From the Gold Coast to the Global Feed

How influencer Ashton Wood turned authenticity, travel and creativity into a thriving international social media career.

With a combined 762,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok, plus more than 130,000 YouTube subscribers who have viewed her content almost 8 million times, Ashton Wood is one of the Gold Coast’s biggest social media influencers.

While not in the same league as the likes of Tammy Hembrow, who boasts 16.7 million followers on Instagram alone, Ashton is a significant force in the crowded and ultra-competitive influencer sphere, with modelling an added string to her bow.

Ocean Road recently caught up with the London-based,Gold Coast-born and raised social media success story by phone from Bali, where her latest jet-setting content creation travels had taken her.

We’re chatting to the petite brunette from her luxury clifftop villa at Uluwatu but unlike the sun-soaked, bikini-clad images of her and her posse of influencer friends she posted earlier in the week, the weather today is less than idyllic.

The interview had been scheduled for the previous day, but torrential rain triggered fierce flooding, forcing the girls and their boyfriends to move villas then and there.

“The villa we were in just couldn’t take any more rain,” Ashton says.

“It really is rainy season here right now, and it’s not messing about. Normally, you can get a bit of sun during the day and it rains at night, but this has apparently been one of the worst wet seasons in a decade or something. I probably won’t do it again.”

First-world problems, to be sure, but also proof that the life of an influencer isn’t always as postcard-perfect as those carefully curated images would suggest.

Ashton grew up on the Goldy, where she attended Ashmore State primary school, and nearby Aquinas College  for her secondary education.

“I grew up doing a lot of dancing. I danced for 12 years, so that was kind of my hobby as a young girl,” she recalls.

“I did ballet, jazz, contemporary, hip-hop – all of it. I performed in eisteddfods and all the dance competitions and loved it. Me and my best friend at the time both danced and we managed to get dance as a subject at both primary and high school. We  actually had meetings with the principals and fought for it, and it’s been a program ever since.”

Ashton’s mother also got her into modelling from an early age, and she signed with prominent Brisbane Agency when she was about 15.

“I didn’t really love modelling when I was that young,” she confides.

“It’s a bit very scary when you’re a teenager going straight into modelling, and it wasn’t good for my mental health at that time. I think a lot of the industry, especially back then, was very intimidating. I feel like you had a lot of older women who were just kind of talking down to you.

“Their language was not very nice. They were just kind of condescending. And I just don’t think it’s a very nice environment for a young girl who has big dreams. They were like ‘yeah, you’re never going to make it (as a model)’.

“But I think a lot has changed for the better and I feel like I enjoy modelling a lot more because I’m not getting booked as just an e-com model, I’m getting booked as me, if that makes sense.”

After leaving school, Ashton tried her hand at acting, taking courses and doing  TV extra work.

“I had braces when I was 18, so when I came out of school, I wasn’t feeling the most confident,” she says.

“I didn’t continue the acting for too long. I think I did it for maybe two years, and then I was kind of like, yeah, I don’t know. It seemed really competitive.”

Ashton then worked in “a whole bunch of jobs”, including retail and even telemarketing. She went on to study journalism at Griffith University and later UTS in Sydney, where she moved at the age of 21. But despite interning at Sunrise, and the lure of a potential career in front of the camera, she decided that TV wasn’t for her.

“Back then at least, I was a bit of a shy person and the idea of prying into other people’s lives and hustling  for a story wasn’t what I had envisioned when I started my degree,” she says.

“And I was like, ‘you know what? That’s not for me. I actually don’t like being in an office and working traditional 9-5 hours. So I quit my degree and just started posting on social media organically, and it just popped off. I started getting followers.

“It wasn’t really a thing  where you were getting paid (for posts) yet at the time. This was 2015, 2016, something like that. And I would just post what I would do on the weekend.

“I was very much an adventurous person, so I might do a road trip to Byron, and then I’d post  my picnic down on a hill, or I would, I don’t know, just post all little things that I was doing on my time off in between work. And yeah, it just kind of organically grew.”

Ashton was also friends with controversial early influencer Kurt Coleman, who first made a name for himself for his over-the-top use of tanning products, fillers and Botox.

“He (Kurt) was blowing up (on social media) at the time and we helped each other with followers, just shouting out,” she remembers.

“Back then, if you shout someone out, you’d get a thousand followers or more overnight. It was so different. And then it wasn’t until about 2017 that I started to take it a bit more seriously and was like, wait a minute, I started to get some job offers. It wasn’t that much money back then. It was like 200 bucks for a post, but I was like, hell yeah, that’s half my paycheck for the week at this point.”

Ashton was working as a receptionist at the time for dental company HiSmile, and would get up early to shoot some content before heading to work, steadily building herself a social media profile.

After moving to Sydney in 2018, she signed with talent management giant IMG’s Engage digital platform that allows brands to directly book influencer campaigns. When her following expanded into the hundreds of thousands, she was taken on by IMG Talent, which represents high-profile individuals including sport , entertainment and social media stars.

She and then best friend, Cartia Mallan, had a succesful podcast together, for a number of years, “just sharing our life experiences and giving advice”.

“People would write questions in and we would give them advice,” Ashton says.

“And we were just very open about our own challenges and how we navigated them as 20- something year olds. And yeah, it was pretty successful at the time. We ran it for a couple years and then the friendship ended. So we ended the podcast and we also had a bunch of brands together, which we ended as well.”

The public bust-up between the besties came as they were about to launch a new matcha brand.

“We’d been working on the brand for a year and a half, we’d already bought stock and developed the website, but then decided that we needed to go our separate ways,” Ashton says.

 “It was a tough thing to navigate because obviously people started speculating things, people were very desperate to create a narrative and she even was feeding into a narrative that wasn’t completely true and wanted to victimise herself. So yeah, it was pretty traumatic. Definitely a learning lesson, for sure – you know, take the good times and leave the bad times.”

But it’s been onwards and upwards  ever since for Ashton, who is now a powerhouse influencer travelling to some of the world’s most exotic locales promoting brands including Dior Beauty, Carolina Herrera, Summer Fridays, Kevin Murphy, Kurt Geiger, active wear companies CSB and  Bo+Tee, H&M, ASOS, Hilton and W hotels and Dubai’s Atlantis Royal.

She also models selectively for brands including Natalie Rolt, often collaborating on collections that align with her style.

“The thing I love about modelling is you get to clock on and clock off for the day. You go in, you do your shoot and then you leave and you don’t have to think about it,” she observes.

“Whereas influencing feels like a little bit more 24/7, you don’t really clock off. Even when you’re doom scrolling, you’re like, ‘Oh, I like that. I’m taking inspo for that’. You’re always just thinking about your jobs and what you need to do.

“You just feel like it’s a bit more of a rat race. You need to constantly make sure you’re staying relevant, keeping up, doing the most you can to stay in the rat race.

“But honestly, I do love it. I can’t complain. I do love having a creative outlet and constantly feeling inspired and stuff. So I love the mixture of both modelling and influencing too. It just keeps it balanced and you never really get sick of it.”

Ashton reveals that influencers of her ilk can earn between $4000 and more than $13,000 a post.

“I have an Australian agency and I have a UK agency. So when I’m in the UK, I’m getting (paid in) pounds (sterling), which is amazing,” she says.

“In Australia, the budget’s definitely lower than the rest of the world. So my Australian earnings would probably be anywhere between $4000 to maybe $7000 for a post, depending on the requirements and the usage. And then in London, it can range anywhere from 3000 pounds up to probably 7000 pounds as well – but that’s almost double when you convert it to Australian dollars, so it’s pretty good!”

With actual and would-be influencers jostling for eyeballs at every scroll, I ask Ashton how difficult it is to make a lucrative living these days in the over-crowded space.

“Back when I started, Instagram was obviously the main platform to build an audience on and to grow on, and it was kind of easier because it was less saturated,” she says.

 “But now I feel like it is a bit harder to grow on Instagram if you’re not staying consistent. And I think the key to Instagram is there’s two sides to it. It’s either you’re this aesthetic kind of influencer who is aesthetic with fashion and beauty and maybe travel lifestyle – the kind that inspires people with your posts –  or you’re more of a voice online and you’ve got this really strong community because you’re talking about body positivity, mental health, politics or whatever.

 “I feel like there’s kind of two sides to Instagram where you can really hone in on your niche and grow an audience. But it just comes down to, and I know it sounds cliche,  staying true to yourself. People are going to follow you if they relate to you. And if you are being yourself, then that’s the quickest and fastest way to grow a following on any platform, in my opinion.”

Ashton believes TikTok is now superseding Instagram as a quicker way to grow a fan base.

“With Instagram, you’re obviously following people and your feed is only your following page mostly. People are mostly watching stories that they follow and watching their grid posts. Whereas TikTok has a ‘for you’ page, which I feel like 99% of people I know just mainly watch. And obviously we know that anyone can end up on a ‘for you’ page, and the possibilities are endless. You’re getting put in front of so many celebrities on TikTok. You’re just getting put in front of anyone and everyone’s face, so I feel like you’ve got such an advantage to figure out your niche and really grow your following.

“But you’ve just got to post consistently. That’s probably my best advice. You can make so much money off social media. The most money I’ve ever made is from social media, although it’s probably not a long-term career. I’m in my 30s now and I think when I have kids and stuff, my content will obviously change a bit. And I think I probably won’t be as online as much. So I definitely will be looking into different streams of income, like investing or a business and stuff like that.

“But I think if you’re young and you’re at uni and you have all these other things you’re doing, but you just want to try it (social media monetisation) out, there’s no harm. I know so many people who are studying law or studying to be a doctor or some other really very, very intelligent job and then they blow up on TikTok and they put their degree to the side because they’re like, ‘well, I’m actually making more money from this than I would actually even be doing the job’.

“If you’re like, say, a surgeon, that’s such a high-intensity, demanding job. Whereas this job (influencing) is so fun and light and easy and you can probably make more money on social media than honestly some surgeons. It’s crazy.”

Then there are the perks of the job, including travelling and being able to work from anywhere in the world with decent wi-fi.

“I feel like this job is perfect for me right now,” Ashton says.

 “I love travelling, and I get to work from pretty much wherever I am in the world. I just can get packages sent there and shoot the content and just have the choice to say yes or no to align with brands that I feel like align with me and my brand and values and stuff. And just being able to do it with my best friends. All of my best friends, we all knew each other before we were in this content-creating space and we all get to do it together. And I think that’s the greatest thing ever. It’s a dream that I get to work with my friends all the time.

“I just am so glad I listened to my intuition. I’m not going to lie – I don’t know how I got through half my life financially with taking risks and sacrificing and even moving to Sydney, moving to London, I didn’t really have the financial stability to do that at the time, but I always would risk it and be like ‘it’ll work out’.

“And I’m so glad I did because money comes and goes and I feel like time, once it’s gone, it’s gone, and you just have to make the most of it. I think in order to get to where you want to be, you have to take risks. And even though it’s scary, you get to learn either that’s something you want or you don’t want, and it gets you closer to where you do want to be.

“I feel like there’s so much pressure when you’re in high school, like, ‘What do you want to do? What do you want to be? What’s your career?’ And it’s so hard to know what you want to do at that age. You don’t know anything about the world really. And you have such a different idea of what jobs are.

“But I do think that you need to listen to your intuition. If you have a hobby or a passion, figure out how you can turn that into a job or make a living out of it because I feel like that’s what’s going to keep you going – the passion.”

Ashton divides her time between London and the Gold Coast, where her family still lives. Her boyfriend is from Spain and they travel often through Europe and elsewhere.

“My mum is the best. She’s always been so encouraging and I probably have her to thank for being where I am because she’s always believed in me and encouraged me to chase my dreams and always made me feel like my dreams were never too big,” she says.

 “I don’t actually speak with my dad, but I’m sure he’s proud of me. He wanted me to be a plumber or electrician. He doesn’t know me well at all, but I’m sure he’s proud of me somewhere out there.”

More dreams are on the horizon for Ashton, including buying a property and launching her own health product brand.

“I want to buy a property in Australia this year so when I come back from London, I’ve got something to come home to – probably on the Gold Coast because that’s where my family is,” she says.

“I definitely want to invest in something and then just continue to keep travelling and growing my career. But yeah, I honestly am so happy with my life.”

You can book Ashton for your next modelling assignment – https://www.saintmodel.com