Tips on Using the Personal Ads
Following are some suggestions on placing and replying to Personal Ads on Bisexual.com.
Part A - Placing an Ad
- Tip 1 - Our Ads are "freeform style", meaning we don't ask you a lot of questions. It has some advantages. But there is a drawback - it means you are not actually "forced" to explain a lot of things, such as the kind of relationship you are looking for, for example. So the emphasis is on YOU to describe yourself and what you are looking for. Here's some strong suggestions for things you should consider mentioning in your ad.
- Describe what kind of relationship(s) you are looking for. Are you looking for coffee and conversation, or sex? There's a big difference . If you are open to all kinds of relationships then explicitely say so. Don't assume that if you don't say, people will realize that you are open to any kind of interaction/relationship with other bi folks. They will likely simply not respond to your ad if you aren't clear what kind of relationship(s) you are open to.
- Describe what gender of person(s) you are looking for. Males only? M/F couples? Females only? Any?
- Describe the qualities you are looking for in the person(s). Age range, if important? Body type, if important? Professional or not? Is education level important? Is easy-going/low-maintenance important? Are habits regarding smoking or drugs important? Is maritial status important? Is being bi important - ie can interested gay and straight folks also respond?
- Your Ad does not need to be really long, but it should be obviously serious. Eight-word Ads don't get any kind of quality responses; it's as simple as that. If you write your ad in 20 seconds, then you are going to get responses that took only half that time to write, and they aren't going to be serious. It's a waste of your time. These kind of Ads may be disabled by us to maintain the quality of the Ads on Bisexual.com.
- Describe yourself. We ask you for your age and some other very basic info about you, but the rest is up to you. You will want to describe your personality either explicitly or implied through the tone of your ad.
- Ensure the Summary of your Ad is filled in and explains the basics. This is all that is displayed for folks on the front page and the Search Profiles results - the body of your ad is not displayed. So it is the summary that people will read to decide if they are going to click and read your detailed ad.
- Tip 2 - Update your ad often. There are two reasons why this helps a lot...
One, quality personal ads get quality responses and more of them. "Tweaking" your ad is the single best thing you can do if you are serious about meeting folks. If you get asked the same questions again and again in the responses to your ad, then you should consider clarifying your ad to address these questions up front. The more clear and detailed you are about what you are looking for, the more likely others are to respond.Two, whenever you edit your Ad you "go back to the top of the list" so to speak. We display people's Ads on both the front page of the site, and on the Search Profiles pages. They are shown in the order they were last placed or editted - the more recently placed or editted Ads at the top. So when you tweak your Ad it moves back to the top of the list and is much more visible. How's that for a tip?- Tip 3 - Visit the site every two months at least. If you haven't logged onto the site in the last two months your ad is automatically disabled and you are you sent an email (if you have "Accept Email from Administrators" enabled) explaining this to you. This is our way of ensuring that there are very few "dead wood" Ads. So visit the site every two months at least, so your ad is viewable by other members. We never delete your ad, but "disabling" it hides it from viewing by other members.
- Tip 4 - If you don't visit the site often (say once a week or less) you should seriously consider enabling two settings: "Receive Email from Other Members" and "Receive Email Notification of New Private Messages". (Under My Bisexual.com >> Edit Options) This ensures that responses to your ad are forwarded to your email address, so you get them right away, rather than delayed until you next log into Bisexual.com.
Part B - Repying to an Ad
- Tip 5 - Having a quality Personal Ad yourself (see Part A) makes replying to an Ad much easier. Your own Personal Ad will give a lot of the information that you would otherwise want to include in a response to an Ad - things like what type of relationship you are looking for and so on. If you have a quality Personal Ad then your response to another Ad can be quite concise and will save you much time. When responding to an Ad, you do NOT need to specifically point the person to your profile - a link to your own Profile/Personal Ad will be included in the email or private message (whatever the case may be).
- Tip 6 - Briefly explain why you think the person who placed the Ad and yourself are a good fit. This shows, first of all, that you actually read the person's Personal Ad, and did so with interest - and that you know what you are looking for, and have determined that the two of you (or more) have compatible interests. I often state the obvious when replying to Ad, something like "We seem to have mutual interests", or "We seem to be looking for the same things".
- Tip 7 - You may want to look at the date the person last visited the site, when deciding whether to respond to their Ad. This info is in the person's profile at the bottom-right of the large box containing the person's username in large letters - see image. If they haven't been on the site in a while then they are more likely to be slow to reply to messages about their ad. We assist in this by disabling Ads placed by people who haven't visited the site in the last two months - it gets rid of the "dead wood" Ads.
- Tip 8 - If the person who placed the Ad has enabled the setting for other users to send them email, then this is the fastest way to contact the person. Private messaging is the alternative, but then the person may not get the message until they log into Bisexual.com.
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