In December of 2017, PayPal decided to gift all its shareholders with $25 a month for life. This was a part of the company’s new mission: to create a more sustainable world by encouraging people to spend less money.
This is why PayPal started its own branded sustainable living village, dubbed “The Better World Fund”. The fund will purportedly help combat climate change by supporting grassroots organizations and social enterprises around the world that are driving positive change.
While the gift of $25 a month for life might not sound like a lot of money, it represents a potentially lucrative windfall for PayPal’s shareholders – provided they make the right financial choices. Here’s how you can make money online for PayPal.
Monetise Your Assets
The first step in potentially turning this unexpected windfall into profit is to consider what you own that you can sell. There’s no point generating revenue if you’re already spending more than you’re making. So, get clear on the value of your assets and then look for ways to monetise them.
You can easily earn money online by carrying out simple online searches and making a small amount of cash in the process. You can use tools like GoEarn, which connects customers with a crowd of “micro-tasks” – such as taking photos for websites or carrying out virtual shopping tasks for people – all of which you can do for free. These tasks have minimal costs with the exception of the virtual shopping tasks, which have a fixed payment of $5 per hour.
One of the simplest ways to make money online is via monetising your own photos. You can use companies like Fotolia to help you make cash from the photos you’ve already taken. You simply need to register with Fotolia to get started. Then, when customers click on your photos, they’re taken to a payment page where they can make a one-off payment or set up a recurring payment stream to pay you as “photographer” for the picture.
Trade & Invest In Pre-ICO’s
Another profitable way to generate revenue is to examine the trends in the marketplace and then enter the market with a plan to make a profit. One way to do this is to look at the digital currency (Bitcoin) marketplace. The price of bitcoin skyrocketed towards the end of 2017, reaching a peak value of nearly $20,000 per coin in early January 2018. This prompted a lot of people looking for a safe place for their savings to enter the market, driving the price lower and making it more attractive to the average user.
If you’ve got a large sum of money to invest, you can do so more effectively via the pre-ICO’s (Initial Coin Offerings) available on many cryptocurrency platforms. The price of these coins tends to rise and fall in line with the market price of Bitcoin, providing you with a potential source of profitable investment.
Consulting
If you’re an expert in your field, you can take advantage of the demand for your services by consulting for businesses looking to make big changes to their operations. If you’ve got an in-demand skill, like marketing or public relations, you can use contract work to generate revenue while you advise clients on improving their businesses.
Freelance Writing
If you’re a professional writer, you can take advantage of the situation and start up a freelance writing practice. There’s a niche for almost anyone in the English-speaking world, and you can offer your services to businesses across the globe for little or no cost. The key to making money as a freelance writer is to build up a portfolio of work you can show potential clients and potential employers. Start by pitching articles to news publications and watch-listed publications who may be in need of content for their websites.
Start A Business
If you’ve got an idea for a business you can quickly get started with, like an online store or freelancing platform, you can use the extra money to fund your initial marketing and establish your brand in the marketplace. When you’re ready to take on more employees, you can raise your revenue and take on more clients via venture capital – either from the venture capitalist themselves or from other funds such as angel investors and private equity firms. This is probably the most efficient way to make money online for PayPal, but it also involves the risk of “taking on a lot of debt”, as venture capitalists are generally unwilling to fund entrepreneurs with “high risks” like copycat businesses and predatory firms who try to take advantage of unsavvy customers.
Start A Fund
One of the simplest, yet most effective ways of making money online is to take advantage of a growing trend and establish a fund to manage donations for your favourite charities or causes. All you need is a reputable cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Ethereum) wallet (not a paper wallet) to receive contributions from a large number of “online donors” (people who want to support your charitable efforts without having to lift a finger). With a fund like this you can support your favourite cause while also generating revenue – and it doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to charities either. You can use the money from your fund to further your financial goals like buying expensive digital cameras, creating viral content, or paying off your student debt.
Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
This is one of the most effective ways of generating passive income online. Simply put, affiliate marketing involves earning a commission from a company (the “affiliate”) when someone clicks a monetized link or buys a product that’s promoted on your behalf.
The easiest way to get started with affiliate marketing is to use an eCommerce plugin (similar to WooCommerce) for WordPress or a separate eCommerce app to manage your inventory. Then, when a customer makes a purchase, you’ll receive a commission.
One of the biggest benefits of this form of revenue generation is its flexibility. You can operate your affiliate marketing business 24/7, and you don’t necessarily need a large amount of inventory to make regular sales. The only limit is your imagination.
Make Money With Stumble Upon
Stumble Upon is a fairly new (launched in 2006) social media platform that many people have made a lot of money with. The key to making money with stumble upon is to build a community of “committed readers” who are “actively seeking new content” across various categories. When someone “stumbles” upon your content and clicks the “like” button, you’ll earn a small amount of money based on their engagement with your content.
The best part about this form of content curation is its relative “lion’s share” of the revenue. According to one of Stumble Upon’s co-founders, Paul Bausch, the platform accounts for about 80% of his company’s revenue.
Make Money With YouTube
If you’ve got a sizable audience on YouTube, you can take advantage of the platform’s “monetisation features” to make a little extra cash. These features allow creators to “monetise their content” (create a revenue stream from their videos) with virtually no effort. The best part? You don’t necessarily need a large audience to get started. Simply create a series of “tutorials” (step-by-step instructional videos) on any subject and then combine those tutorials into a single “playlist”.
Here’s an example of a playlist that I’ve created that you can use to get started with YouTube.
If you want to make money from YouTube, focus on creating content that is informative, simple to understand, and (most importantly) entertaining. Once you’ve got a sizable audience, you can take advantage of the “creator studio” to grow your channel and “monetise your content”.
The great thing about YouTube is its “viral” content strategy. As the name would suggest, videos “go viral” when they “go viral” on YouTube. Naturally, you don’t always need a massive audience to go viral. In fact, many YouTube videos that gain a sizable audience (10,000+ subscribers) don’t even have a single “shazam” success. But, if you’ve got a funny, informative, or quirky video, you’ll certainly have the chance to “go viral” and make some extra money.