Ashley Kaltwasser is known for being competitive in the bikini division, as we discussed in our 2015 post on FitBabesBlog. That post details many of her 2014 wins, but she continued to slay the dragon in 2015:
2015 IFBB Nordic Pro 1st
2015 IFBB Olympia Weekend 1st
2015 IFBB Arnold Classic Australia 2nd
2015 IFBB Arnold Sports Festival 1st
As insane as her competitive history is, nothing comes close to the sensationalism of her instagram account. She has 501 posts, and 701k followers. Imagine that for a minute. Within a couple of months, I have no doubt she’ll have a million followers. That is some serious popularity.
She doesn’t really do the youtube thing, which speaks to her focus on the popular IG photo and video sharing site. I checked out a short video clip she posted of herself on IG where she is walking up some stairs in heels on her way out to eat dinner. It’s maybe a 15 second clip. She posted it 3 days ago, and it has already been watched 256,000 times.
For many years, fitness girls have struggled to make ends meet. Nutrition is expensive, as are supplements. Competing is absurdly expensive. The entry fees, the costumes, the hair, the makeup, the tanning. Many have gone into personal training in an attempt to capitalize on their lifestyle, looks, and knowledge. But this type of exposure brings a whole new level to a career in fitness.
Ashely is sponsored by a number of companies, and makes money by marketing them on her instagram posts. Smart move by the companies, considering the captive audience of 700k+ adoring fans. It’s like a one stop shop. Instead of shooting a commercial for, say, a perfume, and then paying to play that on various network/cable channels or printing it in magazines, they just slip her a check and the next thing you know she recommends it to almost a quarter of a million people alongside a photo of her heavenly glutes.
12/11/16 Update:
I checked today, and Ashley’s instagram account is up to 719k followers. So she has gained 18k followers in 6 days. Let’s call that 3k new followers per day. So she will need about 93 more days to hit one million if my calculation is correct. If I can remember, I’ll check back in three months and update this post with where she’s at!
