WANTED: CHATTERS FOR HIRE or USING MESSAGING APPS TO EARN CASH

About two years ago (maybe one), I posted a job on Fiverr.com offering a service of becoming an “online muse”. The job did not make it past their vetting process.

Fast forward to present times, there are possibly thousands of people doing a shade of this in one way or the other (not necessarily on fiverr). There are people who make good money by chatting with others online. Some of the different shades it comes in include:

Virtual Assistant

This has a degree of respectability attached to it. A personal assistant is something that anyone with a full desk would wish for at any given time. But it used to be expensive and still is, depending on the job description. However, the internet has made it possible to democratize the use of personal assistants and hiring them. It is now obviously cheaper to have your personal assistant. The ‘virtual’ nature of the job does not diminish its effectiveness especially for those who operate in fields where the assistant does not really need to be physically present in order to be effective.

Virtual Companion

This is closer to the job posting that was turned down by fiverr.com. People pay to have online companions. They may be sounding boards or just be there to allow you to get off steam. A successful virtual companion is the person that has established firm parameters of the relationship yet manages to ‘cross over’ that line in the eyes of the person doing the hiring to become what that person might call a friend.

Virtual Sexual companion

This is one of the most lucrative aspects of using chatting apps to connect with people and they pay good money. The whole package goes beyond chatting to include visual elements. It is quite strong on the visual elements but what separates it from the ‘traditional’ red-light district kind of jobs is that they add conversations, an ability to build a virtual relationship.

The future of chatting for hire

There are platforms that specialize in providing subscription chatting service where people pay to chat with models. Others use the traditional chatting apps like Skype, Google Hangout and Snapchat (strange that we should list Snapchat as traditional) i.e. chatting apps that do not provide specialized services and setup a means of payment with their clients.

As for the near-future of chatting for hire, more traditional jobs could move in to using chat apps, following the footsteps of the adult industry (they tend to always be ahead of the curve as it concerns adoption of new technologies) to establish a paying means of using them.

Consultancy Services

Consultants can incorporate a subscription payment model to establish a relationship with clients. The beauty of this is that in can be in just about any field:

• A lawyer may decide to provide a very affordable means of providing legal advice to subscribing clients. 

• A doctor may also do the same thing 

•  A social media consultant can set up a chat for hire system that would have those that signup pay a subscription fee (one-time or regularly) for consultations

• A home security agency can do the same thing

All you need to do is customize it to fit your field, make it more affordable than the traditional means of contracting you and you have another branch or stream of income

Derivatives

Another thing with this is that you can leverage on this to earn in other areas.

• ·         You could use it to sell your books

• ·         Get more people to sign up for one seminar or the other

• ·         Have another platform where you can introduce one product or the other

• ·         Build your authority and increase the size of your network

Opportunities to leverage on existing and new technologies in new ways will always keep the internet fresh.

 

What’s Up With wattpad.com?

Okay, the site is a great concept, for the creators. The site could have a better impact for the users. And by the users, I am talking specifically about “professional” writers.

It is great for online readers and those who are looking at the dream of becoming writers. If this is just about them then they have a playground where they can have as much fun as they want.

For the professional writer, the people behind wattpad should be looking at ways of adding more value to their wattpad experience.

If I was given an opportunity to send questions to the people behind wattpad... I would add these to it:

• ·         List the values a professional writer will have on your platform should they sign up today

• ·         Look at those values critically and answer these sub-questions

                                I.            Do they make direct cash from your platform?

                              II.            If they make indirect cash, how many steps away from your platform do they have to take it to translate into their bank account (See Principle of Indirect Cash for Online Platforms or MakingProfit for Your Platform through Indirect Cash for Members)?

                            III.            Is there a really proactive thing you do that gives them an extra mileage in terms of exposure?

                            IV.            What is the unique thing about your platform that adds real value to the professional writer that they cannot get anywhere else?

BOTTOM UP: STARTING FROM THE LAST QUESTION

A ready and defensive answer might be that there is hardly any platform on the internet dedicated to writers that has any unique selling preposition.

This is a lie and the question should serve as a challenge to create things that will keep you at the forefront of providing something unique to the professional or full-time writer.

The people behind wattpad.com have to put on their thinking caps and create something for full-time writers that go beyond the basic provision of creating an avenue for direct fan interaction and contribution.

Social interactive tools and platforms is not a dime a dozen. Platforms such as wattpad.com should do well to think out of the box so that they could be able to create tools that will add to the user experience of professional writers on their platform

Point of Emphasis

Nothing beats direct monetary compensation. The only thing that comes closer is indirect monetary value that is about 1 or at most 2 steps away. Another issue that will catch the eye of the professional writer is a platform that can provide social interaction and exposure that goes beyond the norm. Think about this; most platforms now integrate standard social media but what most end up doing is using the social network of the user to ‘push’ the user’ material. 

Do you not think it would be a great idea if a platform can build a powerful social media reach and then push people like such professional writers through them?

Principle of Indirect Cash for Online Platforms or Making Profit for Your Platform through Indirect Cash for Members

What is website member indirect cash earning? It is a way users of an online platform earn money not from the site directly but because they use or are members of the platform.

A good example of an indirect cash earning system is the ones adopted by online platforms such as Triond.com and Hubpages when they post user’ content on their platform and the users earn through Google. That is, the website/online platform does not pay you directly but you are earning cash via a third party for using that online platform to post content as it applies in this case.

While this is a common practise with content publishing site, the indirect cash earning system is not confined to such platforms and does not have to be. Any platform can devise a means through which its members earn indirect cash.

One glaring benefit of this method is that it gives user’ a great reason to either sign up with your platform or stick around. Any platform, i.e. any platform that can create an indirect means of earning cash for their users even as they use their website will not stop growing. The platform creator that wants to see his or her website flourish will do well to look into how it can create an indirect means of earning cash for its users.

Nothing beats the direct means of earning cash, which means you or your platform pays its user’ directly but not every website is set up to create such direct income. In fact, many websites do everything but create income for its users and the users themselves are not complaining because they are not expecting them to or because they know the value they are getting from the platform.

Having said that nothing beats direct earning from a website, it is however important to note that the indirect means of earning cash for members f your platform gives you less stress in the area of managing how it works. You are a middleman connecting two entities and this simplifies it for you.

Steps Away

How many steps does your website member have to take them to earn the said cash? The less number of steps they have to take, the better it is for your platform.

Standard content publishing websites like Triond and Hubpages have just one-step between their members and the indirect cash they earn for using their platform. All they have to do is to connect to their Google Adsense account or any other they put up and their members will start earning.

A website like wattpad also has indirect cash earning potential but it is more than one-step away.

• ·        -Readers have to read you published work

• ·         They may then decide to buy it

• ·         They have to get to where it is available for sale because they cannot do this directly from wattpad

We are already looking at 3 steps and nothing is guaranteed from the second step. This is unlike that of Triond and Hubpages. But I have been mentioning Triond and Hubpages for a while now but this does not mean that any platform cannot serve indirect means of earning cash for their members.The initiative lies on the platform owner to look at what they have on ground and look at how they can make their members to start earning in multiple ways. The closer their earning is connected to their use of the platform, the more profitable it would be for it.

A BETTER NEWS ABOUT PAYPAL IN NIGERIA

FIRST BANK NIGERIA has become the first bank to directly partner with PAYPAL to provide a seamless online payment service for FIRST BANK account holders in Nigeria, completely eliminating the process of verification for their account holders that use their platform to signup with PAYPAL.

Check out this link to get detailed information from the bank's website. According to them, they are the only bank that is (currently) having such a partnership with PAYPAL. This a great news for the bank and its customers. The fact that the verification process, which takes time and means a new PAYPAL account will not be allowed to fully utilize the services of PAYPAL until they have been verified will eliminate that waiting period because the PAYPAL will accept that users from FIRST BANK have already been authenticated by the bank.

We all know that PAYPAL already limits what users from Nigeria can do with their accounts in critical areas like e-commerce where they are not allowed to sell or receive payment. Additional limitations because of the verification period can only to serve to make the PAYPAL customer experience for Nigerians residing in Nigeria to be at best skeletal and nothing to write home about. Hence, FIRST BANK have done a great job for themselves by getting into this partnership that eliminated the verification protocol. This will naturally bring in more clients as those who still have a critical use for PAYPAL as it concerns making online purchases will flock to the FIRST BANK.

Another thing is that they have strategically placed themselves ahead of the pack if or when PAYPAL decides to give an across-the-board full access to their services to all Nigerians i.e. give them the ability to buy and sell.

In fact, it will not be too much of a stretch to imagine them securing such a deal first and exclusively for their clients. This is why my personal take is that for those who are into online e-commerce in Nigeria, getting a First Bank account and opening a PAYPAL Account using the bank will be a strategically important decision they have to take as it could reap big benefits in the nearest future.