Online fitness and healthy living personality, and “Blogilates” creator, Cassey Ho is living proof that doing what you love – and doing it well – is the key to success.
After sweating through one of her online workouts myself, I can say that the vibrant fitness instructor is great at what she does. She genuinely connects with and invites interaction from her viewers posing fun (and wonderfully distracting!) questions like, “What color are your nails today?” during particularly difficult workouts.
Ho’s positive, inspiring and accessible online workout videos, accompanied by blog posts on her site, have gained her a sizable social media following, including over 888,000 subscribers to her Blogilates YouTube channel and over 160,000 likes on the Blogilates Facebook page. It has also afforded her the title of FITNESS magazine’s Best Healthy Living Blogger of 2012 and #2 most influential online personality by Sharecare.
Ho, who now lives in Los Angeles, is coming to Boston this Saturday, Oct. 19, to do a Blogilates Boston Meetup. Her meetups offer her followers a chance to work out with her in person, and to meet other local members of her online fitness community.
I spoke with Ho, who is just as genuine and fun over the phone as one would expect from her videos, about how she got started, her motivations and her aspirations. Below is an edited version of our conversation.
Hilary Ribons: You have mentioned you spent some time in Boston, and this was the place where Blogilates really took off. Can you explain?
Cassey Ho: Right after I graduated in 2009, I moved to Boston [from California]. I had already been teaching for a while; my students were really sad when I was leaving the West Coast for the East Coast. I just put up a YouTube video for them – it really was just for them. Then other people started watching and commenting and asking for other videos.
I kept teaching throughout my first corporate job. I ended up really hating it and I quit. I started teaching Pilates full time, like 12 times a week. When I did that I also started to blog and YouTube more because I could. That’s how it all really blossomed. And in Boston was where my Pilates career as an instructor got a lot better, too, and I was hired for the first time at Equinox, which I’m still teaching for now in LA.
Did you ever do anything to publicize what you were doing, or to establish an online media presence, or did it just kind of happen?
It sort of happened out of just wanting to please and serve the viewers. I think the fact that I really pay attention to the fans is what helped it grow. I really think it’s all word of mouth … Really it’s all been through putting out [my] best work, wanting people to know that [I’m] just helping them, that’s all it’s for. And it just really comes back to you, if you do it for the right reason.
Would you view yourself as a brand?
I think Blogilates has definitely developed a brand, whether I like it or not. But at the same time I am Blogilates, Blogilates is me. The brand is happy, fun and colorful, just because that’s my personality.
I view myself as a person doing what I love to do and kind of leading this fitness community of vibrant, healthy people.
Blogilates has obviously grown a lot. What is it like now to have such a big online presence?
In the beginning when I was blogging and doing videos, it was really just me, I just edited and I would just put it up online. Back then (when I say back then I mean three years ago), there wasn’t really Twitter and all that kind of stuff. But now when you put up a video, there’s a whole social media force you have to put behind it. You have to tweet it, Tumble, blog it, Facebook it, Pinterest it – it’s become a lot more of a process.
Tell me about your app
The app was something that people were asking for for a year and a half, and it took me a while to go forward with it because I really wanted to make it right. There was a long development process and testing.
The point of the app was to make it easier for you to work out and also to connect you with other friends. That’s why there’s the Forum feature, that’s why the videos and recipes are there.
I think with any new development or innovation, it’s all about connecting people.
How would you like to see Blogilates continue to grow?
I would really like to connect the virtual community with a real face-to-face community. When I do these meetups, they’re so wonderful because I get to see the fans, and also connect them with other people in the area so they can have workout buddies.
Eventually I think it would be cool if I could do a world tour, and teach Pilates to whoever sees my videos, and really just connect people to each other.
However I can mesh the online world with the real world, I think that would be the best.
Cassey Ho currently lives in Los Angeles and is a ‘YouTube Fitness Guru, creator of POP Pilates, and healthy living blogger,’ as described on her site. She designs her own clothing line and oGorgeous Yoga Bags. In addition to her online classes, she teaches classes at Equinox in West LA. Follow her @blogilates.
Image via blogilates.com
