Hello everyone! This post will be on a short summary of my individual research project.

I have chosen to analyse the Facebook strategies of 3 companies mainly Tinder, Paktor and Coffee Meets Bagels.

Introduction:

As you guys know, with everyone owning a smartphone nowadays, the dating apps industry is gradually becoming a billion dollar industry worldwide and the sector expansion is growing massively with increasing user demand. Dating apps open up the possibility to make a genuine connection with someone. The whole point of these apps is to create an opportunity to meet people in person.

Traditionally online dating marketers have been investing heavily in search engine and email marketing campaigns. However, with the use of Facebook advertising, it can help boosts the promotion of these dating apps, by reaching out to audiences through advanced targeting and retargeting techniques to build, engage and amplify target audience reach. However there is still some social stigma attached to using dating apps and not everyone is eager to jump onto the dating apps bandwagon.

Research question:

As such, my research question aims at how effective these 3 companies are in using Facebook to market themselves, engage their followers and to lose the social stigma of online dating among their target audience. The target audience identified would be singles, ages 18 to 35. The reason is because these age group are the people who are spent the most time on apps (Khew, 2016) and is the largest age group that currently dominate the online dating industry (Smith & Duggan, 2013).

Data collection:

My data collection would be from 11 February to 11 March, I will be tracking how many likes each company has, this would translate to brand awareness of the company and how effective they are in marketing themselves on Facebook. I will also be tracking the number of posts comments, likes and shares they received. This would measure how engaging they are to their followers on Facebook. Lastly, I will also be looking into some posts of each company and analyse if they were effective in trying to change the social stigma related to online dating.

Recommended Content:

From my data collection, Coffee Meets Bagel is the weakest in using Facebook to market itself, engage with its followers and reduce social stigma regarding online dating compared to Tinder and Paktor. It has the least brand awareness and lowest number of engagement on Facebook.

Therefore, my two posts of original content will seek to improve Coffee Meets Bagel marketing strategies on Facebook to reach out to its target audience age 18 to 34, subsequently try to change the social stigma of its target audience so as to get them to use CMB and lastly to engage its followers.

Strategy 1: #findloveatCMB

CMB can try reach out more to its target audience by having a #findloveatCMB hashtag campaign strategy. This first strategy can be executed and promoted by posting daily love quotes on CMB Facebook page and attaching the hashtag #findloveatCMB to it. The daily quotes posted should be related to reducing the current social stigma of online dating and encourage users to try out CMB because it is reliable and not a desperate attempt to find love. All in all, the #findloveatCMB campaign would improve CMB Facebook marketing strategies, gain more likes and brand awareness among its audiences and ultimately convince them that online dating is the norm in today.

Strategy 2: Brand influencer strategy

CMB could partner with major clothing brands like H&M, Zara and Topshop in order to better engage their followers. As CMB is a dating app, its users will have to go on dates in order to know each other better. Date nights are the perfect opportunity for one to dress up well to impress the other party. The strategy can be executed by collaborating with them to get promotional discounts for CMB users on date nights. For example, CMB can give successful matched couples promotional e coupons, 20% off, to purchase clothes at H&M, Zara or Topshop. The e coupons can be published on CMB Facebook page. To redeem it, users have to share it on their Facebook page as well. As such, this can even enhance word of mouth of CMB on Facebook and attract more users.

Conclusion:

To conclude, dating apps are on the surge now as it is a very accessible platform for one to start using. Tinder has revolutionised dating in the 21st century as their marketing strategies on social media appeal very much to their target audience needs, motivation and behaviours. As such, it is important for CMB to follow suit, to implement better content strategies on social media in order to compete in the online dating industry. Thank You so much for reading and looking forward to reading all of your posts! 🙂

Darren Chong G2