Dating apps are on the rise, becoming part of daily millennial and Gen-Z life. How can LGBTQI+ organisations make the best use of their potential?
Tinder, the dating app that made “swipe right” and “swipe left” part of our everyday verbiage, is winning the hearts of users, advertisers, and campaigners alike. The collective swiping right or left of 1.5 billion times a day of the app’s 50 million user base, 85% of which are between 18 and 34, has caught the attention of non-profits looking to connect with millennials through unconventional campaigning.
On the LGBT front, Grindr reports 6.5 million monthly active users across 197 countries. Two million daily users spend an average of 54 minutes a day using it, providing a large potential resource for LGBT campaigners.
How non-profits have been trying to use this potential
Dating apps have already been used quite extensively by non-profits as a communication channel to raise awareness about their actions. One such example is how the Terrence Higgins Trust has extensively used Grindr and other dating apps to channel members of target groups to a free self-testing for HIV scheme. According to the head of digital, Will Howells, “By advertising the service through dating apps, we reached some of the most at-risk people.”
However, entities that want to capture the full potential of dating sites are increasingly taking it one step further by developing special campaigns specifically for and on dating apps.
For example, Amnesty International Australia used the network to raise awareness about forced marriages with a campaign launched on International Women’s Day. The nonprofit replaced profile pictures with downloadable images illustrating that oppressed women around the world still aren’t able to make important choices about their lives–the kinds of choices that many of us take for granted.
As Amnesty International’s Caroline Easter explains, “The campaign was centered around International Women’s Day, with the Tinder images that Amnesty posted driving traffic to the ‘Make a choice’ website. Here, we ran a quiz in which users were asked to make choices like marrying for money or marrying for love. A click on money revealed a new page that explained that in rural Pakistan, many girls are sold into forced marriage. Data, including email addresses, was captured on the site, and interested visitors were contacted to see if they would like to support Amnesty’s human rights work.”
The advertising agency Eighty Twenty and The Immigrant Council of Ireland also developed this powerful campaign about sex trafficking through Tinder:
They created profiles to tell the stories of victims of sex trafficking. According to organizers, “these profiles have so far been very well received by users of Tinder, with a large number of comments from users who are shocked upon hearing about the realities of sex trafficking in a modern society.”
How have queer people been using dating apps?
Unlike straight dating sites, which don’t talk to a specific community and are therefore not connected to a specific cause, LGBTQ dating apps are more likely to engage in social and/or political causes.
Grindr users are, of course, coveted by organisations and politicians alike. Candidates from the Dutch political party Democrats’ 66 (D66) used Grindr as part of their 2014 local elections campaign in Amsterdam to get attention for a specific meeting on LGBTQ issues. To make sure this was explicit and targeted, the politician clearly changed his profile picture to the party logo. Eventually, six gay candidates turned their profiles into a permanent platform to discuss their party’s program. Since then, it’s been used again for political campaigning in the USA, Australia, and elsewhere. In the UK, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has reached out to voters through Grindr, Hornet, and Scruff.
Grindr itself has also partnered with LGBTQ organizations in Peru, Colombia, the United States, and the Netherlands on its Grind the Vote program to inform users about election-related issues that directly impact LGBTQ people as they prepare to cast their votes in each country’s national elections.
In 2012, Grindr launched the Grindr for Equality (G4E) program, which aims to reach men in 197 countries “not just for social networking but also for social justice,” and has since organized a wide variety of campaigns in support of global LGBTQ health and human rights. Grindr utilizes its broad subscriber base as a platform for geolocation-based messages that reach LGBTQ people at scale without sacrificing demographic tailoring.
The app regularly sends out to its users, or a selection of users depending on the relevant location and/or age range, messages developed by LGBTQ organisations that contact G4E.
Since 2012, Grindr has, for example, been sending out messages to its users worldwide about the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia on May 17, to raise awareness and encourage mobilisation.
While these messages are always centered on LGBTQ issues, they can sometimes spill over into issues that disproportionately concern the community, such as colorectal cancer.
But Grindr also takes a more proactive approach and identifies issues on which they develop a more in-depth project.
In partnership with the Beijing Gender Health and Education Institute(BGHEI), an organization working to raise awareness about sexual diversity and equality in mainland Chinese society, Grindr ensured users in China have access to thorough and relevant sexual health information in colloquial Chinese.
With MOSAIC (Middle East and North Africa Organization for Services, Advocacy, Integration, and Capacity Building), a holistic program committed to improving the wellness of marginalized groups in Lebanon and throughout the region, G4E developed messages targeted towards Syrian Grindr users living in Lebanon on where to go to get refugee services that are LGBT-competent and affirming.
The app also obviously developed a series of calls to action following the Orlando Pulse shooting in 2016.
According to G4E Director Jack Harrison-Quintana, “the app is only at 5% of its potential. Our aim is to gradually include health and human rights into the core needs that users expect Grindr to meet.”
The response he gets from users is overwhelmingly positive, signaling that the community expects the app to become more engaged, especially in places where being LGBTQ puts a target on one’s back.
Lessons learned
- Make sure the app is aware of your plans before you launch an action, especially if you rely on existing members and supporters to act online.
- Make sure members and supporters stay on track by providing very specific guidelines.
- Be ready to do damage control and ensure that your supporters don’t engage in actions that violate user guidelines. Remember, Bernie Sanders’ supporters were banned from Tinder for using it to campaign at their own initiative, which did far more harm than good, especially as it attracted disproportionate media attention.
- Make sure your identity and intentions are obvious. Some commercial brands try to fool people before revealing their true nature, which proves very unpopular. Make sure your profile, including the photo, is clear, simple, and bold to attract attention while being honest about your intentions.
- Be mindful that you are talking to individuals in leisure mode, and be wary that your messaging could come across as ‘too serious’ in such a relaxed medium.
- Your campaign needs to connect with the essential purpose of dating apps. So, your campaign messaging must revolve around dating, romantic relationships, sexual liberation, etc.
- Engage directly with people. While this is time-consuming, it is essential as direct contact is what people seek on the apps in the first place.
- When you develop a joint action with an app, remember to send them as much feedback as possible on the campaign to help them gain better insights into what works best.
A great illustration of these last two lessons is given by the housing charity Shelter, which had the idea of putting a brick on Tinder. As reported by Tom McCarthy, campaigns officer, “We aren’t building enough homes, this means a lot of redundant bricks, and one by itself seems quite lonely.”
A brick on Tinder could ask people to help it “cement” a new relationship by calling on politicians to build more affordable homes. Simple. Once we got going, we realised the concept did most of the work itself. We had so many puns to pick from that we even set up a brick-related pun matrix.
Looking to the future
Dating apps are still only marginally used for social and political campaigning, but commercial brands, which are less shy about being associated with sexuality, are increasing their outreach. This might quickly lead to a saturation of what users are willing to accept, potentially shutting down this tactic before non-profits even seriously start investing in it.
On the other hand, a common cause is a matchmaker. Volunteering for the same organisation or joining the same event can help users transition from online to offline dating, which is the ultimate goal. Dating apps and non-profits have yet to seriously look into engaging in partnerships and adapting algorithms for social justice.
Dating apps are rethinking their place in this world. Beyond connecting people for love and sex, they might be an essential tool to campaign for social and political transformation.
Exactly the right time for non-profits to be part of that conversation.
