Everything has its moment in the sun, and then it sinks into the depths of forgetfulness. The same is true for Facebook Dating: it came, it went, and now we’ve almost all moved on from it. It might sound like a failed venture, but that’s not necessarily the case.
In many ways, the failure of Facebook Dating was an excellent learning experience for us as users and for Mark Zuckerberg as a business leader.
If we analyze what happened with this product launch, we can take away valuable insights about how to make digital products more successful in the future. Let’s explore why Facebook Dating didn’t work out so well and what we can learn from it.
Table of Contents
What is Facebook Dating?
Facebook Dating is a new standalone app that allows users to find romantic partners. In contrast to Tinder, Bumble, and other dating apps, Facebook Dating isn’t an app you download while being blindfolded.
Instead, it’s a feature built into the Facebook app itself. Facebook Dating is accessed via the “Dating” button on the top menu bar of your Facebook app. Once you tap on the “Dating” button, you’ll be directed to a huge list of potential dating partners, who are either people you know or complete strangers.
For each potential partner, you’ll see a picture, their name and age, and a short description outlining what they’re looking for in a dating partner. If you like what you see and feel like giving them a “Like,” you can click the “Like” button next to their name and description. If you receive a “Like” in return, you can then start chatting with your new potential partner.
Why Did Facebook Dating Fail?
In the beginning, everything seems like it’s moving along smoothly, and everything is rosy. But, then something happens.
Maybe the market changes and what you’re offering doesn’t seem as appealing as before. Maybe the product is sub-par and people are unhappy with it. Maybe the product is too expensive.
Maybe the product isn’t available in the right markets. Maybe the product fails to solve a real problem. Maybe the product fails to resonate with the right audience. Whatever the reason, something happens, and suddenly, the wheels fall off the bus. In the case of Facebook Dating, a few things went wrong. First, the product was rolled out too quickly.
Facebook had been working on the product for months, and they must have been eager to get it out there to see how it performed. But, there’s an important saying “Rushing is a bad thing.”
Another thing that might have contributed to the failure of Facebook Dating is that it wasn’t announced in a very public way. Normally, when a company launches a new product, they’ll make a big public announcement and make sure everyone in the world knows about it. But, in Facebook’s case, they didn’t do that. Instead, they quietly rolled out the new Dating feature to a limited number of users in Colombia and Thailand.
Lessons We Learned from Facebook’s Dating Fiasco
As we’ve seen, Facebook Dating was a complete failure, but it was a spectacularly educational failure for us to learn from. Let’s take a look at three things we’ve learned from Facebook’s Dating flop.
– Users Don’t Like Being Managed – It’s obvious that users don’t like being managed. But, in the case of Facebook Dating, it’s even more clear. Many users were annoyed by the fact that Facebook was trying to manage their dating lives.
They took it as an affront to their privacy and a gross overstepping of boundaries. In Facebook’s defense, they didn’t go out on a limb and actively try to find their users’ prospective dating partners.
Instead, they let their users find potential dating partners and then let those users know who they were “compatible” with.
But, this still didn’t quell the anger of many users. But, what can we learn from this? We can learn that people don’t want to be managed.
And, that’s true for people who are looking for romantic partners and for people who are trying to find new friends. People, in general, don’t like to be managed by platforms, businesses, or governments. And, we can avoid making big mistakes in the future by keeping this in mind.
People Don’t Want to be Tricked into Relationships
Another big mistake Facebook made with their Dating product was trying to force relationships to form between people who didn’t actually want to be in relationships with each other.
This happened a couple of ways. First, Facebook Dating showed users who were already friends with each other as potential dating partners.
And, in many cases, these friends were happily married or in committed relationships. This annoyed a lot of people. It made it obvious that Facebook was trying to force relationships between people who had no interest in being together. And, while they might have gotten away with this once, they were stupid enough to do it again.
This time, they showed people who were complete strangers as potential dating partners. And, in some cases, these people weren’t interested in starting a romantic relationship with their Facebook Dating partner.
But, what is the takeaway here? People don’t like being tricked into romantic relationships. And, this lesson can apply to friendships too. People don’t want to be roped into a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to be in a relationship with them.
This can be applied to online relationships as well. We can keep this in mind when we’re building relationships online and make sure we’re not forcing something that is unwanted.
5 Ways Mark Zuckerberg Can Turn Facebook Dating Around
We’ve seen that Facebook Dating was a catastrophic failure for Facebook. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. Let’s take a look at five ways Mark Zuckerberg can turn Facebook Dating around and make it a successful product.
– Users Don’t Want to Be Tricked Into Relationships – As we’ve seen, Facebook tried to force relationships between people who didn’t want to be in relationships with each other. This created an angry mob of users who were absolutely furious at Facebook. This is one of the biggest mistakes Facebook made and it directly led to the catastrophic failure of Facebook Dating.
But, how can Mark Zuckerberg turn this around? He needs to make sure that he doesn’t try to force relationships between people who don’t want to be in relationships with each other. In other words, he has to keep the platform open to people who are single, people who are in relationships, and people who are polyamorous.
Users Don’t Like Being Managed
We’ve seen that users don’t like being managed. And, Facebook Dating did a good job of proving this. But, what can Zuckerberg do to avoid this mistake next time around? Well, he can continue to avoid trying to manage his user’s dating lives.
Instead, he can focus on helping users find love. Doing so will help him avoid the mistake he made with Facebook Dating.
People Don’t Want to be Tricked into Relationships
Similarly, people don’t want to be tricked into romantic relationships. And, Facebook Dating did a great job of proving this too.
To avoid this mistake with the new iteration of Facebook Dating, Zuckerberg can do three things.
First, he can make sure he doesn’t show people who are in committed relationships as potential dating partners.
Second, he can make sure he doesn’t show people who are single as potential dating partners to people in committed relationships. And, third, he can make sure he doesn’t show complete strangers as potential dating partners.