Social Media Communities

Social Media Platforms are some of the best business platforms on the internet. They work best for someone selling quick or small products. Almost any product can be sold through social media quickly than any other product listing service because most social media platforms have an active audience.

Social Media Platforms are websites that allow people to connect with one another mainly for social purposes.

  Examples of social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc. 

Most products on social media are sold through, social media communities, which are the smaller groups made up of people with a common interest.

For example: someone starts a group, a group administrator, on a platform like Facebook, and the aim of that group is to connect people who are interested in buying or selling Expensive Used Weaves in Zimbabwe, and every time someone posts about expensive used weaves, almost everyone in the group sees what one user of the group has said about used weaves. 

That’s just an example of a social media community. There are many groups on social media platforms.

I’m sure you have been in at least on one social media platform group in your life time. If you have never used one, you can just search on google or any other search engine for a term like ‘groups on Facebook about entrepreneurs in my area’ or any of your interests, and you will be led to loads of results you can make use of.  

If you have products or services you are selling, you can search for groups meant for people in Zimbabwe, and specifically your area if available. (For usually the buyer and the seller might have to travel in order to meet up for the trade to take place, just google search for precautions to take before meeting anyone). 

Examples of social communities you could make use of:

Bid Sites Buy &Sell    

Bidding Wars BuyAndSellZimbabwe    

Bidding Wars (PurchaseMate - Buy $ Sell) Zimbabwe Buy and Sell    

‎Bidding Wars Zimbabwe Buying and Selling Zimbabwe 263  

Three steps to selling on a Social Media Platform

You have a product or service for sale (You want to reach a bigger audience through social search)

You join, or create a group and invite people interested in that kind of service or products

You make posts about your products

Niche Store

I recommend that you go with the Niche Store Strategy for quicker gains in the market.

It is the best strategy for new payers in the market, and definitely the best small and successful E-commerce stores.

Niche (or specific market) refers to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of people.

The Idea Behind A Niche Store

You have less competition, (since you’re targeting a smaller, specific market, chances are that there is less or zero competition)

You will rank higher quickly on search engines, meaning people will come across your goods in small space of time. 

You will get loyal customers overtime, if the customers get attached to your products or services and feel that their expectations are met with what’s on offer, a return for more is quite obvious.

Here is a list of lessons on how to start a Niche Store 

How to Start a Successful Online Store (Hint: Nail Your Niche)

General Store vs Niche Store(Should You Build a Niche or General Store?)

What should you sell online (What Should You Sell Online?)

Good examples of niche stores you could take a look at:

Luxy Hair 

Cuppow 

E-commerce Services 

If you are not willing to go through the trouble of creating a store on your own, you might sell on an existing e-commerce service that allows you to post your products or services without you having         to create anything.

Good examples for you to do that will be:

Flexi Africa (local platform, knows your market very well, you can become a vendor on the website)(Become a vendor here)

Aliexpress (Become a seller)  

Amazon (Become a seller)

Local ‘bid’ sites

Another way to get buyers quickly if you have physical products is using local bid sites 

A good example for that is Econet’s Bid Buddie, the down side before I get into details about the platform is that you have to pay a service fee, though it’s just a tiny fee, just that free things on the internet are usually the best. Not that I really pay for anything.

Bid Buddie is one of Econet’s e-commerce platform, which is an online auction. On Bid Buddie you can sell almost any kinds of goods, from thing that you no longer need, or things you already have for sale. 

Buyers are the ‘bidders’, these are customers who compete to put place the highest price for the products that are for sale.   

You can get started with with selling on the platform through downloading and installing the Bid Buddie application on this link.

Don’t Have Anything To Sell On An E-commerce Store?

Here’s a strategy named drop-shipping meant for entrepreneurs who do not yet have products or services of their own to sell. It’s Called Drop-shipping.

What is drop-shipping?

Drop-shipping is a selling method where an online-store doesn’t keep, or at times have the products that are for sale in their stock (stock – where shops keep products). The store lists the products for sale, giving as much details as possible, pictures, weight, whatever necessary detail.

 Figure : Snippet Extracted From Movie Scarface 

When the store sells the product, it purchases the item from the original product seller and has it sent 

directly to a customer.

The store has a mark-up set on the original price from which profits will be realized, for example, the customer pays, ZW$49.99cents to the store, then the store gets the product for ZW$39.99 from the original seller and leaving out ZW$10.00 as their profit.

On the internet, on an online store, the store never sees or handles the product.

In Steps Here’s How Drop-shipping Works 

Customer buys product from your store

You forward order details to the supplier and make payment

  (You look for supplier on huge e-commerce stores like Amazon, Alibaba, Buy China, E-Bay,    

and More according to your what you’re serving)

The original seller sends the goods to the customer directly

 Figure : Illustration By Oberlo 

Steps On How to start a drop-shipping store learn here 

Decide your product

Create an e-commerce store

Add Product Inventory (Photos of the product, and full information of the product)

Start Marketing

Trading

Forex 

E-commerce 

Classifieds 

Social Media Communities 

Trading Stocks 

Trading simply means an exchange of goods or services. Goods are merchandise or possessions such as clothing, furniture, food, etc. 

Sorry, for goods, I just had to give a definition.  

And services is the action of helping or doing work for someone.

For example: Haircuts, medical check ups, car repairs etc.

How trade or the exchange works

Anything from this book you will do to earn an income will involve trading in some way, but for the sake of simpler classification, this part to means ways of earning an income on the internet that are, on the web, directly called trading.

Here’s a list of the trades you can start working on the internet that require the least possible financial investment on your part.

Trading Forex

Forex is an abbreviation for the term Foreign Currency Exchange Market. 

Forex trading means buying, and, or selling a currency (a currency is a medium, or a way of exchange).  

The Foreign Market is an over-the-counter, (a counter like in a store), market which the foreign currencies of the world are exchanged. It is the relationship of value, between one currency, vs another.

Trading Forex online is normally done through a broker which is a website which allows exchanges to go through.

How you can earn income through Forex Trading:

The strategy for forex trading for end users is simple. You buy your foreign currencies at a lower price and sell at a higher price. 

You earn an income when;

Let’s say you have $100.00 on your trading account

The current exchange rate of the EURO vs the US$ is 1.25. (Meaning for a single Euro, €1.00, you get 1.25 US Dollars, $1.25cents).

The Euro rises versus the United States Dollar from 1.25 to 1.26 

Being in the profit or $0.01 you carry out the trade. 

You change your €80.00 to $100.80cents, your profit is $0.80 cents. 

From my example, you might think the profits are too low, but these trades take place several times a day, and there is huge chance for you to earn a respectable income daily from carrying out trades. 

Here’s what someone with experience in the trade had to say on forex trading forum:

 Figure : Extracted From iHarare

Here are the well known forex trading platforms I recommend for you to use: 

Website Minimum Deposit Payment Methods    

MT4 App

US$0 Credit Cards    

Just Forex

US$0.5

BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

IQ Option

US$10 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

Markets.com

US$100 Credit Cards  

Links to lessons for Forex Trading Beginners 

Please just take the lessons to avoid the mistakes that others have came across. Forex Trading has a reputation for being a risky business and some who have done it before say, ‘it takes time and effort in order for you to understand the market’.

 Here’s what Mazai from the same forum had to say:

 Figure : Extracted from iHarare

However, that should not discourage you because making gains in the trade is a reality.  

Learn as much as you can before you can deposit any money, in order for you to avoid loses. But also avoid the mistake of researching a lot and doing nothing in the end. Remember to assess in brief, and get started. Get started! 

Learn more here if you would like to profit from forex trading.

I). Firstly, about forex trading

II). Secondly, about the website you’ve chosen to focus your trades.

I’m sure a loss in any little amount of money would make anyone want to quit.

Here’s how you can find some of the best lessons’

Note the web is full of free $0.00 lessons on almost anything, so just remember to always search for what you want to know.

Links to People and Communities in Carrying Out Forex Trades 

Forex Trading Zimbabwe 

Forex Trading School – Zimbabwe

Note you can always search for communities that relevant to you on your social media accounts.

BTC (BitCoin)

BTC (Bitcoin) is a digital currency and peer to peer payment system. Bitcoin came around in 2009 and has been used quite a lot in world for carrying out different trades.

Figure : Bitcoin Logo - Google Images

Bitcoins are kept in a wallet just you would do with your money, a times,  but a digital wallet. The common way of getting to own Bitcoin is through purchasing from other people who own the currency, or from earning in some other way you would just like with money. 

The other way is quite complicated, and requires loads of technical knowledge in the digital field, and at times investment in the technical equipment. It’s called Bitcoin Mining. If you’re interested in Bitcoin Mining you can always google search how it is done.  

Bitcoin’s, value can be measured in formal currencies. For example 1BTC is equals to US$10.000.00.

Bitcoins can be acquired in smaller amounts, or fractions like ¼ of a 1BTC, that will be BTC0.250, meaning the price money will be US$2.500.00.

How to trade through BTC 

When trading in BTC, to make profits, usually you will be taking advantage of the rapid changes in prices.

Figure : Bitcoin Price Chart 18 November By Cryptocurrency

You can note the rapid changes in prices on the bitcoin price chart that the price is changing from time to time, in the space of two weeks getting to a low of US$7.300 and getting to a high of over US$9.500.

The strategy for trading BTC is buying BTC when the dollar exchange rate is low and selling it when the exchange rate is high. Just as you would do in Forex Trading  (though I feel trading in BTC is less risky than Forex Trading).

For example you buy a fraction of BTC 0.040 when the price for one Bitcoin is US$10.000.0. Meaning you would have paid US$400.00.

(BTC0.040 x US$10.000.00 = US$40.00)

Then you wait for the price of BTC to change to a higher price and the you sell to grow your BTC or take the profit from the trade.

Let’s say the price of BTC rises to US$12.000.00 due to the natural changes on the Bitcoin Market, and you decide to sell your BTC0.040 at the current price, meaning you will make, US$80.00, as your profit.

(BTC0.040 x US$10.000.00 = US$48.00).

Note: there are trading fees deducted by your wallet holder. But the fees are reasonably low.

Figure : Chart Credit Statista.com

There is always an open market for Bitcoin on the internet, people at varying times are in need of the currency, so there won’t be worries about finding a buyer when you would like to sell your Bitcoins. 

You can create a Bitcoin Wallet on one of these websites, and as well carry out the trades (please, constantly check using search engines the Bitcoin Price to know when to carry out trades).

Recommended websites to trade Bitcoins

 Website Minimum Deposit Payment Methods    

Local Bitcoins You buy with what you have (YBWWYH) BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

IQ Option $10.00 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

OlympTrade $10.00 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

ExpertOption $10.00 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards  

Remember to deposit $10 or a higher amount. 

There are no guarantees when trading in currencies, your your money can go up as well as down in value. If you feel you can do it, I recommend you learn much about your market.