February is supposed to be the month of love. But on TikTok this year, friendship stole the spotlight. Instead of content about long distance relationships or heartbreak, the apps gaining traction right now are focused on one of two things: helping people find friends, or help them keeping them.
In this issue, we break down some of the most interesting friendship apps taking off and what they can teach us.
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Yope
Yope is one of the OGs. The app launched in June 2022 and quickly became one of the largest UGC networks in the social space. One of its key features pushes friend updates directly to your friends’ home screens, and by now we have all seen how viral that format can become.
They started with 45 creators, then scaled to 145, and now manage over 210 accounts. In total, they have published more than 1,500 videos, each account posting on average twice a day.
The real breakthrough for them came from a pivotal decision: go Spanish-first.
More than half of their accounts post in Spanish, and those are clearly the best performers. @mar.yope reached 5.3M views and @andre.yope hit 7.8M views. These numbers come from videos that are still live, but it looks like many videos were deleted in the meantime (Mar’s account still shows 5.4M total likes).
Soon enough, Latin America became their key growth engine. All of this was driven by variations of a single hook that ran across dozens of accounts simultaneously.
“Me explaining to my friends that we have exactly X days to download Yope and create a group on January 1st, so we can send each other photos every day and have a recap of our entire year.”
Housewarming
Housewarming was released exactly 90 days ago. It is like a social media platform for close friends only, where users can share bits of their life daily.
They launched with 11 creators, all posting consistently since January, and have racked up their first 2.8 million views since then.
They went all in with one of TikTok’s most proven viral angles: long distance friendships, using long hooks to build small narratives about the importance of keeping daily rituals with your friends when you live apart.
Though they do not have many viral spikes yet, there is a pattern. Two thirds of their most viral videos so far include the famous “do you have Snapchat? no but (…)” line in the hook. Both videos came from different accounts.
Mate
Mate operates in a different lane. It is an IRL friendship app with a strong Spanish speaking audience, and most of its momentum comes from a founder led account that shares the building process through simple slideshow posts.
Across 440 videos, they have generated 8.5 million views.
Their strongest format is a three slide carousel that starts with “Tired of not having friends?” and follows with “I got you.”
They posted this format three different times across three separate accounts, and it went viral every time without ever mentioning the app name.
Mate has also experimented with group based formats, but so far those have not gained much traction. Views are lower and engagement is weaker, which shows they are still figuring out how far they can push their formats beyond the original carousel.
We also found another cool account run by the founders, documenting the process of two friends building the app.
Letterloop
Letterloop is based on an interesting concept: private group newsletters you can create and send to your friends. It was released in 2024 and it’s estimated to generate about $30,000 every month.
They only began posting consistently around October 2025, when they launched a small creator network with five creators. Despite the small setup, one account gained traction quickly.
@penny.letterloop is leading the network, reaching 3.6M views in just a couple of weeks.
Her best format focuses on text about relationships or friendships, written in the style of a personal note.
“Being in a relationship with someone who is chasing their dreams is so humbling. Like oh we don’t have to text/call all the time and you still adore me? We have separate lives? You’re an addition to my life, BUT not my whole life? If something’s wrong, I can just tell you and we figure it out together?”
This format worked because people used the comments section to share their own version of that same feeling.
However, most of Letterloop’s UGC content focuses on showing the app and explaining why it is valuable.
They are now seeing a second wave of posts from regular users who tried the app and shared their experience with their own friend groups. These users are not part of the creator network, but they reinforce the same message and help spread it even further.
Friendship and social formats speak in many ways beyond selling an app. They shed much needed light on how your target audience speaks and interacts with each other, as well as what they value when using apps to stay connected.
Regardless of which niche you are in, do not miss the lessons from adjacent niches. They might be hiding your next best breakthrough.
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