Oct 06 2013
How Tinder Spread like Wildfire
Apparently, technology has progressed to the point where it’s no longer necessary to physically go out and meet girls if you’re in search of a hookup. Tinder is a dating app that works on the simple basis of see and swipe. After giving the app permission to sign in with your Facebook ID, which hopefully includes your gender, age, photos, and sexual orientation, it then presents you with a picture of someone you’re sexually compatible with. If you like them, swipe right. If not, swipe left. It’s that easy. Once the app successfully matches you with one of the ‘yes’ candidates who also swiped right for you, you’re given the opportunity to start a private conversation. What happens next is up to you.
Possibly following in the footsteps of Facebook’s success, Tinder first launched its marketing campaign at various colleges. The main difference, however, was specifically which colleges they chose. Rather than aiming for its entire target market at once, they chose to focus on the portion that would act as satellites and would continue spreading the app on their own once they had been exposed to it. That’s what I believe was the most ingenious part of their plan. They targeted schools known for their reputation as ‘party schools,’ such as the University of Southern California, and narrowed it down even further from there, approaching those they considered to be “the highly social kinds on campus, the people that were looked up to in their peer groups.” Within a couple months even the CEO of Match.com was questioning just how they had managed such extraordinary growth, purely through word-of-mouth.
One year after its launch, Tinder makes two million matches a day on average. In August 2013, 3 billion swipes took place.
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