Why OkCupid Owes Its Success To OkTrends

OkCupid seems to be more and more popular with every year that goes by.

It's young, it's fun, it's hip. It doesn't feel stuffy or impersonal like many of its competitors. It has everything that the tech-savvy, younger generation is looking for in an online dating site.

Sam Yagan, CEO and Co-Founder of the site, says that OkCupid has a strong social media strategy to thank for its success. But unlike other websites, Yagan isn't talking about Facebook or Twitter when he attributes OkCupid's popularity to social media - he's talking about OkTrends, the OkCupid blog.

Readers of this site will be familiar with the OkTrends blog. I used to cover every new post, because they were informative, witty, and visually engaging. Much to my dismay, the blog hasn't been updated since April 19, 2011 - not too long after Match purchased OkCupid - but the posts are still relevant, funny, and surprisingly enlightening.

Yagan told Business Insider that the now-defunct blog contributed to OkCupid's success by producing "great, sharable content." The blog used eye-catching graphs and interesting, sometimes provocative topics to draw in readers. OkTrends always walked the fine line between entertaining and educational, and wasn't afraid of the potentially-controversial topics ("Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex," "How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get," "The Case For An Older Woman") that made their readers so eager to pass the articles on.

"If you read any of our blog posts you'll see almost immediately why this concept would be interesting not just to a single person but really to anyone," says Yagan. OkTrends mastered the art of "producing content that was widely, broadly interesting."

Though it was at the forefront of OkCupid's social media strategy, it wasn't just the blog that made OkCupid a hit. The team behind the site has always been conscious of building a wide audience and targeting potential subscribers who don't initially seem to be likely online daters.

"We target people between the ages of 18 and 80 on OkCupid," Yagan explains. "Because dating is an inherently social process, it's very important to also influence the influencers.... That's why it turned out to be a really great thing for our blog to not just target the single people but also the single people's friends and families."

OkCupid has focused significantly less on the major social networking sites - Facebook and Twitter - than its competitors in the industry. As of September 27th this year, OkCupid had only 18,083 Twitter followers and 12,860 Facebook page likes. Compare that to the OkTrends blog, where each post got upwards of 10,000 (and sometimes over 100,000!) likes or shares on Facebook.

So OkCupid...don't you think it's time to bring the blog back? Please? Pretty please?

For more information on this free dating site you can check out our OkCupid review.