategy to grow a hobby into a job that I love has really helped.