Start with what Loomcraft is
It matters, because it is the strongest card in the business and very little of it comes through on the social accounts yet.
Loomcraft is mainly an importing and trading business — but not only that, which is the point. There is a real operation in Roodepoort — converting, printing, coating and finishing — a couple of hundred people on the payroll, a history going back decades, and LinkedIn describes the company as a textile manufacturer.
Most of the names Loomcraft is measured against on the cut-length list are brand houses and importers alone — a book of cloth and a showroom. Loomcraft has a factory floor, finishing lines and testing behind its book. That is the one thing on the list the others cannot show — and it is the biggest piece of unused ground on the account.
The audience is not the problem
This is worth saying early, because it is usually the first assumption.
| Followers | Following | |
|---|---|---|
| Hertex Fabrics | 76,500 | 1,396 |
| Warwick Fabrics (AU parent) | 57,100 | 2,794 |
| Stuart Graham Fabrics | 20,900 | 4,355 |
| Loomcraft Fabrics | 10,500 | 4,728 |
| Home Fabrics SA | 3,870 | 669 |
Loomcraft sits mid-table with nearly three times Home Fabrics' following. Ten and a half thousand people have already chosen to follow. The question is not how to get more of them — it is what those ten thousand see when they arrive, and whether any of them are the people who place orders.
And there is a second account — aimed at exactly the right people
@loomcraftexclusivefabrics — the cut-length division’s own account, with 2,394 followers. Its bio already does what the main account’s does not: “Fabric since 1976 · Cut length division”. The right account for the cut-length goal already exists — it simply has just over a fifth of the main account’s audience and is linked only from one icon on the website’s About page.
Everything in this audit about the main account applies with more force here: this is the account whose audience decides the cut-length number, and it is the one with the least support.
What the account says when someone lands on it
There is room in the bio
It currently holds the name Loomcraft Fabrics and the website address. The space for a line on what they make, where they are, and how a designer or retailer opens an account is still free.
Hertex uses the same space for “Fabric since 1987. Stores countrywide”, a sister brand, and a prompt to tag them. Stuart Graham for “Inspiring Interiors Since 1982” and what they do.
The highlights could carry more
| Brand | Highlights |
|---|---|
| Hertex | Wallpaper · Upholstery · Curtaining · Internationals · Carefree |
| Stuart Graham | Client Work · CT showrooms · George Showroom · SA Decor & Design |
| Warwick | Trends · New arrivals · Collaborations · BTS |
| Loomcraft | Discontinued · Passion · PRINTS · 10.6 · Capetown@bianca |
The others are organised around what a buyer arrives looking for. Loomcraft's are named the way the team talks among themselves — 10.6 and Capetown@bianca are clear inside the business but less so to a first-time visitor, and Discontinued currently sits first in the row. Renaming and reordering them is a half-hour job.
What is being posted
The cadence is good. Roughly a post every two days. Effort is not the issue.
These are the twelve most recent posts — as far back as Instagram let me look without the account’s own logins:
| Date | What it is |
|---|---|
| 4 Sep | Springboks meme — “Never dropping the ball when it comes to dedicated service and supporting the BOKKE!” |
| 2 Sep | Text slogan — “QUALITY TEXTILES AT AFFORDABLE PRICES” |
| 31 Aug | Text graphic — “Happy Spring Day” |
| 28 Aug | Photo |
| 27 Aug | Photo |
| 26 Aug | “PVC CAR MAT UNBACKED — COMING SOON” |
| 21 Aug | Video credited to an individual account, not the brand |
| 21 Aug | “BOKKE FRIDAY — STRONGER TOGETHER” |
| 19 Aug | “CLASSIC UPHOLSTERY” — leather sofa |
| 18 Aug | “BALI LAPIS” — armchair |
| 17 Aug | Photo |
| 12 Aug | Photo |
Two of the twelve are rugby, and two more are a slogan and a seasonal greeting. So roughly a third of the month is not about the product. The ones that are — Bali Lapis, Classic Upholstery — are the posts a buyer could act on, and there is room for more of them.
The pattern underneath it
Spring Day greetings and rugby posts are written for someone browsing at home. Loomcraft’s buyer is a bit different — the interior designer, the upholsterer, the curtain-maker and the fabric retailer, the people deciding whose book to open, which is what the cut-length list measures. The warmth in the account is real; it is currently pointed at a slightly different room.
Three channels that are not being used
LinkedIn — already exists, barely linked
931 followers, 53 employees listed. On the website it appears nowhere in the header, footer or homepage — the only route to it is a single small icon near the bottom of the About page.
For a business trying to grow trade and contract work, this is where the buyers already are — and it is the channel with the most headroom.
/about; none in the site’s header, footer or homepageFacebook — the homepage links a different address from the working page
A working Facebook page exists — loomcraftfabrics, about 3,000 followers — and the About page already links it. The homepage, though, still links an older profile-style address. To a visitor who is not signed into Facebook — which is how most people arrive from a website on a desktop — that address shows “This content isn't available at the moment” instead of the page. I can’t say what someone signed into Facebook sees there — I didn’t use anyone’s logins for this audit — but what is certain is that the two links go to two different destinations, and only one of them is the brand page. The fix is one URL swap on the homepage.
/loomcraft.fabrics.5 → “content isn't
available” · About-page link → the working loomcraftfabrics page,
~3K followers.Pinterest — nothing there
No account found. Pinterest is where interior designers and homeowners actively search for fabric, by colour and by texture, with intent. It is the one platform where a fabric catalogue is the native content.
TikTok — nothing there
No account under any obvious handle. Being straight about it: of the gaps here, this is the least urgent, and not where I would start.
What I couldn’t see from the outside
I did this audit without your logins, so there are things I can’t know — said plainly, so nothing here sounds more certain than it is.
- Engagement. I can’t see likes, comments, saves or reach without access to the accounts, so I haven’t put an engagement rate anywhere in this audit — I’d be inventing it.
- Posting history. From outside the account, Instagram only shows the twelve most recent posts, so that is the window I reviewed.
- Several competitors. I couldn’t confirm St Leger & Viney, Mavromac, Romo, Papini and a few others on Instagram under their obvious handles, so I left them out of the table rather than guess.
- Website page freshness. Every page reports the same sitemap date, which is a platform stamp rather than a real edit date, so I can’t tell which pages were touched recently.
- The LinkedIn figures are from 8 September. I read them off the public company page that day; LinkedIn now asks for a login to show the same page, so I couldn’t re-check them the following day.
With access to the accounts, all of the above becomes measurable in an afternoon.