We’ve all heard it said before, “Great things start from small beginnings.” For a lot of beginners, earning online in small figures is the starting point because small opportunities are the most widely spread. You may or may not choose to start here. If you are a neophyte though, it’s well worth looking at what these small scale opportunities are so you can decide on your own whether to skip them or not.
Lesson 1: PTC/Surveys/Communities
When I first hopped into the virtual bandwagon, my first initiation into earning online was through centavo programs. I coined this term because what I earned from them for every act of participation were cents that accumulated and turned into a couple of dollars. I roughly group them into PTC sites, survey companies and communities.
1. PTC sites
PTC is the acronym for Paid/Pay To Click. What this is essentially is that you will be given a certain number of advertisements to click on and view for a specified period of time. You will be paid in cents for every view that you perform. The secret to earning more in PTC is by drawing in referrals part of whose views are credited to you. One of the most popular PTC sites is Neobux.
2. Surverys
This is self-explanatory. Online survey companies draw in members that agree to answer surveys or questionnaires from their clients. Every survey answered can be compensated in cents or points that get converted to cash. Membership with a survey company can be paid or free. One of the most popular and reputable free membership sites is Global Test Market.
3. Communities
This hasn’t really taken off as much as PTC sites and survey companies but there are a couple of paid online communities that continue to thrive. MyLot is an example of these. Members are compensated in cents every time they post a discussion, reply to discussions or participate in a number of different ways.
General Advantages: If you’ve been reading very closely and spotting all the “cents” that I’ve written, you would hardly think there is any advantage to getting into these programs. Some reason out though that if you are an internet addict and you’re always online, why not get into these programs and earn on the side?
Also there is a potential to earn a couple of dollars in places like MyLot and Neobux if you have referrals.
General Disadvantages: There are quite a number to point out:
- The greatest disadvantage of all is the low compensation you get out of participating in these programs. You might not notice it at first but you’re actually expending a great deal of energy to earn very little.
- The three sites I’ve mentioned above are a small sampling of the great many sites that offer low level earnings. Many of the other sites out there are scam sites that will manage to wiggle some money or private information out of you. Before you ever decide to join any program or membership site, do some research. Google “(name of program) scam” and dig deep into the Google results pages to find out if a program is legitimate or not.
- If you don’t live in the U.S., you will not be given access to a lot of surveys or PTC advertisements. This is because many companies that pay for surveys or ads target western markets.
To be honest, I’ve graduated from this stage and no longer participate in these programs. I do still have active referral links though so I still get credited time and again for participation by people I’ve referred. You might want to just try some PTC sites and communities if only to experience how it is to get and earn from referrals.
One word of warning: be very careful with scam programs. As a general rule, research a program first to find out if it is a scam. In a search engine, type “whatever is the program name” + scam and you might be able to get results that will warn you to stay away from a particular program.
