• Tinder has announced a new feature called Matchmaker that allows friends or family to make suggestions on who you should date on the platform.
• You don’t need to have a Tinder profile in order to be invited and make suggestions.
• The new feature is currently being rolled out to 15 countries.

Matchmaking is big business, just ask Netflix, which has produced a number of series on the subject.

Now Tinder is looking into the art of matchmaking, announcing a new Matchmaker feature that will allow Tinder users to add friends and family to their profile in order to make suggestions on people that they should date on the platform.

The addition of the feature makes a lot of sense, considering a recent survey on the platform found that, ” 75% of surveyed singles said they discuss their dating life with friends multiple times a month.”

“To assist today’s singles and their dating deliberators in deeming if someone is worthy of a Like, Tinder, the world’s most popular dating app for meeting new people, is launching Tinder Matchmaker. The new feature lets friends and family asynchronously access Tinder to recommend profiles for a user,” the dating platform added in a blog post.

Tinder explains that users will be able to add others, whether they have a Tinder profile or not, to view and suggest potential matches.

“For years, singles have asked their friends to help find their next match on Tinder,  and now we’re making that so easy with Tinder Matchmaker. Tinder Matchmaker brings your circle of trust into your dating journey and helps you see the possibilities you might be overlooking from the perspective of those closest to you,” added Melissa Hobley, chief marketing officer at Tinder.

As for how the full process would work, the steps are laid out as follows:

• A Tinder Matchmaker session can be started directly from a profile card, or within app settings. Users can share their unique link with up to 15 friends in a 24 hour period.
• After following the link, the matchmaker can either log in to Tinder or continue as a guest (after completing an age verification prompt and agreeing to Tinder’s terms as outlined).
• Matchmakers have 24 hours to play cupid before the session expires, where they can recommend profiles for the Tinder user but won’t be able to chat or send messages on their behalf.
• Once the session expires, Tinder users will have the opportunity to review the profiles their matchmakers’ Like for them. Profiles that received a Like from a matchmaker will be marked as a “recommendation” (profiles sent a Nope won’t change).
• The Tinder user still makes the final call on who to Like – but now knows who their friends are rooting for.

If you’re a South African wanting to make use of this new feature, sadly you’ll have to wait for now. This as the new feature is being rolled out in 15 countries at the time of writing – United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

It is expected to roll out globally in the coming months.