You are laid back and like to laugh? Check.
Can’t live without coffee or your iPhone? Check.
Grainy, 3-year old pictures of yourself pulled from Facebook? Most definitely check.
Are you guilty of using any of those phrases or pictures? If so, this post might be for you. If you’ve only narrowly avoided the aforementioned by using pictures that are only 2 years old, or describing yourself as merely “chill”… well this post is definitely still for you.
Hell, if you have any interest in raising your reply rates by a substantial percentage, this post is for you. How’s that for a soft pitch?
Online dating is a fierce competition these days, with coaches and ghostwriters taking those serious about succeeding on it to the top. Ahem.
But just because you don’t have a hired gun in your pocket doesn’t mean that you can’t succeed as well.
Here are 3 easy steps to upgrading your dating profile and making sure that you stand out from the pack.
- Cut the generalities.Let’s see, what else do you like? Netflix, wine, brunch, coffee, laughing, rock climbing, TRAVELING, EATING… Game of Thrones, The Shawshank Redemption, you hate country music and heavy metal, and you have no typical Friday nights. Yawn. Heard that one before.
If you don’t take more than 3 minutes to write your profile and think about what actually differentiates you from other people, you are going to end up with the same profile as everyone else… because 90% of us are superficially the same, aren’t we? So dig deep and think about ways to describe yourself and the things you like without sounding just like everyone else.
- Take some new pictures.Seriously. Knowing what we know about online dating (that the pictures are the important gatekeepers), why would you settle on only the pictures that you currently possess? There’s no shame in actually putting some effort into your online dating profile – isn’t the goal just to succeed?
So get a damn haircut, grab 2 shirts, and head out to a park to take some pictures. Just avoid overly posed pictures… and go easy on the photoshopping.
- Show, don’t tell.Okay, so you hear this piece of advice thrown around ad nauseum. What the hell does it mean? Show the traits and qualities that you want to talk about not by listing them, but through telling mini-stories that how those traits off. What’s better – “I’m adventurous!” or “Last summer I had an Indiana Jones-esque moment as a native in Africa actually shot an arrow at me.”
For more on creating a killer profile, check out my best-selling online dating book!
Or read about the one requirement your profile pictures should have, or exactly what you should aim to do with your first message.