China’s Professional Networking Sites Are Turning into Matchmaking Platforms
With the rise of the digital economy, employees of China’s internet giants are becoming the ideal partners in the love and marriage market.
While attitudes about love and marriage have evolved since the early twentieth century, matchmaking as a culture in China has persisted to date. The word “xiangqin”, which means “matchmaking” in Chinese, refers to unmarried men and women introduced to one another by a third party and then getting to know each other to see if they are romantically compatible. Shanghai is known for its people’s park blind date corner, where parents and grandparents lookout for potential marriage partners for their children, while youngsters turn to matchmaking apps such as Momo and Tantan to find love. The market size of the Online Dating segment in China is projected to reach US$496 million in 2022 and US$645.8 million in 2026.
In today’s digital age, internet giants such as Tencent, ByteDance, Alibaba and Huawei have become the popular career choice of the younger generations. Employees under these internet companies, such as programmers and data analysts, have also been perceived as more valuable in the love and marriage market. Professional networking sites and company intranets became the ideal platform to hunt for top-quality partners.
Matchmaking through the company intranet
There are many matchmaking channels in China. Many popular internet companies have a blind date section on their intranet for singles to socialise and find their significant other. For example, Alibaba, Meituan, and Huawei employees can directly post blind date requests on the intranet. Huawei has a matchmaking community, and ByteDance even has a special “Xiang Yu” (Meet) initiative for the singles.
Zhang Yuan, a Huawei employee, said that he noticed more and more dating posts on the intranet. In addition to the technical knowledge forum posts and anonymous complaints about the company’s performance and salary, the company’s intranet is also a matchmaking channel for Huawei employees across the countries, with the post-90s employees being especially active. Many non-Huawei outsiders also ask Huawei people to post on the intranet to seek potential partners. Four of the top five users with the most popular blind date posts in the Huawei community are outsiders. The profiles come from all walks of life, such as the doctor of Jiaotong University, an undergraduate working in a foreign trade company, and other candidates with overseas masters.
ByteDance’s “Xiang Yu” initiative is also known as “Project 175” because female employees usually require their male counterparts to be taller than 175. This project was launched officially by ByteDance, where employees with matchmaking requirements can send the information to the admin. After an initial assessment, the post will be queued up for release. Blind date posts are extremely popular, and most people have to wait for two weeks for their requirements to be posted on the intranet. Although officially managed by ByteDance, the company does not encourage employees in the same office to date each other. Romantic relationships between colleagues need to be reported, and it is strictly forbidden to date colleagues in positions such as finance, legal affairs, and HR.
Despite the popularity of blind date communities on the intranet, the success rate of online matchmaking remains low, leaving employees with unmet dating needs. The main reason is that the majority of the employees are working hard to meet their KPIs. The hectic work schedules leave them little time to date. In addition, employees are also selective of their dating partners. The most outstanding candidate with better conditions (looks, education qualification, etc.) has many followers and dating requests, whereas most other candidates are left unnoticed.
Matchmaking on professional networking sites
Positioned as a workplace social networking platform, Maimai has gained fame in a short period for discussing job opportunities, career change, and other work-related content. However, many have observed users seeking matchmaking or blind dates on Maimai. Tongtong, a Maimai user, posted online that one of her annual goals was to find a romantic partner. This message alone attracted her 4,000 followers and accumulated about 8,000 fans. Tongtong was particularly surprised as she had almost no fans in Maimai before that post. Many people sent her private messages and wanted to get to know her. Another Maimai user, Xiang Yang, found his colleague requesting a blind date on Maimai. His colleague is a test development engineer with an annual salary of RMB 500,000 (US$75,700). Xiang Yang exclaimed, “young people nowadays express that they are proud to be single, yet they secretly arrange blind dates.”
Maimai is no longer simply an “Internet pantry”. Some netizens noticed that now Maimai and Momo are switching roles, and the functions of job hunting and making friends are reversed. Users looking for male and female friends go to Maimai, while users looking for a job go to Momo instead.
New ways to commercialise matchmaking services
Due to the massive demand in China’s love and marriage market, many matchmaking entrepreneurs are targeting these digitally savvy users or employees of big internet factories as their client base. Many headhunters have begun to position their matchmaking service as “workplace dating”, connecting male and female employees with similar work domains. Many agencies charge for a single event or a membership fee of 5,000 to 6,000 yuan (US$757 to US$908) per quarter.
Shengu is one of the many matchmaking entrepreneurs benefiting from this workplace dating trend. One of Shengu’s work tasks is to promote group links under Maimai blind date posts and then divert traffic to WeChat blind date groups through the Maimai forums. Afterwards, his company can commercialise its service through online and offline blind date activities, one-to-one consultation, membership services, etc. The primary user groups include working professionals and college graduates from top universities in China.
Shengu previously worked at Tencent and left in 2020 to start a social networking project. He tried to gather top college graduates and other high-end user profiles as the core user base to build a social networking product that integrates product features of Soul, Tantan and other similar products. At the beginning of the company’s establishment, Shengu positioned the product as blind dates focusing on offline dating. However, this business model requires a lot of staffing which is unsuitable for a new company like this with limited resources. After a short period of trial and error, Shengu decided to adjust the product positioning to online dating and matchmaking. His company also collaborated with offline businesses to provide dating venues and activities for blind dates, such as archery and board games. Currently, Shengu’s company has more than a dozen WeChat groups, and many users belong to employees of large internet factories. The total number of all users exceeds 100,000. Many of the first batches of users came from Maimai, accounting for about 60 per cent. Around 30 per cent came from Douban, and 10 per cent from Baidu Tieba.
Due to the increasing popularity of online dating on the Internet, an interesting phenomenon has emerged. Singles have a lot of autonomy online. They can set selection criteria according to their requirements, including age, income, education, region, or manual search and data screening, to find people who meet their required standards. In the Internet era, the post-90s generation has a high acceptance of Internet products. They are more willing to try unique and interesting social networking methods, such as making friends through video calls, blind dates and other cross-border interactions, creating a huge market opportunity for matchmaking services.
