Getting paid on the internet is one thing everyone really looks forward to. It is often more like having fun and getting paid at the end of the day.
Some say internet pay days are like partying and getting paid but on the other hand, it isn’t. Getting paid on the internet is still the same thing with getting paid on the street and getting paid at the end of the month at the office. The basic principles are the same, ‘if you don’t work, you don’t get paid’.
In Nigeria, when making money on the internet is often advertised, they make it look easy as if when you start today, you will become rich tomorrow. One thing certain is that all these are lies and they are just stunts people use to collect money from naïve youths and average Nigerian who wants to make quick money.
The fact that most of us want quick money is a good reason for some smart crooks to dupe us of the little we have in the name that we are going to make ten time that amount at the end of the day.
Someone I know has more than five books on how to make money on the internet yet he is yet to make his first ONE THOUSAND Naira from it.
The internet is a world of its own and this a reason why people need to understand it before trying to do business there. It’s just like going to China to sell something, one has to be sure that the people in his immediate environment are really in need of what he is trying to sell.
Even though the world is a global village on the internet, everyone still belongs to a certain neighbourhood which your neighbours are supposed to be your first customers.
There are so many things one can do online and they include, buying and selling; advertising; writing, blogging, Forex trading, consulting and so many more.
One important thing everyone needs to know is that even though the social media is just one part of the internet, it has simply become the window of eCommerce globally. Without social media, no one will go any distance in eCommerce in the world today and the best description for it, is that the internet is the universe while the social media is the world we live in. it is just the planet our world has come to accept as home.
To become a money making machine, here are some questions you need to get their answers before kicking off.
WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA DO YOU USE?
It is a clear question and while some will be answering just two which will include Facebook and Whatsapp, others will be counting up to 10 which is good for them.
Every social media has a reason for which it was designed but one thing we forget is that the designers of every social media platform have money in mind. They want to make money while people have fun.
Social media platform owners are more like owners of recreation centers, you pay to play and they make money in return.
But if we can actually see the other guy in the recreation center, he comes in to sell water and drinks. The other one sells food and handkerchief and you need all of them to have a perfect good time, even the driver that brought you there is in the cycle, without you, he would never have made that money.
Do you want to make money on the internet? Just see yourself as the other guy.
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH SOCIAL MEDIA?
When I joined Facebook, I wanted to connect with the world. I wanted to reach people in places my feet will never touch and without wasting time, I added people from around the around the world.
Facebook became my refuge and people mostly said that I was addicted to it. That was the language used for people who were posting too much on Facebook six years ago, but today, the word ‘addict’ has been replaced with ‘active’. They now say that I am very active on Facebook.
What do you do with social media? What does your numerous social media accounts do for you. After your compulsory monthly data subscriptions, what do you gain from social media?
You can make friends, waste time, inspire people, teach people, sell products or even buy products that will be sold outside the social media world. One thing certain is that if you do not have ‘social’ in what you do with social media, then you are wrong.
WHO ARE YOU CONNECTED TO?
So many people make the daily mistake of connecting with the wrong people on social media. On social media, you must have a purpose and connecting to people who work against your purpose will be a very wrong thing to do. You need people that will support your purpose as friends or followers.
People often buy followers and likes on platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, but the truth still remains that those likes are just like robots, they are more of profile decorators and do nothing for the owner.
Should a Pastor choose to connect with mostly people who post pornographic contents with the aim of changing them, he should be ready to have them tag him to pornographic images and videos someday. And one day, just the amount of porn content on his timeline will make him leave Facebook.
Social media is an illusion and its reality is overrated, if you do not understand how it works, you will lose focus and fall by the way side.
Social media is like a butterfly, when you hold it too hard, it dies; when you hold it too loose, it will fly away.
Just define you social media purpose today and it will give you the picture of who you should be connecting with.
WHY ARE YOU CONNECTED TO YOUR FOLLOWERS
If you should ever want to live among a group of people, there should be a reason. It is more like a purpose but this is different because some people have a great deal of followers on social media but do not know how to make use of them.
My followers are not yet running in tens of thousands, but I have put the little I have into great use and it has paid off for me.
If you are selling, your followers have to be buyers. If you are a writer, your followers have to be more of readers and those who are ready to buy your works. A musician should expect to have his diehard fans as his followers and so on.
Followers are loyalists and you have to keep them by connecting with them.
At times most of us feel like stars and we do not connect with our fans, if you want them to love you and be crazy about you, you must be ready to like and comment on their posts once in a while. You must take out time to comment on their posts as well as reply their personal messages.
Even when your followers are your loyalists, they also need to know you are loyal as well.
WHAT ARE YOU SHARING?
Social media is somehow all about sharing and at a point, someone would just wonder if there is a limit to what they can share on their profiles.
I hear questions like, should I share my personal details like address and phone number?
Should I share my relationship status? And the questions keep going.
The answer is simply this, share what you need to share.
A young girl leaves her phone number public and complains of calls; that is very funny. Why leave it public when you can actually make it hidden.
By sharing what you need, you just need to make people see what they are supposed to see. Personal information like school, state of origin and maybe the city you live in are not really big deals because they are the basic things people see before they want to connect with you. But sharing extra information will depend on what you do with your social media account.
Professional social media platforms like LinkedIn requires users to share things like all work experience and skills including phone numbers and email addresses in case someone wants to hire them and over there, friends are not mostly made but, clients, bosses and partners.
The platform determines what we share, but what we share depends on what we do.
A pastor needs his phone number online of he wants people to call for prayers and counselling. When you sell something online and your number is up there, expect calls from all kinds of people. If you wonder why, remembers that some people just walk into big Fast Food Centers just to use their toilets.
DO YOU REALLY NEED PRIVACY
No. I simply say you do not need a single ‘privacy’ on the social media. By privacy I do not mean that your inbox conversations will be open to all to read, I simply mean that you do not have to be afraid of sharing your basic information online.
You are what you share.
For instant you can be described as Jessica Okereke, a student of Imo State University who lives in Owerri. That is fair for every social media user and if you decide not to tell anyone on Facebook your street address, it remains like that. There will be no privacy based on what the public already know about you and if you can keep it at that level by avoiding such things on your posts, everything will be alright.
The rest of social media privacies that are set on the dashboard are not really the issue here. The privacy people mostly seek is the one that will let only their best friends comment or like their posts. This is not possible and while some people are seeking less exposure for their posts, others are paying to have more people see theirs.
HOW MUCH HAVE YOU SPENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA
This question can even make a sinner repent! Because most people have spent a lot of money on internet and social media without getting anything from it.
Some people believe that they can never do without chatting and hooking up with new friends but the funniest thing is that we can all do without it especially when we are not making anything from it.
For those who spend money to read books and do research on internet, I will call that investment, but for those who go online just for social reasons, I call that spending.
How much have you spent on the average?
HOW MUCH HAVE YOU MADE FROM INTERNET/SOCIAL MEDIA
This is supposed to balance question 7 and if the answer in 7 is higher than the answer in 8, it means you need to think again. But if the reverse is the case, you are on the right path. It is not compulsory that we all must make money from our social media environment, but the gospel truth is if you can make the money without much stress, why not pick your genuine cash and walk away.
DOES INTERNET/SOCIAL MEDIA REALLY PAY?
Many people believe that the only way they can make money online is through fraud, but there are several decent ways one can really make cool cash on the internet and if you are still among the people who ask if there are people making money online, then wake up because the answer is yes.
Have you wondered why even the owner of Facebook still advertise on other platforms? This is simply because they need people to join and they need all of us to build a platform where people can advertise.
The more the people, the costlier the adverts.
There are several business one can delve into while online and aside the very complex ones like Forex and importation, you can actually sell what you have around you.
Your online environment: To sell online, you need to understand your social media environment. Know who you are connected to and why you are connected to them. Know what they love and why they love it.
The Product: For anyone selling online, there must be a product or service and that is something you must identify after thorough research. Wrong product is wrong business and maybe zero buyers, you don’t want to go into that all.
Women make the world go round: female products sell faster online and it doesn’t matter where you are, anything you advertise, a lady is ready to go all the way to have them.
Jealousy: Make your contacts jealous by sharing wonderful products, if they are cloths, wear them are snap in most cases, if they see that you are wearing it, someone gets jealousy and makes effort to get their own. Who will they come to? You.
Consistency: If you are planning on quitting any time soon, don’t even start the business because the first few months might be tough, but if you continue, you will reap from it.
WHAT KING OF BUSINESS CAN I GO INTO?
Like I have always said, there are lots of opportunities online and all you need to do is understand what your environment needs at the moment.
Blogging: This is one of the most common thing people do online today. You only need time, internet data and maybe a computer or a good phone to do this.
Even those who cannot create contents have succeeded in this by picking stories from other blogs to populate their own. A good and active blog can attract adverts and sponsored contents, not forgetting proceeds from Google AdSense and others like them.
Advertisement: To advertise, one needs a platform and without a good one or having contact with owners of good platforms, you can never be a good advertiser. Owners Facebook groups and pages with large number of people are now cashing in because most times people pay well to advertise on their platforms.
Web designing: Most web designers do not have a physical office, they just have the sites they did previously, a working email and social media accounts as their linking point with people. They advertise at every opportunity, get jobs, execute them and get paid.
Buying and selling: There are so many things one could buy and sell online and it all depends on where the products are and their nature.
Physical products are mostly sold to people around and depending on their values, they can be exported.
Services: These will include selling of domains, facebook/twitter/instagram followers, music on iTunes and eBooks.
Consulting/agent: One thing we have failed to see is that we can take time and read many marketing books online and in turn teach/advice others who are handicapped in that area. There are some businesses which people cannot handle easily because they do not understand how it works and we can take it upon us to act as agents in such cases and get our cuts.
We can do this in real estate, publishing/marketing of books, music marketing, Facebook advertisement, bulk sms and so on.
Entertainment: No matter how you see it, the best media to market your talent is on the social media. A good MC, Comedian, artiste or even dancer who says he/she does not want his/her social media contact to know what they do is wasting time. When your contacts appreciate and love, it is the first step for you because they are the first set of people aside your family to spread your gospel.
HOW DO I CREATE A BRAND ONLINE
A brand might be what you already have without wrapping it. It could be you or another name you have chosen.
Engage your audience: It does not make you an addict if you find a way to decently place your name on the minds of all your Facebook friends. When you comment on people’s posts, they are mostly indebted to you because they want to at least like what you have posted when they cannot react to it. This is a good way to start because before you know it, you will be the name everyone knows.
Be sociable: Now this is mostly difficult for some people because all they do is to antagonize others online. People won’t love you for that unless you are always standing for the truth. Mind your business and let certain situations pass without a word. That’s maturity. Do not bother people so much, but always keep in touch and say sweet words to them especially on their birthdays and anniversaries.
Have a principle/goal: Always understand that even when you are enjoying the social aspect that it is all about the business. Without a set goal and a principle to achieve it one could derail. A slight shift could make you public enemy in and it will surely take a very long time to get back to where you used to be.
Hash tags: Hash tags can do lots of magic within a short time. You can add to all your posts and comments. Don’t be afraid, people will never get tired of seeing because it will come to a point when if you fail to add it, someone will remind you that you missed it. For Nkechi that sells Brazilian hair only, she can always add #NkBrazil, and if she can be consistent for a month, everyone around her will be calling her #NKBrazil. Someone around might just ask why they call the name and will come to learn that Nkechi deals on Brazilian hairs. That’s the cheapest advert and very effected. Think before you chose your hash tags so as not to change them the next day.
Consistency and Persistence: It is simple here, just keep doing what you do and never give up. Maintain your style and never throw it away because of what people say.
Advertise and engage new people
IS THE INTERNET NOT FOR DUBIOUS PEOPLE?
There are criminals in the streets, markets and even in the church. If righteous people can succeed in all these places, you can succeed on the internet.
CAN I BE SINCERE AND STILL MAKE IT ONLINE
Yes you can make it online while still being sincere. Just get into a genuine business and always pray that God will sustain you.
DO I NEED TO BE A COMPUTER GURU TO SUCCEED? [YES AND NO]
It depends on the business you are going into. Ordinary buying and selling does not require high computer knowledge unlike web designing, blogging advances sales like in domain and eCommerce.
HOW DO I GET PAID
Physical cash for people around you and bank/electronic money transfers.
This material was put together by Chinedu Hardy Nwadike, even when it is shared for free, no part of it is meant to be used without notifying him.
For Questions or clarifications call 080308704454 or email chikisnow@yahoo.com
