The Crock Pot Girls Popularity

Have you heard of CrockPotGirls? Chances are 20 of your Facebook friends “liked” the page in the last day or so.

Seeing so many of my Facebook friends like the same page in a short amount of time, I posted a status update, “It appears many of my friends like crockpots.” Admittedly I’m not a crockpot lover. I got my sister’s crockpot when she got a new one for a wedding gift, but I gave it to my mom. When you’re single, you don’t need to make 6 pounds of chicken.

My concern with so many liking a single page was it was a virus.

Finally, I looked at the fan page. I didn’t get it. How did three housewives in Texas have nearly 300,000 fans because of crockpots? I clicked through to their website and saw one blog post, a hard to use drop menu with maybe 20 recipes and a sidebar of ads. Hrm. Advertising.

Was this the work of a company made to look like a homegrown blog?

One friend offered that she liked the page as a reminder to check the site for recipes because she recently made a crockpot recipe and it was delicious. Okay maybe a handful of people share that thought, but thousands upon thousands?

Looking at the fan page again this morning, I noticed people excitedly sharing recipes. Still not getting it. I LOVE my toaster oven (I make two cookies at a time) but I’m not starting a fan page about it and asking for recipes. Besides, I thought I already had a basic website and fan page for lunch packing. While I was thrilled to see it featured on Lifehacker, it doesn’t even have 500 fans and I’m almost certain it has never been mentioned on a scrapbook or military wives message board (and I would think someone, adult or kid in that household is packing a lunch). This isn’t a pity party just admitting I do not know what would compel people to fan a site that isn’t about the sexiest thing around

Still curious but at work, I asked a friend to look up the Whois for crockpotgirls.com (not linking because their server can’t handle the traffic anyway). The site was registered on August 26, 2011 to Chase Shelby. Based on a quick search and cross reference, I learned he also owns the domains ChaseMarketingProfits.com and StephenvilleIternetMarketing.com and on related message boards he identifies himself as an Internet/affiliate marketer.

Possibly they hired him to create their website and as payment he gets whatever money he can make via affiliate ads?

Note to future bloggers: get your URL in your name and avoid GoDaddy (I can say that as a former customer). Also, as a blogger who uses and discloses affiliate ads on my sites, I’m not against it, but neither of my sites have blown up overnight making them seem like income generators. Read on Chase’s site how he writes posts for upcoming products so that when people search for them, they hit is site and make him money.

Meanwhile over at Twitter, 313Nick uncovered the same name and information I did.

DineandDish noticed that many of the fans do not have much wall activity, which could mean they joined Facebook in order to access the page.

But it is a public page, so why not just bookmark it and browse when in need of a recipe? Or do people feel compelled to share their best crockpot recipe by first and last name? These crockpot fans intrigue me!

For all of Twitter’s social media gurus/experts/specialists, none of them seem interested in knowing how three women (or one guy, I’m not sure who to give credit to) created a Facebook page that amassed 750,000+ fans in 10 days and a website with nearly no content. I suspect that will change and be populated with recipes from their eager fans.

As I wrap up this post, I still do not under the crockpot fan and why they have been so eager to post this fan page or site all over other sites and message forums. By comparison, Taste of Home has 200k fans, Foodspotting has 16k and America’s Test Kitchen TV show has about 28k, but a fan page about a small kitchen appliance that can be bought at a drug store has 800k fans. Is that the answer? It is because it’s accessible to all and requires little skill?

One thing is certain ~800,000 fans (I finish this post) has only resulted in 100+ Twitter followers. Maybe it is because they’re auto-publishing their Facebook statuses to Twitter?

I look forward to the social media guru/expert/specialists interviewing these ladies (or Chase) and helping us understand how they came to have so many eager fans in such a short amount of time.