Battle of the Brands: OkCupid Vs Hinge

Lockdown is definitely not love-friendly. Dating and love in the times of Covid-19 is very tough – tougher than it’s ever been probably (since the inception of these apps) but online dating apps are doing what they can to fill the gap. Though nothing compares to going out on a date, Gen Y and Gen Z are settling for the next best thing – Skype dates. 

 

Today, we’d like to look at some dating apps which are off the beaten track to see how they’ve been faring. Consequently we decided to compare OkCupid and Hinge. These two dating apps have been around for some time – OKCupid is even older than Tinder - and enjoy usage amongst a niche crowd. Let’s look at how they’ve been faring pre lockdown and post lockdown!

 

Talkwalker, a social media analytics company, based in Luxembourg, takes a closer look at the buzz, using their platform. Talkwalker Analytics analyses the performance of mentions all over the internet and provides key metrics such as engagement, related themes, demographic data, geographic data and influencer data. 

 

1. Mentions: Looking at data over the last six months, we can see that usage has definitely decreased post lockdown, with a peak in March, just when the corona crisis started. For OkCupid, this peak comes from a collaboration with Terribly Tiny Tales featuring Ved and Arya. For Hinge, it has more to do with the app joining the ranks of Tinder, Bumble etc. to encourage social distancing. Following the crisis however, conversations about OkCupid have subsided. Hinge has seen a small peak in May because they launched their “Dating from home” feature.

 

 

2. Demographics: Who’s using these apps? Now it’s very interesting to see that Hinge has succeeded in it’s mission to be a woman-oriented dating up. They actually have more buzz from women than from men – a whopping 57.1% vs 42.9%. For OkCupid it’s the opposite with more men talking about this – 62.4% - than women – 37.6%. Additionally, OkCupid is popular with Gen Z as well as the 35+ demographic , while conversation about Hinge comes entirely from Gen Y and Gen Z.

 

 

3. Emojis: Let’s explore emojis about these apps now. Dating is nothing if not emotional. Taking a look at the emoji clouds for both, we see that OkCupid’s is bigger. This is only to be expected. OkCupid has mainly positive emojis prominently associated with it. Crying with laughter, heart, heart eyes and a clapping hands emoji. For Hinge, there is a tick and a cross emoji as well as a girl emoji – probably to do with swiping and the fact that it is a woman oriented app.

 

4. Mediums: Lastly, let’s have a look at where the conversation is taking place. A rather diverse mix of places it seems! OkCupid has its lion’s share of chatter on Twitter, followed by blogs, online news and finally newspapers. For Hinge the case is different – most of the conversation takes place on blogs and then online news, followed by Twitter.