As the world's first and largest GBTQ mobile social network, Grindr has revolutionized the way gay men find each other and connect. Fast forward eight years, the company has users in every country in the world, 3.3 M daily active users, and sees its' role as much more than just a "hookup app."
Grindr is a lifestyle brand that provides both a top mobile social networking app and content consumption tools for the LGBTQ community and their allies. Grindr owns and operates INTOmore.com, the third most read LGBT publication after OUT and The Advocate. Grindr also runs a program called Grindr For Equality, which works everyday to harness the power of the Grindr network to promote safety, health, and human rights.
Grindr is providing a welcoming window into a passionate and progressive lifestyle. Their rapidly expanding content and collaborations in photography, fashion, social issues and more mark a bold and exciting new chapter in their evolution.
To help raise awareness for Grindr's breadth of brands and offering, the company engaged in a variety of campaigns.
In August 2017, Grindr launched INTO, a digital magazine, as an online destination for news, culture, and information. INTO was created because it felt traditional LGBTQ publications were not providing the content that resonated with younger, millennial LGBTQ readers. INTO seeks to give visibility and a voice to queer people of color, the transgender community, and other underserved audiences with content that is fresh, relevant and delves deeper into LGBTQ society issues.
Since launch, INTO has helped bolster the work of queer writers and artists by rapidly expanding content and collaborations in photography, fashion, social issues which can be accessed through the app.
In November 2017, INTO announced a partnership with Food 4 Thot, a top LGBT podcast which is self-described as "like NPR, on poppers." INTO also partnered with The Tenth Magazine, a biannual publication featuring the world's most talented LGBTQ artists and intellectuals of color, where they published the magazine's first and only digital excerpt -- a feature story about the platonic romance between media darlings Saeed Jones and Isaac Fitzgerald interviewed by notable writer Ashley C. Ford.
Through Grindr for Equality, the company used its reach as an organizing tool in support of efforts to establish local, state, and national non-discrimination policies in hopes that these stats can be changed. For example, Grindr used their geolocation to send reminders to users' inboxes in Alabama to vote during the latest election where anti-LGBT senator candidate, Roy Moore, was defeated.
Grindr For Equality worked with LGBTQ activists and human rights organizations like Article 19 to send alerts in local languages in the Middle East, Gulf region, and North Africa regions to protect its users. For example, Grindr issued alerts warning users and provided information and access to LGBTQ friendly legal resources in September Egypt after arresting over 60 men and women for suspected gay conduct or for waving rainbow flags during a Mashrou'Leila concert.
Grindr also made changes to its app and website to be more inclusive of transgender users. These included profile fields for gender identity and pronouns, system-wide gender-neutral language, and an FAQ to help non-transgender users interact respectfully. They were informed by a community engagement process that centered the voices and needs of transgender people through a survey of transgender users and a formal consultation with the National Center for Transgender Equality. The update was implemented to users at the end of Transgender Awareness Week, and promoted through a video by Jen Richards, a transgender activist, writer, actress, and producer.
But Grindr is not all serious. Grindr launched its very own set of emojis with a new app and internal keyboard called, Gaymoji, for the LGBTQ community and beyond. There are over 500 gaymojis to use as both conversational and existential placeholders in conversations. All the gaymojis are placed into categories, such as profile, mood, body and dating and sex, to portray a variety of emotions.
Grindr is consistently spoken about in the news with over 100 total stories in just November - December 2017, reaching 7.67 B online readership, an estimated 2.7M coverage views, 34K social shares. It's move to include transgender features also elicited a broad positive response from the community.
More recently, Grindr has provided more user updates to its app to please users including the addition of a new Explore feature that lets users to see other users around the world, a discrete icon feature that replaces Grindr's very recognizable brand icon with something more discrete, and a PIN feature to prevent unauthorized access.
As for its publication, INTO has also rapidly ascended to the third most trafficked destination for LGBTQ news and information in just six months, (beating out established LGBTQ outlets like Out.com and Advocate.com with over 24.3 million unique viewers since launch) and spawning a wake of copycats by established media companies like Seventeen and Conde Nast.
INTO is also attracting talent. The publication just hired Trish Bendix, an award-winning and accomplished and lesbian editor who was previously Editor in Chief of both AfterEllen.com and GO Magazine. The hire is an important strategic win for INTO which aims to add more authenticity for its lesbian readers and reach through Trish's network.
Finally, the industry is also starting to notice as INTO is up for a GLAAD Award later this year and was named a finalist in the Shorty Social Good Awards.
