The COVID-19 crisis turned the world on its head. Millions of people lost their jobs. Millions more remain insecure about their financial future. We need backup plans that can keep the money flowing and help us survive times like this. Here are some ideas to earn an income on the side.
Do some freelance work
Getting paid online to use your skills and knowledge is hardly new. During recent months the scope of online freelancing has expanded to unprecedented volumes. There are fewer conventional employment options. Professionals are turning to freelancing to make a living. In April, Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman reported that the freelance site saw its daily revenue grow by 400%.
You can spend your spare time earning money doing things like proofreading, content creation, translation, app development, or whatever else you’re good at. Relevant platforms allow freelancers to access an abundance of online part-time opportunities. Upwork, TopTal, and Fiverr are good places to start. These sites sometimes open doors to full-time opportunities. Employers love to send money online to pay for the services of good freelancers.
Teach online
Earning money by teaching skills to people around the world is becoming more commonplace. All it takes is an internet connection and access to the relevant platforms. The freelance site Fiverr recently created many new categories for people wanting to teach and learn from home. You can give online lessons in music, cooking, crafting, languages, and numerous other skills. As even mainstream schools embrace online classes, virtual tutors are becoming highly sought after. Sites like Varsity Tutors and Virtual School Day enable qualified teachers to earn as much as $40 an hour. There are more opportunities for those of us who are qualified experts in the English language. VIPKid allows foreign tutors to teach English to children in China. On this platform tutors must be residents of Canada or the US, and have at least a year of experience in education or tutoring. Language teachers can earn up to $20 per lesson.
Do product marketing
When physical stores had to shut down retailers turned to online selling. Small business owners are constantly looking for help with critical activities in which they don’t necessarily specialize. These include online product listing and ecommerce marketing. ZipRecruiter, a job posting site, saw its ecommerce job openings increase nearly 6 times in April. If you own a website, now is the time to make money off of affiliate marketing. Simply put, affiliate marketing lets you channel visitors from your website to partner retail sites. In return the retailers pay you for every visitor they get from you. You can even make some extra bucks by selling-off stuff you no longer need. List your saleable items on eBay. To do this all you need is a seller’s account and some good pictures of the stuff to sell.
Manage social media for a business
The mass shift to online selling is accompanied by the all-important aspect of social media marketing. Overt marketing is merely one facet of social media. More often businesses use social platforms to achieve multiple ends. To create effective social media engagements small businesses need people to create good content. Such content is meant to keep customers interested and engaged. Someone has to create those viral Facebook videos, cheeky Instagram posts, and witty Twitter messages. Take a short course in social media marketing to gain a formal qualification, and let your creativity do the rest.
Be a cabbie
Nowadays you can turn your car into a profitable side hustle. In the current situation people are avoiding public transport as much as they can to protect themselves from the risk of infection. Ride hailing apps like Uber and Ola are very popular with customers. The Lyft app works the same way for goods and cargo, such as while moving home. Driving for one of them is a way to make some extra cash while you still pursue a full time job. In 2018 The Economic Policy Institute reported that the average pay for an Uber driver is $9.21 an hour; not bad for a side hustle in the middle of a global financial crunch.
About the author:- Hemant G is a contributing writer at Sparkwebs LLC, a Digital and Content Marketing Agency. When he’s not writing, he loves to travel, scuba dive, and watch documentaries.
