How one YouTuber used social media to build two eight-figure businesses
Millennials are taking over TikTok and the cultural moments | news that caught our attention this week
quick summary ⚡️
How Blogilates’ Cassey Ho used social media to achieve her childhood dream of being a fashion designer
The most searched terms on Pinterest heading into summer, why you should be tracking shares on Instagram and more in the cultural moments and news that caught our attention this week
Will Millennials usurp GenZ as the top demographic on TikTok?
Why experimentation needs to be a part of your strategy
Cassey Ho is all about her audience
Kait Richmond is a writer, producer and contributor to the M.T. Deco Blog
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 tens of 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.
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).
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.”
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.
more on the MTD blog
💎cultural gems💎
The cultural moments and news that caught our attention this week:
INSTAGRAM CHIEF SAYS POST SHARE RATES ARE NOW A KEY DRIVER OF REACH, social media today
“More important than watch time or like and comment counts is send rates, [and] generally, I think the rate is more important than the count.”
TIKTOK HAS NOW BECOME A HOTBED OF MAGA ACTIVITY, puck news
According to TikTok officials, there’s 2x more pro-Trump content than pro-Biden content on the platform.
WHY AI ART WILL ALWAYS KIND OF SUCK, vox
“What happens when and if the AI tools of the future can someday produce novels that people actually want to read, songs that listeners can’t stop blasting, or films that audiences will pay movie theater prices to see? Or, perhaps the better question is: Is that even possible if the owners of these technologies fundamentally misunderstand why people make and enjoy art?”
PINTEREST PREDICTS THE SUMMER TRENDS, AND SOME ARE ‘BRIDGERTON’-INSPIRED, mashable
According to Pinterest’s 2024 Summer Trend Report, most search queries fall into 3 categories: Y3K, Y2K and 90s, and dinners and tea parties.
millennials are taking over TikTok
Despite the belief that TikTok is largely dominated by GenZs, Millennials are moving in. Currently, almost 40% of users on the app are in their 30s or 40s.
“I keep getting served TikToks on [high-yield savings accounts] and 401ks. I believe the olds are in charge now.” - Slack conversation @ Wired
“‘Try-hard’ slang is spreading. Competitive aging is a thing. Classic episodes of The Sopranos are fed to you in polished 25-second bites. Last October, the 2004 cult teen comedy Mean Girls was portioned into 23 parts to unanimous celebration. (Did I mention pirated content is on the rise?) Everyone, it seems, wants to revisit the world as it was two decades ago, of all places, on the so-called app of the future.”
“One tell-tale sign of late-stage social media is the endless vomit of nostalgia regifted in pretty packaging. Tastes have aged, and the user experience is no longer one of giddy revelation—at one point, the only reaction the app seemed to generate among new users—but one of odd comfort. If everything feels vaguely familiar now, that's because it is.”
more from Wired here x the brands who are successfully reaching audiences on TikTok on the MTD blog
inspo
Constant experimentation = key to growth on social media, and beyond.
