20 Tips from Female Dating CEOs at Silicon Beach Fest

Photo: Left to right: Jennifer Kelton, Kelly Steckelberg, Talia Goldstein, Julie Spira

Dating and looking for love? In case you missed it Silicon Beach Fest, it was an honor and joy to put together the first-ever Female Dating CEO panel for a lively discussion on the dating industry, relationships, and tips for online dating profiles and safe dating.

The panelists included some of the busiest women running dating and matchmaking companies, who took the time to collaborate on an informative panel and answered questions from the audience.

Collectively our businesses represented 30 years of dating industry, matchmaking, mobile apps, and coaching experience. We talked about the big elephant in the room, Tinder, and how it has affected our businesses as well as your dating experience.

Here are some of the advice we dished at SBF16.

Panelists

Kelly Steckelberg, CEO of Zoosk and Lively Mobile App

Jennifer Kelton, CEO of Bad Online Dates and BOD Dating App

Talia Goldstein, CEO of Three Day Rule, a Matchmaking Company

Julie Spira, CEO of Cyber-Dating Expert and Online Dating Expert

Kelly’s Top 5 Tips from Zoosk:

Use a full body shot as your primary photo, as you’re 200% more likely to get responses to your messages.
You will get 50% fewer responses if the primary photo is a group photo. (Guys will wonder, which one are you?)
No pets in your primary photo.
Talk about yourself and what’s interesting about you, not about what you’re looking for in that person.
Use Spellcheck. The Zoosk study about grammar and spelling showed it had a huge effect on success rate.

Jennifer’s Top 5 Tips from BOD Dating App:

Grammar, grammar, grammar! No matter how good looking they are, grammar matters.
Be authentic in who you are. You’ve gotta keep it real. You don’t need to have your profile be a dissertation, but don’t put something out there that’s not genuine.
Don’t post bathroom selfies or a photo of a party scene. I realize that I’m probably not going to have a lot in common with that person.
You’ve got to think about safety first. Don’t ever meet somebody not in public, even after a few dates.
Don’t post selfies in the steamy bathroom mirror. Find a friend to take your photos.

Talia’s Top 5 Tips from Three Day Rule

Women need to be proactive and reach out to men.
Don’t post “distractor” photos where you are looking at almost everything in the photo, but the person (maybe they’re hiding behind a leaf).
Don’t post a mysterious other man or woman. The person viewing the profile will wonder, is this your husband or brother?
Do be chivalrous and open a door.
The League’s recent study said women wearing white dresses do well in the app, as well as men wearing suits.

Julie’s Top 5 Tips from Cyber-Dating Expert

Ditch the little black dress and wear red in your profile. It’s the color of love, romance, and men view and write to women more often wearing red.
Don’t post goofy photos wearing a gorilla suit. Leave that for Comic Con.
Don’t get hung up on someone’s weight, height or distance.
Check out your potential date’s photos in Google.com/images to see if they match who they are.
Use social media to verify if your date looks the same and see if you have friends in common. Ask your friends if they will give the thumbs up or down on your date.

Follow our panelists on Twitter @zoosk @badonlinedates @threedayrule @JulieSpira

Visit: Zoosk.com, BodDatingApp.com, ThreeDayRule.com and CyberDatingExpert.com