Chris Brogan writes a lot. Almost every day he has a post that catches my eye, about two or three times a week there is a post that I drop what I’m doing to read, and then there are days like today, where I spent some time in his archives getting ready for a presentation I’m doing on Tuesday*

As I was researching, I kept coming back to his top post on “100 blog topics I hope you’ll write”. I could probably write a post about 40% of them, but the one that interested me the most was “How Women Use Social Media.”

Do we really use it all that differently then men? Why isn’t one of the 100 topics, How Men Use Social Media? That started me thinking about some of the social media evangelists that I follow - who all tend to men - and the women who use social media to strengthen their community.

Knitters took to the blogging world early, I remember reading knitting blogs on 9/11, and knitters immediately finding ways to connect and care for each other. The first podcast I listened to was KnitCast, the first place I looked for in Second Life was a hangout for knitters. And it isn’t just about the yarn or the patterns, but it is an assumed community that provides intimate and immediate access. In contrast to the men’s communities I follow, there is little talk of reaching a new audience, turning people on to what is hip or happening. We seek each other out, pass the word along and network among ourselves, and celebrate when a new member wanders in and joins the tribe. And there is now a huge economic component as well, Etsy - like Ebay for crafters, lists 14,036 different hand dyed or hand spun yarns for sale from individual sellers, who work the social media like seasoned pros, send a skein of yarn to top blogger or podcaster and if she likes it, you’ll find yourself with a backlog of orders, your credit card processing company may even shut you down because they doubt anyone could actually be selling that much yarn.

Right now, I’m on a wait list to get into a group called “Ravelry” - a facebook type site for knitters. Raverly is a closed social network, and to control their growth they are slowly adding knitters from a wait list. Ready for this? They are now inviting 500-600 users a day. I just went and looked myself up on the wait list and this is what they said:

Ravelry
Photo by squirrel cottage

  • You signed up on August 22, 2007
  • You are #27,685 on the list.
  • 12454 people are ahead of you in line.
  • 6732 people are behind you in line.
  • 43% of the list has been invited so far

    • Do you think this is just about yarn? I don’t — I think this is about community, and so when I see the question “How do women use social media”, my answer is, how don’t we? Maybe we spend less time talking about and and more time just doing it.

    —
    *Berkshire Cultural Resource Center’s Nonprofit Management Series - 9/25 Online Marketing: Getting Real Results in the Virtual World

    Panelists: Joshua Field, Graphic Designer & Owner, Orbit Visual Communications; Bill Reichblum, Founder and President, KadmusArts.com; Amy Stevens Webmaster, MCLA