Online Dating Profile Picture Tips for Men
The pictures you use in your profile are the single most important thing to get right when it comes to online dating. Women will email you if you have the right pictures.
Guys asked for tips on online dating profile pictures…
So, time to get into it here. I’m going to give you some stuff here that I wish someone would’ve told me when I put my profile pictures up.
First of all, you have to have a picture. Every bit of research shows that a profile with a picture will get at least three times as many responses as one with no picture.
Second, your pictures are there primarily to get her interest so she either reads your profile or decides then and there to send you message, wink, introduction or whatever.
Third, put up current pictures. It’s not going to do you any good to show up on a date 30 pounds bigger than you are in your pictures. All you’re going to do is turn her off, show that you’re deceitful, and find out that she might not be attracted to you. It’s not like you can blame her.
My online dating profile picture
Likewise, if you have something major going on like you only have one arm, you’re crippled, or in my case, your ear is mutilated, you need to address that somehow. Either in your pictures or in your profile.
The fact is that if you’re comfortable with whatever is “wrong” with you, everyone else will be too. People don’t know how to react to certain things, and they’ll take their cue from you. You create the reality that you’re comfortable with yourself and everyone else will accept you. You create the reality that you want.
And, hey… before we go any further here, I want you to know I wrote a book that has everything you need to know about your pictures, headline, and write-up. Click here discover more about online dating profile writing.
Online Dating Profile Picture Basics:
You need a variety of different shots on your profile. On most sites you can post at least 12 pictures. Using what I’m going to show you here, you’ll need six.
These are the minimum I suggest and I’ll talk about each of them in a separate blog post. (Today we’re just going to do the first two adn by the way, eHarmony got these all wrong.)
- A basic head shot for your main profile picture
- A picture of you smiling
- You in another country or traveling to somewhere notable in the US.
- You in any kind of leadership position
- A full body shot
- In a social setting having fun with friends
- You doing something unique
I’ve heard some people say that you shouldn’t put up a real picture, but an illustration or some artistic filtered picture of yourself made with Photoshop. In the experiments I did, this cut my responses to almost one third compared to when I used a real picture. It wasn’t as bad as using no picture at all, but still not the best bet.
Showing your hobbies and interests in your online dating profile pictures help attract the kind of woman you’re looking for.
And, believe it or not, a picture that doesn’t show your face at all will get just as many responses as one that shows your facee as long as the picture is unusual, intriguing or mysterious. The problem with this is that most sites (but not all) require your main picture to be a face shot.
The advantage to putting up one of these “fake” pictures is that it will give anyone responding to you an immediate talking point. Every single one of the emails we got either asked us for a real picture or commented on the illustration. I’m not sure if that’s all that significant though, because when we put up real pictures, almost everyone asked us about one or more of those too.
A basic head shot, your main profile picture
This is usually the most intimidating shot guys have to put up. First, we assume that the close up picture is going to make or break our profile. It’s not. Women are far less likely to nix guys because of their looks. She IS going to screen you based on your picture, but she’s just making sure you’re well groomed and don’t look psychotic. Women are far more forgiving of looks than men.
Just make sure you give the impression you want to. I recommend being clean shaven. Studies show that people trust men with no facial hair more than they trust guys with beards or goats. Although if you have a certain look, and you’re confident with it, go with it. Some women like a tough guy look, and some guys can pull it off.
The two best online dating profile pictures:
No smile and looking away from the camera
There was some really interesting research done by one of the major online dating websites to see which main profile pictures got the most responses. The results might actually surprise you. The best picture for a guy, in terms of new contacts made, was a photo where the guy is looking away from the camera and not smiling.
I didn’t believe it, but I tried it out. The difference in the response was amazing. On Match.com where I used to get one email every other day or so, I started getting one or two every single day. And the only change I made was to make my main picture one where I wasn’t looking into the camera.
So, get a picture of yourself where you’re not looking at the camera, and don’t smile. You’re going for a mysterious look. Don’t smile or worse yet, flirt or try to look sexy. Looking like you’re flirting with someone off camera was by far the least appealing picture.
Be careful if you go with the mysterious look, sometimes what we think looks mysterious comes off as weird. Ask a female friend or email it to me for my opinion.
Also, if you go with a picture where you aren’t smiling in your main picture, I’d recommend having at least one extra photo where you’re smiling and having a good time.
Smile
Smile in one of your main photos.
You gotta smile in at least one of your online dating profile pictures.
Looking into the camera with a smile was the second most effective profile picture, both for me and the most current research.
If you’re going to smile, it has to look like a real smile. One of the major keys to making your smile appear genuine is to be sure your eyes are smiling too. I’d suggest getting in front of a mirror and thinking of something that makes you happy. (I re-live seeing my brothers or my dog when I got home after being overseas for four years.)
When you’re happy with the way your face looks, freeze it right there. Look at it in the mirror. Feel your face. Notice what muscles are being used, feel the pull of your cheeks, remember the way your eyebrows feel, feel the tension in your ears and scalp.
You want to memorize exactly the way your face feels when you look truly happy. Then, when you want to project a real smile for your picture, all you have to do is think of your happy memory and make your face feel the way you memorized it.
Do the same thing for a mysterious or mischievous look if you are going for that image in your main picture.
Actually, you can do this with a bunch of different emotions and “fake” any emotion, anytime you want to. This skill is really useful in social situations because once you get good at it, it allows you to project any feeling or emotion you want, regardless of whether or not you’re feeling it based on what’s really going on in the conversation.
So if you know the reaction someone wants, you can create images and memories in your head at will, and your facial expression, body language, and tone will all reflect the memory, not necessarily what you are really feeling in the present.
If you follow this advice on your online dating profile pictures, you’re going to have some serious improvement in your success with women. So, for now just change your main profile picture to one of the two I suggest above and then let me know by email how it goes.
You probably already have my book on writing a profile including a full chapter on pics, how to cover up flaws, make yourself look taller, and thinner AND get women to emotionally connect with you so they email you first. If you don’t have it for some crazy reason, get over this page and buy Magnetic Profiles right now. 🙂
Talk to you soon– JT
Some additional online dating profile pictures you should consider putting up.
Most recent post on online dating profile pictures. This post has examples of the two pictures you read about here.
