I have to be frank with my fellow African brothers and sisters on that there is no excuse for not trying out freelancing, especially if you are unemployed. The requirements are not difficult to meet, it is an easy access industry, the services that can be offered are unlimited and they include people of no skills. I know some people may think I’m crazy for giving this article such a title but please allow me to explain myself in the next few sentences.
Assessment of your chances
If you have the tools and resources that enable you to access Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, then you can get started on freelancing. Trust me on this because I am not exaggerating. Instead of spending all the resources on social media, spare some for freelancing.
Success is a possibility and often it comes unexpected and therefore worth trying. All you have to do is pitch up where others players who market their services are and see where it leads. You must expect success as much as you should be flexible for failure.
Next I give you simple Gigs (services) that you can offer that do not need any skill but your natural abilities and things you are used to doing frequently in your life. Some of the Gigs I suggest are those from which I personally have made money from yet others are those that I have confirmed they work by searching them on fiverr.
Easy Gigs
- Holding a sign, a logo or a written message in front of an iconic structure or nature of specialty, then record a video or take a photo. Coupled with a certain kind of outfit, it could be anything ranging from traditional or a common style that is appealing to your clients, that captions can be your product worth a few dollars. People will pay you just for that. I once had an order of this type and the client was happy.
- User testing. Companies and individuals want to test their products such as websites, applications, USSD commands, games, etc. Some of the tests are to be done specifically where you live. I once had a fully-fledged gig offering this service on fiverr and it was working just fine. Surprisingly, even when that gig no longer exists I got a special request from a company in India to do a USSD testing on a continuous basis.
- Write tweets. Get to know clearly what your client sells and pick the right keywords about the service or product. Use the free version of any AI tool to write tweets. Depending on the package you offer, you may want to buy a subscription for the AI tool. You can then rephrase or do some slight changes on the tweets and share on tweeter for the client.
- Social media content. There are a lot of social media platforms that clients would want for you to help with content creation. You could charge based on the type and amount of content. You have to discuss the scope so that you customer pays for what they expect because social media content can be diverse according to the target audience and/or platform.
- Be a beta reader. This is when you just read someone’s piece of work, it could be an article or a book or anything, and share your opinion. Readers from Africa are a bit scarce in this space and if you come up to fill the gap, you stand a good chance to gain customers and enjoy the first mover advantage benefits.
- Shout out on personal social media pages. A shout out is basically profiting from your popular social media page or profile. It is when you post or mention someone in that or those pages for a fee. When you have a specific niche page or group of followers, you can monetize it and make money with simple.
If you are new to freelancing, this might seem a mammoth task to take on but don’t worry because I am here to help you. Space and time did not allow for me to go into more details on how each of these Gigs can be a great chance for you to start earning online. I am ready to work with you on getting at least listed on fiverr. Let’s connect through my email admin@freelancinginafrica.com.
I would like to conclude by inviting you to collaborate with other freelancers in this website who are listed in the page ‘Freelancers’. You can do so by filling in the profile template from this link “Profile template” and send to admin@freelancinginafrica.com.
I often get requests in a number of services, of which some I do not offer. I share some of these requests in my TikTok profile. If a request comes my way and it meets your profile, I will undoubtedly pass on the work to you.
