Hinge: the wake up call

In 2021, a brand without a social media presence ? Shocking as it might be, Hinge is almost a non-existent app on social media (9 posts and 224K followers on Instagram).

Social media presence is important in the sense where everyone has social media accounts and people spend hours of their days and lives hooked to their phones, especially with a high smartphone penetration rate.

Brands ( not necessarily digital brands) fight to have a few minutes or even seconds of visibility on the virtual world by using ads, influencers, creating buzz and even bad buzz! Brands really do anything and everything to be noticed and remembered. Therefore it is almost suicidal for companies to NOT have a social media presence and not focus on digital branding all while taking e-reputation into the count.

Well, the application Hinge does not follow through and is taking the bold decision of not being social media present. Besides the Hingie campaign it had ( a campaign where Hingie, the fluffy mascot was supposed to be roughly destroyed to represent the brand slogan: The app designed to be deleted), Hinge is extremely inactive. Lately, the app had been deleting its instagram pictures and disappearing from the net. Hinge is a digital application, which means that all of its purpose and being is 100% digital. Its’ competitors have very elaborate social media strategies like Tinder, Bumble, Fruitz etc.

The app designed to be deleted has its own philosophy that might justify its’ low media presence: Hinge wants to move everything to real life! That is the real point of the app. In its process of preparing you for your last first date, the dating app is constantly encouraging its users to take it to the next step and ask one another on a date instead of just keep on being virtual.

But the purpose driven dating application might be putting its business in jeopardy with this decision. As already mentioned, it is almost as important and vital as drinking water that businesses have an active social media account in order to gain more visibility and engagement.

Luckily Hinge literally turned into hilarious memes. There literally is a hinge meme page ( not owned by Hinge) where people share their funniest Hinge encounters and profiles, a thing which gives the app a little more visibility. On a bad note, this this might be harmful for the brand image since people might not take the app seriously which might as well destroy Hinges’ proclivity into setting their purpose: Making one meet their official and only soulmate.

Houda KAMAL

429 words

References:

http://www.brandba.se/blog/social-media-dating-on-tinder

https://blog.brandbastion.com/dating-apps-marketing-social-media