Listen to your audience, says Blogilates founder Cassey Ho.
Cassey Ho’s first YouTube pilates video was made for her close friends when she left college in 2009. Six years later Cassey’s YouTube channel – Blogilates – is the largest female fitness channel on YouTube.
It has spawned a successful merchandise programme and over 100 instructors teach her POP pilates classes in gyms all over America. Cassey gave the keynote address on the first day at BLE in 2015.
YouTube’s viewing statistics are staggering – a billion users watching hundreds of millions of hours of YouTube videos every day. The number of hours people spend watching videos on YouTube has increased by 60% year on year. It’s no wonder that this platform has given rise to a new breed of celebrity – the vlogger (video blogger) or YouTuber. And YouTubers, like Cassey Ho, are making a serious business out of YouTube.
Cassey attributes her success with Blogilates to a number of factors, but one of the most important is listening to her fans and building a relationship with the community.
“With YouTube you build a real relationship with people,” says Cassey. “They comment on your videos, post their own photos on Instagram and really feel part of it. I’ve always listened to my fans. If they say they want a total butt work out, then I do a total butt work out. It’s so important to be real, you can’t be fake as the fans will know and they’ll turn off.”
Over the years Cassey has developed a successful merchandising programme with over 200 SKUs available from her online shop, www.ogorgeous.com and a few retail boutiques.
“Fans started asking me about Blogilates products, so we started looking into it,” says Cassey. “That was a bit of an eye-opener as well. Our first yoga bags we had from a supplier in China were far from perfect – the zips all fell off! We learnt very quickly about the importance of quality control.”
Earlier in 2015 Cassey partnered with US health club, 24 Hour Fitness, to bring her POP pilates classes into 400 gyms around the US. “This is really exciting for the brand, bringing my workouts into the gym,” says Cassey. “24 Hour Fitness will also stock the Blogilates yoga mats and water bottles. We’re also looking at taking the POP pilates classes to gyms in Canada and Australia.”
Cassey’s top tips for YouTube success:
- Be consistent – upload content on a regular basis.
- Listen to the community, but don’t let negative comments get you down.
- Stay true to yourself.
- Sometimes you can give too much content for free and it devalues the brand – some things are worth paying for.
Find out more about Cassey Ho and Blogilates at www.blogilates.com and watch Cassey’s videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/blogilates.
