How Cassey Ho used social media to achieve her childhood dream

Kait Richmond is a writer, producer and contributor to the M.T. Deco Blog

Cassey Ho is all about her audience.

The fashion and fitness entrepreneur got her start on YouTube back in 2009 and today is the CEO of two eight-figure businesses that are growing at an impressive pace. Cassey has millions of followers across her platforms, and recently got a big boost from Taylor Swift, who wore a skirt Cassey designed in a video promoting her latest album.

The “Taylor Swift effect” may have sold out this lavender skort in minutes, but Cassey is no stranger to viral moments. She has worked tirelessly over the last 15 years to build a community that will line up for her newest drops. How she did it is a master class in social media engagement.

We’ll dive into Cassey’s winning strategy shortly, but first, let’s do a quick overview of how she got here.

When Cassey was a kid, she wanted to be a fashion designer. Her parents had a different idea, saying she needed to be a doctor or a lawyer. She let go of her dream and went to school for biology. Since that wasn’t her passion, she started doing something she enjoyed on the side: teaching Pilates. It was the 2000s, and Cassey found a niche by teaching what she calls Pop Pilates, meaning she set her workouts to popular music. 

After accepting a full-time job on the East Coast, she wanted to keep in touch with her students, so she uploaded a routine to YouTube under the name Blogilates. The account grew and so did demand for merchandise. Cassey had been designing yoga mat bags since college, and branched out into t-shirts, water bottles and more.

In 2016, she decided she wanted to be more intentional about what she sold. That was the start of Popflex, an activewear brand that sought to be as functional as it is cute. With the success of Popflex came Target, where Cassey and her team started selling Blogilates merchandise in 2020. Cassey credits the Target partnership with giving her credibility as a designer and contributing to the wider success of Popflex.

It’s a full-circle story: she started on social media to connect with people, and it ended up leading her back to her childhood dream of being a designer.

These days, Cassey is focused on her entrepreneurial journey, and finding success by sharing that instead of workouts, which she hasn’t posted on YouTube in two years. It might seem scary to make a major change like that, but Cassey is so in-tune with her audience that it’s working.

We have some takeaways from studying Cassey’s strategy. As you read them, remember that Cassey is consistent with all of it, which is why her audience trusts her. It’s a big job that takes time, but if we take Cassey as an example, there’s a pay-off.

Authentic Content: Cassey says she uses Instagram and her blog as her diary, and credits that as the reason she has such a close connection with her community. She talks about her wins (Taylor’s video) and her struggles (dupe culture). This also means she sometimes takes the path less-traveled. For example, Cassey has stopped doing brand deals entirely. While they are an amazing way for creators to make money, Cassey didn’t feel that brands were trusting her enough with the content, so she focuses solely on promoting Blogilates and Popflex.

Provide Value: Listen to any recent interview with Cassey and you’ll hear her talk about giving your audience something they need. She explained on the Kajabi Edge Podcast: “You have to create value, whether that is in education, entertainment, shareability. You’re not going to grow an audience if you’re just trying to extract money from them.” Her advice is to just keep trying to help them, and the products that sell will come naturally. 

Community Feedback: What’s the best way to provide value? Listen to your audience. Cassey actually reads the comments and takes them into consideration when she’s designing for Popflex. In fact, she’s going as far as reading the comments on new releases and making adjustments from there. When she released a hiking skort, her followers who hike weren’t into it, so she tried again and made a video about it. They weren’t into that either, so she made another video addressing it, letting them know she was working on it but calling out all of the amazing people who were into it. Not only did she acknowledge that it’s a work in progress, she also gave her community so much love in the process - and showed that they can trust she’s listening.

The latest step in Cassey’s journey is to jump on a platform she doesn’t use very often: LinkedIn. We think it’s the perfect next step for her as she branches out as an entrepreneur, and love her first few posts. A useful deep dive about how different platform algorithms affect the same video? It’s bookmark-worthy!