How To Use Social Networking To Get A Date

Olivia Hayes | December 10, 2008 | View Comments

As the resident bachelorette here at Ignite, I feel that it is my duty and obligation to write a blog post addressing the real reason that social media was created in the first place: hooking up. It’s true and you know it. The initial draw of sites like Friendster (back in the day), Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter was that maybe, just maybe, you’d get a date out of the deal.

Don’t be coy. Even if you won’t admit it, thousands of other people have and will tell their success stories of Myspace dating and Facebook hook ups. If you’re 13-30, and the majority of your age demographic has a profile that provides you with easily accessible information about who they are and what they like, then why would you pay a dating site to take a battery of personality tests to match you up with someone you could find just by searching for “roller derby” & “obscure fiction?”

As much as we love them, the two dimensional nature of social networks present some obvious limitations. Just like with a product or service, you are going to have to strategize about the best way to transform yourself into a marketable brand, despite those constraints. Below are a few useful tips to help you market yourself in the social networking game. If the help you need is beyond what this post can offer, then feel free to enlist the services of a professional profile consultant.

• Myspace – Oh, the almighty Myspace, where the masses go to indulge in awful html graphics and preadolescent behavior. As the social network boasting the most active members, if you’re looking, this would be the logical place to start. But Myspace is janky, giving it a bit of a creepshow vibe, so in order to stand out amongst the chaos, you’re going to have to focus on a somewhat clean presentation. Proper spelling is a must, and, please, use a thesaurus to discover some adjectives beyond “awesome.” Since most profiles are public, anyone could be looking at any time, including the future of your Friday nights.

Beware: choosing awful backgrounds that make my browser crash, the dreaded Myspace angles, and shirtless guys who send random messages beginning, “UR hot…”

• Facebook – The more civilized of the two largest social networks, Facebook boasts a more legitimate, “professional” vibe, aided by the fact that it does a relatively decent job of vetting its members. The people who find you through Facebook are more likely to be connected to you through mutual friends or acquaintances, thus it ends up feeling more like a meet-and-greet event than a street corner. “Networking” is your marketing buzzword here. Try and connect with people with whom you have a mutual friend, that way there’s someone who can vouch for your non-sketch status.

Beware: the lack of browsing options, since you have to friend someone to have access to their info, and the drama of the “change in Facebook status” debate, which has reached such epic proportions that a Cosmogirl blog post on the subject was necessary.

• Twitter – The shiny new toy of the social networking community, people are still discovering newer and better ways to get their game on in 140 characters or less. Twitter inevitably makes you seem witty and charming by turning the details of your life into an e.e.cummings haiku, and flittering (Twitter + flirting, cite me if you use it!) is practically a given with @messages. Hone your ability to convey your best qualities concisely.

Beware: lack of substance. Details of your morning coffee run/commute do not a conversation make. And any old random person can hunt you down on Twitter, so choose your followers wisely.

In blunt terms, dating is marketing. You need to turn yourself into the best-packaged product that you can be in order to get anywhere in the game of social network dating. And though there is a lot of conversation surrounding the “real world” social abilities of a generation so invested in their lives online, the real crux of the matter is that as social networks continue to permeate our lives, the way we use them will also continue to evolve.

Though social networking may swing the door open for romantic connections, it’s still up to us to develop and maintain the relationships, since Facebook still hasn’t built an application for that yet.

Photo from: www.flickr.com/photos/janined