Fitness influencer Alex Toussaint started out mopping floors at Flywheel. Now he has 105,000 Instagram followers and a partnership with LeBron James' company.

• Alex Toussaint is a Peloton instructor and fitness influencer with 105,000 followers on Instagram.
• Since joining Peloton in 2016, Toussaint's Instagram audience has grown dramatically, increasing from 19,000 followers in early 2018 to 105,000 today, according to data from the social-media analytics website, Social Blade.
• Toussaint uses his social-media clout to promote Peloton and other brands, including Lebron James' new sports nutrition company, Ladder.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Fitness influencer Alex Toussaint got his start mopping floors as a facility coordinator at a cycling studio in East Hampton, New York.

He knew he wanted to be an instructor and paid close attention to what trainers were doing while he performed maintenance work.

"I was mopping with purpose," he told Business Insider. "When I was cleaning outside of the room, I was listening to the instructors."

Another trainer encouraged Toussaint to ask their employer, Flywheel Sports, if he could try out a role as a cycling instructor. The company agreed, and he earned a spot teaching classes in East Hampton, then Manhattan, and eventually Dubai, where he helped launch Flywheel's Burj Views studio.

In 2016, Toussaint was approached by Flywheel competitor and fitness upstart Peloton, which hired him to be an instructor for its new cycling classes broadcast to the company's growing customer base of at-home users.

"I was teaching 20 to 25 classes a week at Flywheel," Toussaint said. "[Peloton] said, 'You can cut that down and get your word out to the people at a larger scale.'"

"At the time, the world of at-home fitness wasn't where it is today," he added.

Since joining Peloton and reaching thousands of users on his bike, Toussaint's online fan base has grown dramatically. His Instagram account now has 105,000 followers, up from just 19,000 two years ago, according to data from the social-media analytics website, Social Blade.

The rate at which he's added new followers to his Instagram account doubled in 2017 from the previous year - when he joined Peloton - and then tripled in 2018, according to data from the social-video analytics firm, Tubular Labs.

As a fitness influencer who works out twice a day - whether it's riding a bike or playing basketball - Toussaint uses his social-media clout to promote Peloton and other brands to his thousands of followers. He recently formed a brand partnership with Lebron James' sports nutrition company, Ladder, to endorse the company's supplement products.

"I try to stay away from the paid-per-post," he said. "I try to focus on establishing long-term relationships and long-term partnerships."

Toussaint promotes Peloton apparel on Instagram, both by wearing its clothing in photos and directly linking to the company's e-commerce pages. He also regularly reshares Peloton members' stories on his Instagram, responds to questions on Twitter, and sends updates to followers reminding them of when he's teaching classes.

For a complete breakdown of how Toussaint and his fitness-influencer colleagues integrate social media into their jobs, read our full story on Business Insider Prime:

Some Peloton fitness instructors have become Instagram stars and are using their reach to promote the brand - and themselves

And for more on how companies are using influencers to promote their brands on social media, check out these other Business Insider Prime posts:

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• Leaked campaign brief shows the video ideas Cash App pitched to TikTok influencers, including 'when you win a bet by doing something dope': Cash App paid dozens of influencers to promote its app on TikTok. Here are the content ideas the company shared with creators for sponsored posts.
• A milkshake brand blew up on TikTok, and its 460,000 followers have changed how it approaches marketing and its target audience: With 460,000 TikTok followers, the milkshake maker F'real has built a larger following than national brands like Chipotle, Walmart, and Burger King.
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