New Post on Shouldn't But Do: Being Star Struck

If you live in New York, you are expected to remain somewhat ambivalent when you run into a celebrity. That’s an Olsen over there? Meh. Is that Leonardo DiCaprio? Whatever. Celebrities walk among us like “musicians” in Brooklyn, cowboys in Dallas, or fake tits in LA. Asking for an autograph is a complete faux pas. Don’t even look at them. In fact, the only acceptable celebrity to get worked up over is Barack Obama. “Our savior.”

[Read more at Shouldn't But Do.]

New Post on Should But Don't: Vegans

I don’t have a problem with what they eat—just as I don’t with the eating habits of omnivores or regular, run-of-the-mill vegetarians (like me). But I hate vegans’ smug, condescending approach to people who want to have their animals, and eat them too.

[Read more at Should But Don't.]

What OK Cupid Can Teach You about Marketing

For the past month I’ve been on the popular dating site OK Cupid. It began as an experiment in social media: I wanted to examine how people used the 2.0 web for dating—how they communicated on this platform versus others, with which I am already comfortable, like Facebook and Twitter. It turned into a research project on best practices in personal marketing. What I took away from these profiles I think teaches a lot about advertising in general.

1. Set realistic expectations

If you join looking for the love of your life, you’re going to be disappointed. If you want to meet a few people and have good conversations, you’ll be happy. I’m not a fan of the “shoot for the moon; you’ll end up in the stars” philosophy, especially when it comes to dating. If things turn out to be something special, I’ll just be pleasantly surprised.

2. Brevity

You’re not Faulkner. I don’t want to read your 100-page autobiography. The longer the profile, the less likely it is I’ll finish it. If no one reads the content, you won’t receive any results.

3. Mystery

If your profile details every aspect of your life, you leave no opening for conversation. Without room to engage, your audience won’t be interested. The most common opening line I received was, “What kind of experiment is this?” Let the quirks garner interest, not your resume.

4. Clean content

If ur riting makes me LOL (or vomit), im nto gonna message u.

5. Personalized messaging

I received a few generic messages, like the following: “Hi, I noticed your profile and you seem really interesting. I'm Matt, 26 years old, living in Park Slope and in real estate. If you’re interested, message me back.” That doesn’t make me feel special. You have to realize that your audience isn’t a homogenized group; we’re all individuals who want to think you’re speaking directly to each of us.

6. Confidence

Don’t say it’s hard to sum yourself up in a paragraph. It’s not. Or another way to look at this is that it's not a summary, but an introduction. You want engagement. You don’t want to detail what you do, where you live, your history, your passions, et cetera upfront. You want to give me a reason to care. Tell me why I should be interested.

7. Paying attention

Read my profile before you message me. For example, I state, clearly, that I don’t use the site’s instant message system. If you IM me, I’ll know you didn’t read my profile. Your audience isn’t stupid. We know when you just looked at the pictures.

Also, being undeniably handsome never hurt anyone.