Not since Facebook’s inception 7 years ago has the web seen anything like it. Although many people have poured money and manpower into doing it, no-one has come even close and yet there it was, a Facebook page growing faster than you could count.
Crock Pot Girls was started on August 19, 2011 by three normal-looking Moms who wanted a way to share their favorite recipes with friends. They took pictures of themseeves with – what else – crock pots, and started a Facebook page. Just a simple page. 12 days later and that simple Facebook page is at over 800,000 likes. Yes, you read that right.
Proctor & Gamble Everyday Solutions offered 80,000 coupon booklets to new fans of their site and months later still only sit at a cool 400,000 likes.
Thornton’s Gas Station offer their fans monthly coupons and are at just shy of 14,000 likes.
Countless other companies offer free samples every day in the hope of building their pages and yet none have had quite the success as the recently launched Crock Pot Girls.
Don’t believe me? Simply find them on Facebook and look at their “likes”. Now, refresh your page. Astonishing isn’t it? When I did it they’d gained 25 new “likes” in under 10 seconds. So what’s with the Crock Pot Girls Phenomenon?
When we welcomed in the new century, we welcomed in new discoveries and through the web the world became a lot smaller. We’ve all got stories of meeting people we hadn’t talked to in years through Facebook only to pick up right where we last left off. And that’s the thing: people crave community. Most of us want to sit around and have a chat with people, share life, ideas and – the biggie – recipes. Instead of doing it face-to-face the interaction is online but it’s still there and it’s thriving.
And what of the crock pot? It’s the busy cook’s dream. Simply add ingredients in the morning, replace the lid and switch it on. 8 hours and a busy day later and you look like you worked over a hot stove all day. Plus, it’s very hard to burn things in a crock pot and you can use cheap, simple ingredients that all end up tasting great after hours simmering.
Perfect for fall and winter days when you need comfort food, crock pots are the dream machine during the summer months too when you don’t want to turn on the oven. Although I doubt there will ever be fans lining up to brag on an oven, there certainly is an almost cult following of crock pots!
If Crock Pot Girls have proved something in their short existence they’ve proved yet again that we all want community.