Name: Maria Fassriner
Instagram: @maryandpalettes
Website: www.maryandpalettes.com
Years of being an Influencer: 3

1. What does success as an influencer look like to you?
Success for me as an influencer means being the inspiration and role model to others. As a beauty influencer, success to me is the ability to inspire others to dare to be bold and themselves. To stay different because we are all unique individuals and to love the skin that we are in. Beyond makeup techniques my goal is to teach about self-love to make the world a better place. So, every time I get a message from someone telling me how they are inspired by my posts, then that’s when I feel most successful person in the world.

2. Would you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?
Extrovert, I always love to start a conversation and I love to get to meet people all the time.

3. How do you try and stand out from other people with similar followings and niches? What makes you different?
I dare to create looks that are different from others and teach the easy way to do achieve the same creative looks. In the beauty industry and the creative sfx [special effects] creations, there have been always some tabus about how to actually make things. I learned everything by trying and errors so I share all my experiences and help people to understand that if I can do it they can do it too. I don't keep secrets of how to do it and I always tell the truth because I want to teach people and leave a legacy.

4. Do you create content full-time? If so, how'd you get there? If not, what's your other job like?
I used to work in an office and I used to sleep 5 or 6 hours a day because creating content and having another job that is not related to your social media is hard. I had to organize me schedules better some weeks i would work all week and then work on content all weekend. But, I am have been always passionate about creating content and learning how to make better content. Till I had the opportunity to be reached by brands and campaigns that allowed me to quit my office job and become a full time content creator.

5. Who do you look to for inspiration?
I get inspiration by everything, music, weather, other bloggers and mostly my mood.

6. What’s the hardest thing about your job?
Sometimes is hard to stay inspired to create but the hardest thing is that sometimes there are looks that can take up to 10 hours of work and putting that in 10 minutes of a YouTube video or even 60 second of an Instagram video is really hard to do without looking crazy and super fast.

7. What’s your favorite image that you’ve ever taken?
The white dragon look. It took me 7 hours to achieve everything hand painted and using only grays and white.

8. Where is the influencer landscape headed—what would your job look like in 5 years?
I believe influencer marketing will still exist in 5 years, but the standards will continue changing, the social media trends will change every day and people want to get to know you more. I feel my work will be a lot more professional and personal at the same time.

9. What has being an influencer done to your self image / self confidence?
Made me love myself more, I used to have lack of confidence and used to think that what I liked was weird or not good. But now I have so much support from others that can relate with me and feel inspired by me, This just makes me appreciate my self and makes me feel I am making the world a little better with tiny steps.

10. If someone were starting out today, what advice would you give that person?
Never give up and learn something new everyday. The moment that you feel down, that will be your test, if you continue you will succeed.

"10 Questions" is a series where Fohr asks influencers, well, 10 questions to get to know them better. Check out other posts in the series here.