Driving her passion as a recipe to success – Mehak Dhawan

Mehak, through her undying love for food, propagated to become a full-time social media influencer. Sharing photographs of food, restaurants, cafes and brand reviews, homemade recipes, and more, Mehak is here to build a strong social media presence beyond the virtual space, influencing multiple lives.

The love of food is one of the most enriching experiences that fulfill your stomach and your soul. Such is the story of Mehak Dhawan, Founder and creator of ‘foodiesince96’, a foodie since birth. A dash of passion, endless love for food, and a lifetime of hard work helped Mehak to be the global social influencer she is today.

Like any other food lover, Mehak experiences an endless love for food that propagates to manifest what ‘foodiesince96’ stands for today . But what makes her unique is the undying passion that motivated her to realize it as a profession. Running her Instagram and Facebook page since July 2016, she has been a testimony to the evolving food blogging industry and how it has taken an upswing in the last few years.

She started her journey back in 2016 when she casually posted food photographs, as a natural drive of her passion. Such was also the time to witness an evolution of food applications, such as ‘Zomato,’ ‘Swiggy,’ and more. Procuring constant support of family, it was during her Masters’ that she finally took it up as her profession. Running a team with fellow foodies, Mehak is a full-time social media influencer today, inspiring lives more than one.

Unlike what it was a few years ago, today, social influencer marketing boasts popularity and significance of an unusual nature. It is very distinct to the primitive stage of the yesteryears. With the changing time, more and more bloggers are evolving, and so are brands willing to invest in the influencers for their promotion.During the initial years of her journey, it was all about the number game, keeping a constant check of the evolving number of followers. From reaching small milestones of 100 followers to 10,000, and today with a family of 254K followers and growing, ‘foodiesince96’ is indeed one of the trending pages on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. However, in the present times, the approach has changed with the constant need to interact with followers to develop a relationship beyond the virtual space. Along with this, the ever-changing algorithms of social media pages require influencers to stay atop the game by building several social media strategies. Moreover, with people looking up to her, the need to keep at the forefront of her business increases, constantly upgrading virtual communication skills and delivering content beyond extraordinary. 

The recent wake of the pandemic, Covid-19, became the biggest challenge for everyone, especially for food bloggers like Mehak. With restaurants and cafes shutting down, producing new content became a hurdle. It gave rise to creating and delivering content based upon homemade food, recipes, etc. However, the month of August witnessed a steady movement with brands opening up their business.
Working with 75+ brands until now, Mehak is hugely optimistic about the futuristic opportunity that the industry holds. Being asked about the future, Mehak says, ‘the beauty of the field is the individuals of varying ages, backgrounds and professions exploring their passion and strengthening the field even further, and hence food blogging and social influencer marketing is here to stay!’Today, after spending more than four years in the field, Mehak is more confident about the promising future than ever before. Being passionate about her love for food, Mehak intends to inspire fellow foodies like her to follow their passion and realize their dreams to glory.