(NAPSI)—In the gig economy, many people take hobbies such as playing video games, travel or food and turn them into very lucrative side hustles.
For example, the eSports market started as a community of online gamers and is now estimated to be a $1 billion industry with investors including ESPN and YouTube.
Four Steps Toward Fun And Profit
So how do you take your passion and turn it into cash? Here are four tips to see if you can turn your hobby into a generous source of income.
• Search Popularity—It’s important to know how popular your hobby is to assess whether there’s moneymaking potential. One way to gauge popularity is by looking at whether people are searching for it on Google. A free online tool, Wordtracker, can help you look at how many people are searching your hobby and items similar to your hobby. For example, if you search “food,” it shows that approximately 7.4 million monthly searches are done on food. This is definitely a passion you should explore to make money.
• Explore Social Fandom—Another way to determine whether your hobby can be a moneymaker is to look at communities on such social networks as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can search #food, #travel and so on or look for groups related to your hobby. See how many members or followers these top groups or most popular handles have to determine your potential fan base.
• Test Your Concept—Once you’re certain there’s interest, it’s time to test the market and see what sells. It’s quite easy to start your own eCommerce website or blog using platforms such as WooCommerce or WordPress. And if you’re not very tech savvy, that’s OK. There are companies such as Liquid Web that can fully manage and host your website or blog so you don’t have to worry about security or the site going down.
• Finally, Share Your Website—Let it be seen by those superfans you find on social media and your fellow hobbyists. Make it fun and enjoyable. Set goals each month and see how you do. Try new ideas, attend events, and talk about your website with everyone you meet.
And that’s how you can enjoy turning your hobby into cash.