Unusual Types of Freelance Jobs ; You Don't Have To Write To Be A Freelancer
81What's the first thing you think of when you hear the word "freelance?" If you're like most people, you said writing. Those two words just seem to go together. In an uncertain economy, there are a lot of people trying to learn how to make money writing, and the competition can be intimidating.
The good news is that you can experience the freelance lifestyle without writing a single article. That's right, you don't have to be a writer to be a freelancer. You can use your spare time to make some extra money online, or turn your passion into a full time freelance career. Here are just 6 career ideas based on the hundreds of unusual types of freelance jobs I turned up in a recent search; and none of them have anything to do with writing or article marketing. If you know where to look, you'll quickly learn that there are dozen of types of freelance work from home opportunities.
Freelance Social Media Consultant
Have your friends been telling you that you spend way too much time on Facebook? Do you tweet so much that you've started speaking 140 characters at a time? You could turn that experience into an unusual freelance job, or even a full time career as a freelance social media consultant.
The business world is finally realizing the marketing value of social networking sites. A lot of these companies are putting up their own websites, but have no idea how to attract attention to them.
Since many businesses don't have personnel that know how to take advantage of the big social networking sites, more and more of them are creating unusual freelance jobs by turning to savvy freelance social media consultants for advice on their online advertising.
As a freelance social media consultant, you can earn $120 per hour or more to advise companies on how to make the best use of social networking sites, marketing on Youtube, and even how to add a blog to their website.
You can also make a little money from Twitter by joining Sponsored Tweets. This Twitter app lets advertisers pay you for tweeting about their products and services. You start small, but with thousands of topics and advertisers, you can be making money quickly, 140 characters at a time. You can also refer users and get paid for their tweets as well!
Land An Unusual Freelance Job As An Online Instructor
If you worked hard to get your teaching credentials but still haven't landed that teaching job, or you've been teaching for a while but are tired of all the bureaucracy, there is a huge demand for online teachers. As colleges and other institutions expand their online courses, they are constantly searching for online instructors.
Freelance ESL tutoring is also on the rise. You can earn $20 per hour or more online to teach English as a second language from home. These part time positions pop up on Flexjobs and other freelance sites all the time.
Many of these ESL online instructor jobs require you to speak to students directly, using Skype. The majority of the jobs that I've seen involve teaching English to business students in Japan and China, and may also require you to write lesson plans.
Make Money Online As A Virtual Juror
A lot of people go to great lengths to avoid jury duty, but serving as an online juror is interesting and pays much better than real jury duty. Most companies pay $20-$60 per case, depending on the scope of the work involved.
These companies summarize real cases and email them to qualified jurors, like you. Once you give your opinion (and get paid for it), the company sends all the data to the attorney that placed the order. By doing this, lawyers can gain new insight into how an actual jury may view the case.
On average, each case takes 30-60 minutes to review, so the money isn't bad. Just watch out for scams. These unusual freelance jobs are becoming more popular, so scammers are starting to surface. If a company wants you to pay a fee to join, walk away. There are plenty of legitimate, free to join online jury services out there.
Work From Home As A Virtual Concierge
Are you detail oriented? As a virtual concierge, or virtual assistant, you can make up to $20 per hour to handle details like making dinner reservations, giving restaurant recommendations, or giving driving directions to clients. Some busy executives even use the services of a virtual concierge to plan birthday parties and vacations. You can do all of this from your phone, by Skype or online. As more enterprising people build successful virtual concierge businesses, these unusual freelance jobs are slowly becoming mainstream career opportunities.
Scrapbooking Consultant
Are you a scrapper? It may have started as just a hobby, but in recent years scrapbooking has become a multi-billion dollar industry. If you have an eye for layout and design, you can cash in on the scrapbooking and rubber stamping boom as a freelance scrapbooking consultant.
If you're not sure where to start, you can earn free merchandise by hosting parties for companies like Creative Memories and Stampn' up. If you already have a business plan, you can strike out on your own with scrapbooking advice and services; or by making your own greeting cards and other products and selling them on eBay or through your own website.
Unusual Freelance Jobs Are Easy To Find, But Don't Quit Your Day Job
There are plenty of work from home opportunities out there but freelancing is not for everyone. A lot of people are seduced by the claims that you can work part time and make thousands of dollars a month; but the reality is that freelancing is a lot of work. Don't fall for the wild claims.
If you have a day job, keep it! Start out slow, test the waters and get a good idea of what's really involved in freelance work. You'll quickly find out that the real freelance lifestyle often involves low pay, long hours, and a lot of hard work. It may take months, or even years to start making a reliable freelance income, and you're going to need that day job to pay the bills while you build your business.
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rmr - Thanks for the interesting, infallible information.
Do you happen to know of any major companies who offer substantial pay for a free lance chocolate taster? or free lance ice cream flavor tester? or even free lance barbeque spare ribs restaurant critic.
Pay doesn't even have to be substantial. Will work for food.
rmr. . i was just going to say what great ideas you have here. . and then i read drbj . and I am with her. . when you find that chocolate taster position make sure they have room for 2 of us!! LOL
Thumbs up!
Thanks mrr. good information. well written article. The Virtual Juror sounds interesting.
Right you are, Bob! A lot of people have started successful businesses as virtual assistants. I know of a couple who started small, and grew their businesses into agencies that hire dozens of freelance VA's.
drbj and wavegirl, I'll see what I can dig up. I did once see a job for a pastry taster. Does that do anything for you?
@kimh039-Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, guys. Much appreciated!
Online tutoring is a great way to make money, though it's tricky to find steady clients. It helps to have a website that gets a high volume of targeted traffic. Like an educational blog.
Great Hub teammate you are indeed saving your best for the last stretch of the Challenge. Two thumbs up, rated this up and bookmarked it.
Hi paxwill, thanks for the input. I can see how a well established website would help. For those who are just starting out, there are also plenty of job boards around. The pay is lower, but it's a start.
Hi GH, Thanks for thanks for the compliment!Best of luck in the second round! I think things are about to get interesting.
Ahhh the joys of online working rmr :) We love it! WE do ... don't we?!
Great hub, good information (Not heard of SN consulting) and ty very much :)
Also i would love to add one more job in this list i.e "BP oil spill cleanup jobs". For more info http://hubpages.com/hub/BP-Oil-Spill-Creates-Rush-
Wow. what an interesting information you have here. I did not know specially the online virtual juror that it is possible. Thanks for sharing this. I enjoyed reading this hub
Very good hub..I specially liked the idea about social media consultant. We r getting enough ideas after working on our blogs as to how to promote them. However, whatever freelancer career we take, it has to be marketed properly. Try out..http://immixdirectory.com/inews/...it has ways on marketing the services for FREE.
Great hub and some nice twists on working online, not a survey to be filled out in site. Thanks for posting and sharing with us much appreciated. might even get around to trying a few of these.
Good work rmr. This hub gave me some ideas. Thanks
Some very fine ideas here for sure.
great information !
Ideas, ideas, ideas - I love ideas! Thank you!
Very interesting! Both the ideas and the real-world warnings will help a lot of people.
Hello, I am from Romania. Most of you never heard about it, right? My country is from the east of Europe. we, Roumanians, are calling it "the land of bad choice".it is very sad what is happening in my country. after the comunists left and Ceausescu died, we really hoped that we will be fine, but our life is not that easy. you should be proud and very happy that you were borned in such a great country! it is only about luck.
I think that your information is great...for people with different nationality then mine. The things, for all this area, are totally different. most of us can only complete highschool as the college education is available only for good money. there is no free education or payed by our gouvernment. our state is not paying for it, it is not paying anything anymore. I tryed to do some economics college, but I could not as the rate per year is about US $545. you can say that this is nothing, but our salaries are very low. I earn US $350 per month. it is a good salary in Romania, as the usual salary is about US $200, but I just can cover my elementary needs and pay all my taxes. so...I need an extra job. but what? I do not know anything about programming-only some basics. I am not an english native writer, so it is very dificult to get anything to write as I am pretty slow and it takes a while to get the right grammar and spelling. I am looking for over 5 months to get a job but I didn't. all it was offered to me were some captcha jobs, but for that fee I will not be able to pay my electrical bill. and, in the same time, I don't have the courage to take a job as I am not confident with what I am writing. I am not sure that I can complete it on time and do it right. so, what can I do? I am reading hundreds of articles and advices, but it seems that nothing works.
your information is great and accurate but it will be more helpfull to write some tips for east-europeans as well. I am sure that I am not the only one trying to get some extra income. I am not a stupid person. I might be a little bit slower and maybe I need some guidelines because of the diferent systems we are working within (and I am not talking about PC system) but I can complete different tasks. I only need help, but it seems that I can not find it...
virtual juror? Really? Didn't know anything about that! Or the online ESL teaching positions.
Wow, what a great hub! Very informative and out of the ordinary. I enjoyed the creative topic!
What a great article you've written here. It is very useful too.
Now, I am very interested in the virtual juror opportunity. Unfortunately I have noticed that it is only for U.S citizens. Do you know any legitimate virtual juror opportunity for Canadian citizens?
Thanks
virtual juror?? thats interesting. Although personally if I was on trial I prefer to see the jurors for real!
We have Virtual School for our school district. For teachers, it's a great gig! Everything is submitted electronically, the teacher grades it and sends it back. No behavior problems, no over-protective parents....
Thanks for a great hub. The opportunities really are limitless, if you are creative.
Namaste.
WoW! I never knew could be an online juror! Three times over my life I was a pretend juror and I learned a lot!
30 years ago it was $25 for a medical lawsuit.
15 years ago it was the State as defendant in a lawsuit because a state worker was using cell phone during crash - something NOT mentioned during the fake trial but that I mentioned afterwards - and was confirmed it had happened.
2 years ago civil suit on stuff most people don't understand - high finance real estate construction funding. Everybody voted for the plaintiff - but the next day - I felt we all had voted wrong.
Very interesting. I'm sure the virtual juror thing is really just used as jury research to aid in Voir Dire and jury selection questions, but hey for 20-60 buck a pop, I'm glad to help :) thanks for the hub, well done!
I found this really interesting. Thanks for sharing this information. Congratulations on being featured.
Excellent Hub very informative thank you.
The GFC was the best thing that happened to Niche occupations. Didn't even know about the Juror one. Yoink!
Excellent,creative and informative are the simple words for this hub.
Thanks a great deal,i have learn a lot from it.Gracious!
How do you find some help when you need it. I lost my job,
Need help I have a beautiful wife and daughter,I lost my job and they tell me she is 17 weeks pregnant.My land lord is telling me to move the bank is telling me to get a loan I need to have better credit and a job for at least 1 yr. I could buy the trailor park I live in if I could find a loaner or investor it would take 300,000 to get the park and get back in shape. I am willing to pay back 2,000 a month for 30 years. and I can get insurance that pay all I owe if I die the persons or corp. would have all I pay plus the whole amount they loan.
Lonewolfbill, if you're in desperate need of fast money, these ideas won't take you very far. My best advice is to find a job, any job, that will bring in some cash. Don't be ashamed to deliver pizzas or flip burgers. Look into public assistance, if need be. Right now, your first goal is to keep your family fed and a roof over their heads.
As far as getting a loan, there are a lot of lending programs for people with bad credit. But again, if you don't have at least a part time job, you're not likely to get anywhere.
@magdafloasiu-- I'm afraid I'm not familiar with citizenship requirements for most of the make money online websites. You might check sites like Mylot, Amazon mechanical turk,and some of the paid survey sites. Don't expect instant income from anything online, though. Most of them take time to build up to payout level, and even then, it may be more than a month before you see the money.
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Make-Money-In-Your-
http://hubpages.com/hub/LegitimatePaidSurveysRevie
Best of luck to both of you. I really do hope you find what you're looking for.
Very helpful hub! Especially at times like these wherein more people are in need of extra income. Good work! :)
Thanks, MisCook. I'm glad you found it helpful.
Great hub!Though I knew about online tutoring,media consultancy,writing services,etc,online juror is news.It's quite true that one can earn a little extra money doing these online jobs.I have personally experienced this and even now I do parttime online tutoring and audio podcast production.
Hi nkrohini. It amazes me how many freelance opportunities there are, and in fields you wouldn't normally think could be done from home. I've found that the virtual juror gig is not good for a reliable, steady income. The number of cases you get depends on the number of lawyers in your area that use the service.
Thanks for coming by!
Great hub! Very informative I learned a lot. Thank you.
Very nice hub Sir. rmr...
I'm mhex, and I'm just a newbie here in hubpages..
trying to develop my writing skill here..
I will try some of these five unusual freelance jobs..and if ever I have a questions, can you accompany me..?
Thanks anyway... for sharing =)
GOD bless ^_^
Very well written article. As a freelancer it's important to know that until you get loyal clients, you may have to work harder for less than you would make in a conventional job.
Great Hub...I've already registered with some sites so hopefully I'll get some good response. Very informative.
Thanks DonnyRay!
mhekhies16- Best of luck to you. If you have questions, feel free to contact me through my profile. I'll answer whatever questions I can.
brianbel- You're absolutely right! Never quit your day job until you know for a fact that you can support yourself.
4tsom2- Good luck! Let me know how it turns out!
You post is about freelancing but in the whole post you did not mentioned odesk or getafreelancer. How about using these sites to get small project and making handsome amount.
Thank you for these ideas. I'm excited to try out some other freelance things.
Hi, forms carbonless. The purpose of this hub is to point out a few freelance opportunities that are out of the ordinary. I've also had bad experiences with job boards, and don't typically recommend them.
Hi, PolySani. Glad to help. Good luck!
Good work, my friend. I really interested with readbud.com . I think it was great opportunity for us. And I know that we don't have to write to be a freelancer. Good information. I'll bookmark this one. Thumbs up for you and I rate this one. Success for you!
Prasetio
A rather timely and interesting article considering the current state of the economy, and the fact that the jobs market is still in the doldrums. These are times which require a bit more thinking outside the box, and this offers more than a few good ideas to get at least the thinking juices flowing. Well done.
Very helpful article! I'm going right now to check out readbud.com
Is anyone using readbud.com? The nerd in me (and my sad wallet) is rather intrigued. An extra $100 a month would be very helpful for doing something I already love to do.
Thanks rmr for your these information.
rmr, What a great hub! I just finished a hub, Work at Home Site Directory, and this was one of the hubs that came up when I was searching for hubs to link to. And it definitely caught my eye so much so that I just had to come by for a visit! Kind Regards
Virtual juror, eh? Hadn't heard of that :)
Thank you for this excellent post! Great tips here and so true about that last point!
I enjoyed this article! Very informative and helpful tips. Fiverr.com is another one for some freelance jobs.
Some really interesting jobs there, thanks I think I'm going to have to look at finding some even weirder ones now. lol
Excellent post !
Great ideas for freelance work, also some really interesting posts and defiantly got me thinking.
I write full time for a living and its always great to look out for new opportunities. Good advice
Happily, I found your Hub on a backlink. Then I found you, and you have a new Fan. I am approved on the juror thing, and that gave me a survey company that pays for completed surveys. Right on Brother! Thank you for kindly sharing. :0)
P.S. I have found good success in Sponsored Tweets, it is legitimate, and fun. Thanks again.
Hi Lilly, you have a new fan as well! I'm glad you found the backlink. I'm enjoying Sponsored tweets too. I've had a couple of payouts already, and more offers coming in. It starts pretty slow, but as your rate goes up, things pick up nicely. Thanks for coming by!
Thanks. My price for tweets went up to $1.25, but I haven't gotten any offers for that price yet. with 2 followers, sweet! :0) See you around.
I never thought there are other freelance jobs aside from being a freelance writer. Thanks, now I have some ideas in case I consider to change career in the future.
Excellent overview showing alternatives, one of which is gaining more and more value as each month goes by - Freelance Social Media Consultant. Thats part of my home based business, and must say...LOL... when you said 'Do you tweet so much that you've started speaking 140 characters at a time?' ....think i actually found myself speaking like that the other day.
Excellent work done especially for freelancers working on project.
This gave them a new idea.
It was difficult for me to imagine even that such jobs are exist even for freelancers.It made me think different.
It definitely made me the free lancing a different aspect.
Power to the freelancer! Great Hub :)
I have been looking for freelance opportunities. Glad I found thus site. This will be the first time I put the time in to research. Any advice?
Bob 2 years ago
A Virtual Assistant can do many of the administrative and time-consuming tasks in the company and the company can simply enjoy the outputs.