Okay so I’ll lay it to you straight, the following article is completely ripped off from Mashable, but hey, it’s a great article and the author gets credit. No harm no foul, right? I’ll pass the buck to @WishYouWere for putting ideas in Lady Luck’s head via Twitter. Speaking of Twitter you can follow us over there @ladylucksdating if you feel so inclined.
Okay, now I’m absolved of all blame, and may rest easy in my bed, here it is – graphs and all.
“Online dating: most of you probably have a spruced-up profile on some random dating site, even if you won’t admit it to others. You’ve probably sent a message to someone or maybe even received a few messages yourself. However, most of the time, there is no response.
Actually, there is a response to online dating messages only about 32% of the time, according to the very popular (and free) dating website OkCupid. The company revealed this stat and far more on its OkTrends blog.
In their post, they analyzed the millions of messages that go through OkCupid and were able to discern some very interesting trends. So if you want to get the upper hand when it comes to online dating, or are just curious about the statistics, keep reading.
Should You Write a Short or a Long Message?
You start clicking through profiles. Then suddenly, you stop … because you can’t take your eyes away. Pretty eyes, a great smile, and this person’s a social media nerd to boot (just go with me on this…). So you click “send message” and are immediately stumped about what you should write. Should you write a long, eloquent message that details why you two would be a match, or fire off a quick message that will spark a deeper conversation?
This is essentially the question that OkCupid explores with their statistics. First, some interesting stats from their website:
- 16% of all first messages are over 2000 characters, or about 400 words.
- First messages sent by guys are only half as likely to get a reply as ones sent from women.
- The average first message is 743 characters long.
However, that doesn’t answer the question of whether a longer message increases your chance of a reply. So they made a very cool graph that shows how often women reply to a man’s message and how often the man responds back:
Summary: Longer messages will increase your chances of getting a response, from about 22% to nearly 35%. So you should write longer messages, right? Wrong, says OkCupid. Their rationale is that, while that long messages will get more responses, you’re not going to be able to send as many.
They estimate that if you can only send three messages of 3000 characters in an hour, resulting in 0.71 conversations (a response and then a response from the original sender) per hour. However, if your messages were 200 characters each, you could send 10 messages and get about 1.71 conversations per hour, more than doubling your chances of finding the one. Of course, if you’re focused on just one girl, and only one, write a very lengthy message.
For girls contacting guys, it’s actually a bit different of a graph:
The shorter the message, the better. Period. You can write about 11.4 messages per hour if they’re 50 characters. This will give you 3.43 conversations per hour. So yes, in both instances, you want to write shorter messages for the best chance of success.
Now exactly what you should write … well, that’s a subject for another blog post, although you should use “pretty” over “beautiful,” use proper English, and say “zombie” in your messages. Yes, I am serious, though I can’t figure out in what context that would work in the first place.”
by Ben Parr
http://mashable.com/2009/09/03/online-dating-responses/
admit it to others. You’ve probably sent a message to someone or maybe even received a few messages
yourself. However, most of the time, there is no response.
Actually, there is a response to online dating messages only about 32% of the time, according to the very
popular (and free) dating website OkCupid. The company revealed this stat and far more on its OkTrends
blog.
In their post, they analyzed the millions of messages that go through OkCupid and were able to discern some
very interesting trends. So if you want to get the upper hand when it comes to online dating, or are just
curious about the statistics, keep reading.
Should You Write a Short or a Long Message?
You start clicking through profiles. Then suddenly, you stop … because you can’t take your eyes away.
Pretty eyes, a great smile, and this person’s a social media nerd to boot (just go with me on this…). So
you click “send message” and are immediately stumped about what you should write. Should you write a long,
eloquent message that details why you two would be a match, or fire off a quick message that will spark a
deeper conversation?
This is essentially the question that OkCupid explores with their statistics. First, some interesting stats
from their website:
- 16% of all first messages are over 2000 characters, or about 400 words.
- First messages sent by guys are only half as likely to get a reply as ones sent from women.
- The average first message is 743 characters long.
However, that doesn’t answer the question of whether a longer message increases your chance of a reply. So
they made a very cool graph that shows how often women reply to a man’s message and how often the man
responds back:
Summary: Longer messages will increase your chances of getting a response, from about 22% to nearly 35%. So
you should write longer messages, right? Wrong, says OkCupid. Their rationale is that, while that long
messages will get more responses, you’re not going to be able to send as many.
They estimate that if you can only send three messages of 3000 characters in an hour, resulting in 0.71
conversations (a response and then a response from the original sender) per hour. However, if your messages
were 200 characters each, you could send 10 messages and get about 1.71 conversations per hour, more than
doubling your chances of finding the one. Of course, if you’re focused on just one girl, and only one,
write a very lengthy message.
For girls contacting guys, it’s actually a bit different of a graph:
The shorter the message, the better. Period. You can write about 11.4 messages per hour if they’re 50
characters. This will give you 3.43 conversations per hour. So yes, in both instances, you want to write
shorter messages for the best chance of success.
Now exactly what you should write … well, that’s a subject for another blog post, although you should use
“pretty” over “beautiful,” use proper English, and say “zombie” in your messages. Yes, I am serious, though
I can’t figure out in what context that would work in the first place.
