Tell your friends to unlock Tinder Social for your next epic night out

Gone are the days of Tinder being akin to a modern-day glorified “hot or not” website: it just got a lot more social. Just in time for the weekend, Tinder Social has launched in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India today after a lengthy testing period in Australia.

From Left to Right, the Process of using Tinder Social

Tinder Social is a new element that lets a group of friends find other cool groups of friends to hook up with on their nights out. The system has changed since Australia’s beta, so here’s a quick rundown of how things work:

1. You’ll first have to “unlock” Tinder social, which simply means opting into the feature on your profile.
2. Tell your friends to unlock the feature too, as you won’t be able to see and invite them to groups unless they do so.
3. When your group is about to go out for the night, set a status message with a general outline of your plans, such as a concert or bar you’re headed to.
4. Start swiping left and right!

That last step is where the magic starts happening. If someone from your group swipes right (which means you think they’re ho– um, fun), and someone from that group swipes right on yours, you’ll both get matched up and whisked into a conversation where you can plan out an epic night.

In a blog post, Tinder says they made the feature more real-time this way, as well as by ensuring group hookups don’t last more than a day. If you like that crazy group of club goers you stumbled upon then you’re free to add them to your contact books and set up more dates in the future, otherwise you can be on your way and find someone else to hang out with the next time you go out.

Here are some other details about the feature you may want to know:

• Users can only belong to one group at a time
• Any member in the group can add a group status that is visible to everyone in the group, everyone who comes across their group profile, and everyone they match with
• The person who creates a group can choose to ‘End Group’ – which expires the group
• A user may leave/un-match with a group at any time. If everyone leaves the group except its creator, the group expires
• A group match expires at noon the next day (or when the group is ended)

The update should be rolling out over Google Play so get over there and download it before you put on your dancing shoes this weekend!