Social Media and Crochet: The Surprising Similarities that Will Blow Your Mind

Danielle Winski — December 23, 2016

Do you know how social media and crochet are similar? Find out in this post!

Crocheting is a craft I learned as a young girl while sitting on my great grandmother’s lap. Crochet involves connecting one chained loop to another in a pattern that magically ends up creating a beautiful masterpiece. I never realized that those times of watching, learning and helping would assist me in my career in public relations and marketing, specifically in social media. Continue reading to discover the shocking similarities between crochet and social media marketing.

Social Media Statistics by Platform

Before we dive into the similarities of social media marketing and crocheting, let’s take a look at the individual social media platforms. The more you know about each one and how they are used by people, the better prepared you are to be successful on the social media site you choose for your small business. Here is a breakdown of important statistics and facts for today’s popular social media sites that will help you create the best strategy for your small business.

Facebook: These are a few key statistics for Facebook that are useful for businesses to know when creating content for the site:

• Facebook has an average of 1.18 billion active users every day! Yes, that’s billion!
  
• Out of all the users on Facebook, approximately two-thirds of them access the site on a daily basis.
  
• The average Facebook user spends at least 20 minutes a day scrolling on the site.
  
• More than 90% of millennials have and use Facebook.
  
• It is estimated that by 2018, the number of U.S. Facebook users will be more than 169 million.
  
• People on Facebook are becoming choosier on who they accept as friends on the site. In 2014, the average number of friends per user was 245; the average dropped to 155 in 2016.

Twitter: The following five Twitter statistics will help you generate better content that will reach your audience:

• Almost half of the top tweets contain photos.
  
• 11 percent of Twitter users have tweeted a negative review or comment about a brand.
  
• More than three-quarters of Twitter users access their account on a mobile device.
  
• Approximately 34 percent of the site’s users login to their account more than once a day.
  
• 36 percent of Twitter’s daily users in the U.S. are adults.

Instagram: Make the most out of a business Instagram account with the help of these useful statistics:

• As of June 2016, every day there were 300 million active users on the platform.
  
• The average user grows their following by approximately 16percent a month.
  
• For all Instagram posts, the average engagement rate is only 1.1 percent
  
• The majority of Instagram users, about 90 percent of them, are under age 35.
  
• Most images, 91 percent, posted on Instagram are photos.
  
• 80 percent of Instagram users are outside the U.S.

Pinterest: Does your business use Pinterest? Here are some statistics to keep in mind to

These statistics will help you understand the different platforms better and how to use them for your business.

boost your effectiveness on the platform.

• Pinterest has approximately 100 million active users and 176 registered users.
  
• The majority of the site’s users are female.
  
• Only 30 percent of people who use social media have a Pinterest account.
  
• More than half, 55 percent, of online shoppers in the U.S. say that Pinterest is their favorite social media platform.
  
• About 67 percent of Pinterest’s users are millennials.
  
• The average number of monthly searches using Pinterest is 2 billion.

Google +: These Google+ statistics may surprise you, but they will definitely assist you in using the social media site better.

• 13 percent of small businesses use Google+ as part of their social media strategy.
  
• Google+ reaches about 38 precent of people online in the U.S.
  
• The platform has 20 million unique mobile visitors every month.
  
• 22 percent of adults visit Google+ at least once a month.
  
• The average user spends about 7 minutes a month on the site.

LinkedIn: Here are some noteworthy statistics for LinkedIn, the world’s leading professional networking site.

• There are 467 million users on the networking platform.
  
• Out of the total number of users, 128 million are in the U.S.
  
• LinkedIn has 106 million unique visitors a month.
  
• Having a picture on your profile makes you 36 times more likely to receive a message.
  
• 17 percent of small businesses have set up a LinkedIn account.

Hopefully these statistics will help you better understand the different platforms and give you an idea of how to use each one to your benefit when putting together your social media strategy.

6 Ways Crocheting is Similar to Social Media Marketing

Now that you know each of the social media sites a little better, let’s dive into how social media marketing is similar to the age-old craft of crocheting. Here are six ways they are similar.

1. Build Upon What You Have Already Done. The main point of crochet is creating and linking loops together in a pattern, using the last loop you created to start a new set of loops in the pattern. How is this like social media marketing? Social media builds on what you have done previously; every post helps build your brand’s image and reputation. It takes multiple posts to create a bigger picture of who your brand is and its unique personality. This also rings true for engagement. When you first start a social media account, you have to build your audience from the ground up. Every post you make will build your brand’s engagement with your audience to create a community of followers and loyal customers.
   
2. Consistency is Key. In order for you to see the bigger picture on social media (and with crochet), you need to be consistent. In crochet this means using the same style loop with the same amount of tension; using random size and style loops with no direction or meaning makes for a confusing and jumbled mess. With social media, posting the same time of day, every day, with content that fits your industry and business is crucial to your success. Not being consistent with your social media will cause confusion with your audience and can lead to failure down the road.
   
3. Switch Strategies to Create Interest. While crocheting, sometimes it is a necessary part of the project to change your loop pattern and size to create interest within your final piece. With social media, you also need to keep things fresh and exciting by adding new strategies to the mix. Whether it is adding a new style of content, such as live video, or expanding your content to include different types of articles or photos, you need to keep your audience engaged and excited to see what you are going to post next. Just make sure that anything you share is related to your
   
   
   

   Crochet and Social Media are very different activities that have some striking similarities.

   
   

   business and industry.

   
   
4. Have Patience. In crochet, you won’t see the pattern after just one loop; you have to connect multiple loops to see the bigger picture. This is also true for social media – you won’t see any big results from just one post. It takes time and effort to get a return on your investment. Typically, social media marketing takes at least six months to see results; you can’t give up after a couple days or weeks if you don’t see an immediate return on your efforts; your patience will be rewarded in the end if you stick with it.
   
5. A Small Mistake Can Unravel Everything. In crochet, a small mistake like missing a loop can cause your hard work to unravel. Sometimes you notice the missed loop right away and don’t have to unravel very much; other times you don’t notice it until you are farther along and have to pull the yarn on a major chunk of work. In social media, if you catch a small mistake quickly you can repair the damage without having to spend too much time on damage control; however, if you miss the mistake it can snowball into a much bigger problem, costing you more time in the future to fix the error.
   
6. Reflect on Your Progress. With both crochet and social media you need to take time to reflect on your progress. This is an important step for both activities. Take time to look at how far you’ve come and all you have accomplished since you began your journey. Besides savoring the successes and the beauty of your project, you need to look at what you can change and do differently to make the end result even better.

Are you surprised by how many similarities there are between social media marketing and a simple craft like crocheting? When you put your social media strategy together in the New Year, make sure keep these things in mind and most importantly enjoy the process of interacting and socializing with your audience! Happy posting!

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