Contributed by: kellyseal on Wednesday, February 26 2025 @ 05:00 pm
Last modified on Wednesday, February 26 2025 @ 05:04 pm
Tinder is courting some TikTok influencers, hoping they will lure Gen Z users back to the app.
Tinder paid six influencers to try out the app and post a series of videos about their experiences from September to December, ahead of the new year (which is the busiest season for dating apps). The TikTok stars posted videos about using Tinder and how things went meeting their dates in person under the hashtag #theconnectionexperience.
According to Axios[*1] , Tinder's recent brand sentiment study found that people were more willing and interested to try Tinder after watching their favorite TikTok influencers talk about using it.
Hanover Research conducted the study, surveying Tinder users before and after they watched the TikTok videos. According to Axios, researchers found that prior to watching #theconnectionexperience series, 80 percent of Gen Z respondents said they had a positive perception of meeting a potential love interest in person and only 50 percent said they had a positive perception of meeting someone via a dating app.
But after watching the TikTok series, 53 percent of respondents said they found dating apps more appealing and 58 percent said they are more likely to use Tinder, compared to only 33 percent who said their impressions of dating apps remained the same.
For those who found dating apps more appealing, 50 percent said it was due to watching the influencer’s videos and about 48 percent said it was because of the convenience of dating apps.
Influencer Madi Webb[*2] , who has 2.6 million followers on TikTok, said she’d recently gotten out of a relationship when Tinder approached her about the campaign, and thought it would be a “fun next step” according to Axios.
Webb met a woman on the app while posting for the Tinder campaign, and they are still dating. She said that a benefit of using dating apps is being able to publicly identify as queer. "I genuinely can count on two fingers how many times I have been in-person hit on by another woman, and that was because I was making the most crazy eye contact you've ever seen in your life," Webb said.
Tinder CMO Melissa Hobley said the campaign was intended to address the narrative that meeting in person is better than the apps, (following their recent marketing campaign featuring videos of couples getting together despite awkward first dates gone wrong).
Hobley said in a statement: "We know that you want an IRL meet cute. That's great. It's really hard for it to happen.” She goes on to say: "Finding love on an app is so possible. It's really fun. It can lead to you finding someone great."
For more on this dating app, check out our Tinder review.