Trying to make money as a student is not easy. Especially when you are now trying to make ends meet. For this reason, I have decided to share my experience as a student who tried a couple of ways to start earning some cool side cash.
In my first year of the university, I was so green, had a little theoretical knowledge in computer languages, but didn’t have hands-on experience. Not to make you feel pressured, but by “ theoretical knowledge, “ I mean I knew something like computer programming existed, but I hadn’t learned or tried anything on it. I was introduced to the fact that to make an ocean of liquid money, you need to go onto the web. So I started surfing the net to find potential businesses.
MY FIRST ONLINE ATTEMPT
The first online business I landed on was drop shipping, and this was in the year 2021. Drop shipping, as at that time, was on fire, so I decided to dabble in it. I signed up for Shopify, which is a platform like a store but online, where you can advertise products. Basically, drop shipping works like this;
Party A has a product to sell to Party C, but doesn’t have enough customers or audience. So, Party B, as a drop shipping agent, goes to Party A and offers to help Party A sell their goods on the condition that I receive a commission on every sale I make. This is what drop shipping is basically about.
Now I signed in for the store, started with a free trial, thinking I’d be able to take off, only to realize that things were not as smooth as I anticipated.
Personally, I think my problem was with publicity and reach. I didn’t have an active way of reaching the audience.
TIP 1: To start drop shipping, aside from the fact that you’d need a store and everything, you need to get a way of actually getting your store to the world. Some ways you can do this are through social media. Platforms like X, Facebook, WhatsApp, and TikTok. A lot of people talk about Facebook ads, yes, it’s a very good and effective way, but here’s the case, you would have to pay for it, and as a beginner, you will not have the capital to. So, for starters, you can try and join Facebook groups that are related to the product you want to sell.
TIP 2: One thing you would not want to do is directly share the link to your online shop on Facebook; the group admins and even Facebook itself would take it down. Instead, start a conversation, make a general post describing your product, and invite interested persons to reach you. You can provide your contact details. Anything but a link.
So after you’ve got your social media platform, don’t rush to get the store yet. Grow the social channel, and build trust with your followers, just so you don’t suffer like I did. After you have done this, you can go ahead and try the free trial version of Shopify. There are built-in products you can immediately start advertising. Pick the one you’re more drawn to and start pushing it. And for whatever sale you make, you’ll get a commission.
Now, in my second semester of my second year, I decided to take on blogging because another friend introduced me to it.
TIP 3: Surround yourself with good company.
At this point, I didn’t understand how to blog for money. We have blogs that are not inclined for income and ones that are inclined. With blogs that are inclined for money, the content on the blog is of great value. So I started my journey, and for the first 2 years, I kept struggling with AdSense. I still am. My problem is low-value content.
It didn’t end there; I also started clipping on WHOP. You can check it out on YouTube. This is how clipping works: you take the long videos of celebrities and shorten them into clips of a maximum of 30 seconds. As a student who was trying to make some side cash, get a laptop, a mobile phone, an internet connection, and an idea you’d want to nurture
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