You can earn money online?! Up until now, this question fascinates me. It’s 2020 and yet, there are still a lot of people who question the possibility of getting cold cash from the internet.
For months now, money has been one of the major concerns of many individuals. With work unexpectedly put to a halt and more and more businesses filing for bankruptcy, it’s but normal to find other means of living.
The Shift from Traveling to Earning Money Online
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, I have been on home quarantine for five months now. This means, no summer vacation, no major climbs, even going for a short day hike is prohibited because of travel restrictions and strict health protocols that needed to be followed.
Like many others, I had my fair share of emotional and mental struggles with this ‘new normal’ setup. In fact, this blog has been the recipient of my ill-thoughts and worries. And while most people turned to new hobbies while at home – binge-watching movies, taking care of plants, doing fitness routines, learning how to cook – I decided to explore more options on how I can earn additional income in these daunting days.
I’ve actually had several side hustles before on top of my full-time job. Writing and creating content here and there. But with the pandemic going on, some of these part-times were put to stop. So, I decided to experiment and see what other jobs I can actually do online.
DISCLAIMER: I am no expert freelancer. But I have been trying to learn (and unlearn some stuff). Everything here is based on what I have shortly experienced. But if there’s something you can add, feel free to tell me. I’m always, always willing to grow.
10 Odd Jobs Online that I Never Thought Existed and How I Earned Money from Them
So last March, I decided to finally update my profile on Upwork, LinkedIn, and OnlineJobsPh. I’ve had these accounts for a long time but was too lazy (and too caught up with work and travel) to complete building my profile and start connecting with people.
I started applying for tasks that sounded familiar to me. With a lot of people who are vying to land a stable job these days, the competition was quite high. It took weeks before I actually got a good offer. I continued submitting proposals and eventually landed on some jobs that I never thought existed and could actually help me earn decent money online.
Here are some of the jobs I was able to do while on quarantine – which you can try applying as well. Some I found on the aforementioned freelancing platforms, others I’ve got from social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.
1. Facebook Page Manager/ Customer Service
One of the interesting jobs I got this quarantine is being tasked to maintain an online delivery service page. When lockdowns began in Cebu City, a lot of people were strictly prohibited from going outside of their house; there were even barangays that cordoned their borders so as to hinder outsiders from getting in. Hence the rise of online delivery services.
All I did was answer inquiries on the chat, book orders, secure down payment, and forward orders to our shoppers.
2. Write Horror Stories
Because of my affinity for writing, some of my friends actually thought I could do all kinds of writing. I was referred by a fellow hiker to a Youtuber who was in need of a horror story writer – who could weave stories out of the submitted stories to their channel.
The task was to write stories in Filipino. And man, the last time I created stories in Filipino was years ago in my Wattpad. So, imagine me ransacking my bookshelf for Tagalog stories and grossing out myself with the stories that my teenage self has written years back.
3. Create infographics and Memes
Can you believe it? My years spent sharing memes on Facebook led me to an actual meme-making job? Yes, people. There are employers looking for individuals who have a knack for creating puns and funny content.
Aside from memes, I was also tasked to learn how to create decent educational infographic materials and logos for a certain beauty product. All hail to Canva and Crello for making this job easy and well done.
4. Reach for Bloggers and Find people on Instagram
As a blogger myself, I have once asked how those people in the PR come to know me despite the very little information I share about my personal profile in the blog. It took a quarantine for me to find out how they do what they do.
It started with curiosity. While hovering around Upwork, I came across a job post relating to locating people on Instagram. The employer had the list of complete names of people he wanted to reach for product collaboration. All I had to do was to look for the personal Instagram accounts of these people. The task was actually easy. The difficult part is that the list consisted of almost 2,000 people.
Aside from locating people on Instagram, I was also tasked by another employer to look for some bloggers with niches relating to the product we’re selling. It was actually interesting to search for people using various apps and tools.
5. Search for Broken Links
Everything I knew about Google changed because of this pandemic. Because of the SEO tasks that I had to do, I’d never looked at the search engine the way it did before. One particular task that was assigned to me was to actually read through different websites and look for links that are not working.
Now, this made me check as well if the links for this blog are working properly. Can you try clicking here?
6. Write product reviews
If you’ve reached this part, then you’re lucky. I’m going to tell you about an online secret. One of the odd jobs I was offered to do was to write fake reviews for certain products that lacked good reviews from customers. These are new products introduced to the market so they needed good reviews to attract more customers.
Upon knowing that this kind of job existed, I’ve become more cautious with what I order online. Sometimes, we get too confident with what we read in the reviews not knowing that some of these are actually coming from fake accounts.
7. Edit thesis and write lesson plans
Yes, it’s true. There are a bunch of people who are ‘doctors’ and ‘masters’ degree holders who aren’t actually the real authors of their dissertations. Tons of academic writing jobs exist online.
What I was offered to do was just to proofread an already done thesis and just recheck its cohesion and coherence.
Aside from thesis, I was also tasked to edit lesson plans for a Chinese school. It was quite an entertaining task because all I had to do was to go over the modules and check the format and sentence construction.
8. Edit videos
Can you believe it? My limited skills in video editing helped me earn money? All those days spent trimming and filtering those Instagram videos and travel vlogs came to fruition!
Kidding aside, I am but a novice in this field. I truly need a decent video editing application should I want to pursue this kind of job. But it pays well. And I’m more than grateful for my employer for trusting what I can do with my limited skills (and even providing additional video editing tasks should this pandemic end). Oh my.
9. Write travel guides
Obviously, this is my favorite among all tasks. Forte, as they say. Just like me, there are also people who are making the most of this pandemic by building their own sites and blogs. I’ve been an active contributor to three travel websites (local and international) and if you feel that you can share the ‘how-to’ and ‘what-to’ of the places that you have been to, maybe you can also try to start your own blog or contribute to these websites.
10. Help sell items online
Despite my background in marketing, I’m honestly not the best person when it comes to selling products. Believe me, I can’t even convince myself to buy certain products even if I like them, how much more convince people.
But online selling is not limited to direct selling only. There are other tasks related to this job like product promotion, social media ad creation, product description writing. I also design forms for orders and collate them for distributors.
And the list goes on. There are certain jobs I’m handling right now that I’m not allowed to divulge, yet. But well, I am truly grateful to have experienced doing the above-mentioned tasks. Some were short-lived, others were one-time but there are those that committed to stay longer. I even have a writing gig that I have since college.
Also, if you think that you are really skilled in certain tasks, don’t hesitate to offer your services (to your friends or colleagues). Not only that you help (or earn) from them, they can also become good references should other people need your skills.
Online Job – Road to Digital Nomadism?
If you could work on your own terms at your own time and still manage to stabilize finances, why not? This pandemic changed the way I looked at online jobs. Back then, I questioned a lot of those people who ditched the nine-to-five job just to travel the world or work on the premise of their own homes. Now I’ve fully understood the comfort and the challenges that come along with it.
Minus the inability to travel and go out whenever I want, I think I’m loving this home-based routine. Until how long – that remains to be seen. For now, I’ll finish my online courses and see where else and what other kinds of jobs this will lead me.
I hope you’re doing fine as well. Praying for this pandemic to end already so that we can get back to trails and reach more summits – safe and secure. See you!
Dakilanglaagan 