Hinge

Practically every business is expected to have a social media presence in 2015. When your business is a digital one, that pressure doubles. When your target audience is millennials, it triples. Dating services are all about helping people make social connections, but how socially savvy are they on their own profiles?

Digiday used proprietary data from two social media analytics firms, Unmetric and Socialbakers, to pit seven dating apps against each other in the battle for most effective social media strategy. Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, Match.com, Zoosk, Coffee Meets Bagel and Bumble were put to the test in several different categories.

Number Of Fans

With over 13 million million Facebook likes, Zoosk has the largest social media fan base. Match and Tinder follow with over 827,000 and 369,000 fans, respectively. Twitter shows similar stats. Zoosk has the most followers by far at over 350,000. Match comes in second, with 65,000, and Tinder in third, with over 56,000.

Although Tinder currently has the smallest fan base, it's also the most rapidly growing. The game-changing dating app saw its fan base grow 228 percent between January and October 2015.

Geographical Popularity

Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, Match and Zoosk all have an international crop of users, but Tinder and Zoosk are the most diverse on social. In fact, the majority of Zoosk's Facebook fans are international.

Other services proved to be particularly popular in specific countries. Hinge is big in India, while Match is favored by Canadians and Tinder has won over Brazilian singles.

Engagement Level

Zoosk is the most prolific poster on social media. The company published 226 posts between January and October, and received the most likes and comments. Despite Zoosk's high volume, Tinder took the top spot for highest average engagement and most posts shared by fans.

Bumble is a relative newcomer to the dating world, but already it's showing promise on social. The app saw over 3,000 interactions with fans on Facebook between July and October. The numbers are expected to grow.

Number Of Fan Posts And Mentions

Match.com's users are the most likely to talk about it on Facebook. More than 9,000 messages were posted to Match's wall between January and October. Hinge and Coffee Meets Bagel come next. Neither Tinder nor OkCupid had user posts on their Facebook walls. Their page settings most likely do not allow it.

Tinder leads the number of mentions on Twitter, perhaps because Twitter's audience skews younger than Facebook and Tinder attracts a similarly youthful user base. The app is followed by Zoosk and Match.com, which come in second and third with around 8,000 and 2,000 mentions apiece.

Dating app Hinge is taking after OkCupid by collecting its user data and publishing results that might help people better connect. The latest report outlines the best pick-up lines among users of its app – and as it turns out, the way to a woman’s heart might just be through her stomach.

To conduct the survey, Hinge recruited copywriters and data analysts to compose 100 original openers, and sent them to 22 percent of Hinge users, who were then given the option of sending these openers to their matches. After studying eight million impressions, trends began to emerge. Some were expected - daters who want to connect should definitely avoid generic statements like 'Hey, what's up?' as an opening line, for example. The data was refined and categorized to give more in-depth info about who was responding—including their gender, age, and location across the U.S.

Results of the month-long experiment showed the most effective conversation starters for women include food references. For instance, a guy could ask a question like: “Chocolate, red velvet, or funfetti?” referring to cupcake preferences, or “Best discovery: Netflix or avocados?” for example. Hinge noted that “women are 40% more likely than men to respond to openers that are food-related.”

Men were most responsive when asked out directly, and particularly if those messages were assertive (the types of messages most women don’t like, which should be noted). For instance, if a woman put herself out there and confidently asked “Drinks soon?” or “Free this week?” men were 98% more likely to respond favorably.

Males were also found to have shorter attention spans: If they don’t receive a response to a message within six hours, a quarter of them will drop out of sight, compared with only five per cent of women.

As far as age groups, the 35 and older crowd prefers pop culture references. For instance, they responded best to “Katy Perry or Taylor Swift?” or “Bears, beets, or Battlestar Gallactica?” The 20-somethings preferred introductions about lifestyle with lines like: “Better adventure: Rock climbing or scuba diving?” or “Sunday priorities: Exercise, sleep or aggressive mimosas?” The 18-23 age group seemed to prefer novelty questions like: “Pain reliever personality: Advil, Tylenol or complaining?” and “You’re having your portrait painted – what’s your backdrop?”

Regional responses varied too, with folks in Los Angeles preferring entertainment-related questions (no surprise), and users in the Mid-West liking the 90’s references.

Hinge connects people through Facebook circles, and is available for both Android and iPhone. For more on Hinge, you can read our review.

An article in last month’s Vanity Fair attacked apps like Tinder as being promoters of hook-up culture among young daters. The article caused a wave of dialogue, backlash and upset, with many people wondering if dating apps were in fact “killing” the culture of dating and navigating relationships.

While technology has been blamed for bad behavior, dating app Hinge is aiming to distinguish itself from its popular and notorious competitor, Tinder. Instead of taking the bait and offering more Tinder-like services like many dating apps looking for success in this growing market, Hinge is taking the hook-up culture argument to heart. Instead of fighting the article's argument, the company is offering an update to its app in acknowledgment of the problem - with an “Intentions” feature.

The update offers a new profile page where users are encouraged up front to include their intentions for using the app, whether it’s to find a relationship, to date, or a casual hook-up. Hinge hopes that this gives more transparency in the online dating process.

According to Hinge, most of the people coming to its app are looking for something more serious than a hook-up. When the company surveyed 1,500 of its users, they discovered that sixty-three percent claim they are looking for relationships, 33% for dating, and only 2% for hook-ups.

The company’s last update called out daters who weren’t being truthful about being single, which has also caused an uproar among Tinder users. (A survey earlier this year found that more than 40% of Tinder users were already in a relationship.) Hinge now publishes each user’s relationship status (that the user shares on Facebook), so there’s no mistaking whether or not a user is single.

The company also added a new feature in August called HingePerks for its most dedicated users, offering discounts and contests for things like trips, ball games, and drinks. The first promotion was a free “staycation” at a Starwood Hotel with a spa service included. They have also offered concert tickets for social media participation (including liking on Facebook, tagging and sharing), as well as a free bottle of wine for the Hinge couple that posts a fun photo on Instagram.

Since its inception, the company has focused on its primary user base – young professionals, another way to distinguish itself from Tinder, which got its start on college campuses and whose demographic skews a bit younger than Hinge’s. In the last month, Hinge has promoted their “most eligible” male and female users according to profession, offering basic profile information. Hinge also asks their most embarrassing date moment and greatest career accomplishment to date.

Whether Hinge's strategy succeed in this competitive dating app market is yet to be seen. But it does offer daters a more interesting and engaging alternative to the dating app experience. For more on this dating app, please check out our review of Hinge.

Everyone you know is talking about online dating. Most of them have tried it. You've thought about joining a site or downloading the latest app, but you're not quite convinced digital dating is for you.

Justin McLeod, CEO of Hinge, has something to say to you. A few somethings, in fact. He recently wrote a piece for Business Today on the benefits of online dating. If you've considered logging on for love but haven't taken the plunge yet, here's why you should.

1. It's easy to get started. There's no excuse for not signing up when signing up is so easy. Socially-driven apps, like Hinge and Tinder, don't ask you to fill out a lengthy profile or answer an SAT exam-worthy series of questions. Instead they link directly to your Facebook account, automatically populating your dating profile with info from the social network. “This way,” McLeod writes, “interested people get to check out a bite-sized version of your personality without writing you off as not their type.
2. Quality trumps quantity. Online dating offers a curated selection of potential dates, designed with your compatibility in mind. “Instead of having to wade through a sea of random profiles until you get lucky and find that elusive perfect someone,” says McLeod, “it can bring what you want to see.” And while a dating service is showing you people you're likely to be interested in, it's also filtering out the bad matches. The algorithms don't get it right every time, but it's still a perk that doesn't come with real-life romance.
3. Conversation starters come standard. Say you meet someone on the street, or during your commute home from work. Starting a conversation can be difficult, not to mention intimidating, when you know nothing about each other. But online, where you have access to a profile and photos from a person's life, you have built-in subjects to spark a conversation. Find something that intrigues you and inquire about it.
4. You're in control. No more waiting around for someone to approach you. No worries that a complex schedule will prevent you from meeting new people. No relying on a friend to arrange a blind date they promised to set up, and keep forgetting. Online dating lets you search for and communicate with potential dates any time, anywhere, with no reliance on third parties. “Moreover,” McLeod adds, “responses are generally quicker and easier to follow up on online.”

What are you waiting for? No more excuses.

A study was recently released about users of dating app Tinder, which found that over 40% of the Tinder population is either already married or in a relationship.

While dating apps do attract users with less virtuous intentions, and some people feel compelled to meet for random hook-ups through a dating app even while they are in a committed relationship, there is an interesting question: what if some of these non-single users don't even know they have an online dating profile?

Turns out, there are many people who think deleting a dating app from your phone is the same as deleting your profile - but it isn't.

Dating apps and online dating sites make it kind of tricky to get rid of you altogether – after all, they attract people (and investors) based on user numbers, so they are not motivated to make it obvious how to delete your account. Many Tinder and dating app users delete the app from their phones, mistaking this from deleting their profile altogether.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be so cynical when it comes to daters’ intentions. Maybe instead, it’s good to take you through the steps of how to delete a profile for the most popular apps:

Tinder

Many people make the mistake of deleting the app from their phones and thinking their profiles will be deleted, too – but this isn’t the case. To delete your account, go to “Settings” in the app, select “App Settings” then scroll down to “Delete Account.” You’ll get a message that says it was deleted, so you know for sure. (Keep in mind – this deletes all your messages and profile information, so you can't get it back.) If you paid for the Tinder Plus service, Tinder makes it one step harder to cancel: you have to cancel your subscription via email. Bear in mind, if you log in to Tinder again after deleting your account, it creates a whole new account for you.

OkCupid

OkCupid, unlike Tinder, gives you the option of letting your profile be disabled, which means that if you decide to use the service in the future, you’ll still have access to those old photos, profile, and messages. If you prefer to delete it altogether, you can go to “Settings” in either the app or desktop version and select “delete account.”

eHarmony

eHarmony is tricky to delete, because it takes two steps. First, go to “Settings,” then “Account Settings,” then “Billing” then “Close Account.” Then according to some to make sure it’s completely deleted, you have to send an email to deletemyinfo@eharmony.com with the subject line “Delete my Account Information.”

Hinge

Hinge doesn’t allow you to delete your account from your phone, but only from a computer. Go to the Hinge website for a link to your Facebook App settings, and then delete Hinge from there. Once you have done this, then you can delete the app from your phone.

Tired of meeting flaky people over dating apps like Tinder? Turns out, there’s a reason for all the disappearing acts: a recent study by GlobalWebIndex reported that up to 42% of the population on Tinder are already in relationships. And incredibly, 3 in 10 users are married. Before you start bashing men, the report also broke down information by gender, and it turns out that married and taken women on Tinder outnumber the men on the app who are already in relationships.

In response to this, and perhaps to further differentiate themselves from the popular dating app, Hinge has announced that in the latest release of its dating app, it will publish whether or not you’re in a relationship, engaged or married.

Hinge did its own study among its users, and found that 1.6 percent of them were either married or engaged, while an additional two percent were already in relationships. While Hinge wins hands-down over the high percentage of cheaters on Tinder, it still wants to do better. So in Hinge version 3.5, users who reveal they are “married,” “engaged” or “in a relationship” on Facebook will have that information pulled and shared on their Hinge profile, in an effort to shame cheaters everywhere. And if you remove your relationship status from Facebook to avoid this problem? Then you may have to explain it to your spouse or partner.

Hinge utilizes Facebook to match people who are in the same circles – Facebook friends of friends who are also using the service – so you’ve never really meeting a total stranger. At least, you will have a Facebook friend in common, which helps daters reduce the anxiety about online dating.

The new version adds another great benefit, which is more transparency in dating. Instead of finding yourself devastated to find out several dates later that your match is otherwise involved, it’s out in the open.

This might be a problem for female daters, according to the GlobalWebIndex study, since the majority of cheaters on Tinder happen to be women – the target market and primary user base for Hinge. Hinge appeals to women because of safety issues, especially those who are nervous to try a dating app, because users are matched within their own social networking circles. But if married women take to the app (and perhaps they won’t – and don’t – because they would be called out by their mutual Facebook friends), they have to go to greater lengths to hide their movements.

Regardless, it is a positive step for online dating in general to create more transparency for those who are truly looking to date other single people.