Friday

7 Plenty of Fish Profile Picture Mistakes







Creating a seductive profile online is probably one of the most important aspects to Plenty of Fish dating. Within the profile though, the pictures section is by far one of the most important and often most neglected feature. Here we will talk about some of the seven most over looked mistakes while posting pictures on your profile.

1. Not Having a Picture

This is pretty obvious and it's still surprising that there are people who think they are capable of attracting perfect strangers online without having a simple picture of themselves. Basically, if you don't have at least one picture, you are 100% wasting your time.

2. Pictures Without a Shirt

This applies mostly to the guys, however, I doubt women could get away with a topless picture on a legitimate dating site. Regardless, guys, keep your shirts on. Yes, we're all impressed with your big muscles, but posing/flexing for the camera is making you look like a tool and a douche bag. Amongst all my research and surveys with women who date online, I have yet to find one that thinks this is a good idea.

3. Not Having a Good Head Shot

This is actually a requirement for your main picture on the Plenty of Fish dating site. The reason is that people want to actually see a good close up of you, rather than a group shot or some stick figure standing in the distance. Even if you think you're ugly, having a good close up picture is good, because it shows you are honest. One of the biggest complaints in online dating is meeting people in real life that don't look like their pictures. These people who misrepresent themselves are obviously not getting a second date, which makes all that effort worthless in the end. Better to just stick with your ugly mug for the sake of efficiency.

4. Pictures With Your Ex Cropped Out

These are the pictures where you can clearly see the ex cropped out of the picture. I don't think this one is that big of a deal if you are really short on quality pictures. However, if you are serious about raking in the hotties on Plenty of Fish then why not just get some better pictures - don't you own a digital camera? Another thought is to simply leave the other person in the picture as means of social proof. Who cares if your ex is in the picture? I think it shows that you are open and don't care how people judge you. If you're worried about privacy for the other person then simply put a black bar across their eyes.

5. Self Portrait In the Mirror

You know what I'm talking about. The people who take their own picture with a cellphone while standing in front of the bathroom mirror. People please, this is just lame. First, it makes you look like you don't do anything, because you don't have any pictures of yourself and it makes you look like you don't have any friends. Do not do this.

6. Not Having Enough Pictures

Recently I did a little research where I browsed through 100 random male profiles and 100 random female profiles. For each profile, I recorded in a spreadsheet two sets of data: the number pictures shown and the number of times that profile was given "favorite" status. The results turned out to what I expected. Regardless of looks or written content, on average, the profiles with more pictures (6-8) had more favorites given to them. The profiles with less pictures (only 1 or 2) had little to no favorites given. Essentially, the two sets of data are directly proportional. So, we can conclude that the more pictures you show, the more interest you will receive in your online dating profile.

7. Not Diversifying Your Pictures

One observation I noticed in my research from number 6 is those profiles with 6 - 8 pictures, some did good while others did extremely well. The difference was that the pictures that were exceptional, had a diverse set of pictures. Conversely, the pictures that had 6 shots of the same thing only fared as well as profiles with 1 or 2 pictures.

A good example is one guy who had 8 pictures shown and was given favorite status by 130 women!! By far the highest number I've seen for a male dating profile. So what set his pictures apart from everyone else. He basically showed, through his pictures how awesome and exciting his life was. He had pictures of him doing the following: skydiving, riding a motorcycle, snowboarding, surfing, sitting by the fire in a camp setting, playing with his dogs, and one simple but clear head shot as his main picture. He barely had anything written in his profile either, but he didn't need to, he displayed his exciting life through visual proof!! Think about it folks.


Hopefully these seven tips of "what not to do" will help you avoid some common pitfalls for Plenty of Fish dating and other online dating services. If you have any to add please feel free to write it in the comments section.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:59 PM

    "This is pretty obvious and it's still surprising that there are people who think they are capable of attracting perfect strangers online without having a simple picture of themselves. Basically, if you don't have at least one picture, you are 100% wasting your time."

    Despite all the complaints guys have about women only going for looks, that is generally not the case.

    For me, I had much more success using a profile without a picture and then writing a funny/witty/engaging profile. It seems putting up a picture can also be a bit of a roadblock to encouraging women to say hello first. I guess, they start thinking are they good enough, or would he be interested.

    I look OK but not uber handsome. So being rejected by me can hurt a little, but being rejected by uber handsome doesn't hurt that much because it was a long shot to start anyway. However, when I send the picture after initial contact, looks were generally not a concern. I was "good enough" :-)

    A non picture profile for me, gets 15-20 emails a month , while a picture profile, even on the same profile, only gets 2-6 emails a month. This is of course a function of how active your profile is, but generally for me it's 3-4 times emails without picture.

    Initiating emails without a picture, is of course a fairly pointless endeavor.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous,
    Those are some interesting results and wouldn't expect your emails to increase without a picture. In my experience from other dating sites, I haven't gotten anything at all. However, it could have been that my profile description wasn't witty enough to spark the same kind of curiosity that you received.

    I may have to test this one out. You wouldn't happen to have an example of what you wrote in your profile that you could share, would you? :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1:25 PM

    I'm the same anonymous from above. I've only ever used POF, no other dating sites. The presence of a picture, tends to force the other person into questioning their own worth. Can't give out the one I'm currently using ... but just for fun ... here's something of the cuff. You'll note, the profile is simply doing what a first email should do ... maybe you can try it see what happens ...
    ---------
    WHOOPS, actually I thought it turned out pretty good ... so I'm going to try this one for a while. Just to see. I'll email you the username ... just for fun.
    ---------

    ReplyDelete
  4. Average Joe8:58 PM

    I've used POF for about 4 months now. One thing I notice is the lack of words some girls use in their profiles. It seems many of them think they can get by on looks alone, aka their pictures in short skirts, low cut tops, etc. Then again those might be recon profiles like you mentioned using, but I've noticed it's a common thing on POF...

    ReplyDelete

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