How To Have Fun & Make Money From Social Media

Social media is now an indispensible part of our daily lives. Students, home makers, working professionals, entrepreneurs, and even politicians have recognized the power of social media as an essential platform for them to interact and communicate with their network of friends, relatives, acquaintances.

There was a short period when homemakers somewhat felt left out of all that is happening in today’s digital, social world. Not anymore!

After making a quiet start with finding and making “friends” on Facebook and Twitter, these educated, young and smart women have found ways to make “spending time on social media” a rewarding hobby or pastime. This is achieved by participating in Contests conducted by various brands which aim to promote their products.

Here is How It All Begins:

Mrs Sneha is a qualified software engineer who gave up a well paid job a few years after marriage since the challenge of balancing work life and home proved too enormous, especially after the birth of her first child. Her son is now 4 years old, goes to a play home, has friends in the neighborhood and is generally independent. This gives her somefree time now and then on a typical day.

Sneha tried taking up feelance software jobs but soon realized it was heading towards a full time job working from home. This again was something she didn’t ask for and could not accommodate. She soon began dropping assignments one by one.

What then could she do with her spare time?

She turned to social media, where else! Although she had Facebook and Twitter accounts, she was using them occasionally to interact with her relatives who live abroad. Now she started spending more time on these platforms. She was able to get back in touch with most of her college friends. They would mee every evening, have some pleasant exchanges and have fun conversations.

But then, after sometime, this too lost its charm. 

Now what did Sneha do?

In the course of her conversations with friends on Twitter and Facebook, Sneha came across posts on her timeline from which she used to hear of people winning smartphones, laptops, meal vouchers, IPL match tickets, shopping vouchers, etc.

She had a fling at a few of them – these were contests conducted by brands such as Cadbury’s, Nokia, Garnier, Allen Soly, etc – all very famous brands.

Typically, the brands give a theme or topic or keyword about which contestants have to tweet or post comments. It could be something as simple as “I love to gift Cadbury’s because …” or as complex as “What features of Nokia Lumia 1520 excite you into wanting the phone.”

Initially, Sneha went through a period of learning, during which Sneha only managed to win low value goodies, such as a T-Shirt or a Mug or some cosmetics hampers – each worth a few hundred rupees only, but was good learning. More importantly, she made many friends, observed their contest playing skills and strategies and assimilated them quickly. In course of time, she developed her contest playing skills so much that she too started winning gadgets, movie tickets, passes for celebrity events and Flipkart vouchers. So much that she now claims her wins are valued at a minimum of Rs 30,000 - 50,000 every month!

When I heard her story, I was breathless!

Who said social media is a waste of time! You just have to be smart to give your time to the right accounts – be it Facebook or Twitter!