The Essex mum’s brutal Tinder date that will put you off dating for life
Background to the story:
I had covered a variety of dating stories for EssexLive prior to the publication of this story. Two of the best performing ones told the story of a woman who was trying to track down a man after her blind date went wrong, and a woman who wanted to find a man she shared a train carriage with. I realised that there was an appetite among our readers for dating-related content, which led me to think about new ways in which I could cover the topic.
The world of dating today is very much online based, and most people will have either used, or heard of, the dating app Tinder. The app, renowned for arranging hook-ups, is widely recognised across the world. It was reflecting upon my personal experiences with the app that lead me to the idea of sharing other people’s disastrous Tinder dates. I knew our readers would be able to relate to these experiences, so my article stood a high chance of generating a lot of page views.
Story link: Essex mum’s brutal Tinder date with ‘taken’ man will put you off dating for life
How I found Emma:
I posted a number of messages in Facebook groups across Essex looking for people willing to share their disastrous Tinder experiences, and my initial plan was to do a round-up of the most shocking. I was inundated with messages but none of them stood out as being particularly horrendous – until I read Emma’s.
Emma Louise Sanders told me about three of her worst Tinder dates and said she had even contemplated writing a book about them. Despite her stories dating back a couple of years I knew they were strong enough to work as a stand alone piece. I managed to convince her to be named and to send me a few photographs to use in the piece.
The ethical considerations:
To protect their privacy, I decided not to include any of the men’s names or any other details that may have led to their identification. Whilst on a date there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, and whilst Emma was happy for her experiences to be in the public eye, her dates may not have been. Therefore, leaving out their names was the safest option, protecting us against the possibility of future complaints. There was no need to approach Tinder for a comment as nothing Emma said defamed the company.
Following the story’s publication, I remained in contact with Emma. She has since tipped-us off about a new shop opening at Lakeside Shopping Centre, where she now works. This demonstrates why maintaining contact with sources is beneficial.
How well it did for our site:
It received 38,638 page views across 31 countries. The article had an average engagement time of one minute and 55 seconds. A total of 59.9% of the page views came from search traffic, which is most likely because I used ‘Tinder date’ in the headline for SEO. On Facebook it reached 16,482 people and had over 2,000 engagements.
The article performed so well that it was syndicated, which Emma was happy with. It was my first story to be shared on Ladbible and reached the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Daily Star as well several other Reach PLC sites.
Syndicated links:
Paige Ingram’s Certificate of Journalism Portfolio 