My New Pandemic Hobbies
By: Peanut Go
Tags: New Hobbies, Blogs, YouTube, Content Creator

Similar to many people, I have been working from home since late March of 2020 (in case someone discover this post later). My professional side of life changed but not overly different. This is because my work could be easily converted to a remote setting — and if fact I personal enjoy not having to commute one hour each way to and from work. My personal side of life actually saw a bigger change because of many things I can no longer enjoy.

Photo by ricardorv30 on Pixabay

Out were the golf, craft beer tasing and local restaurant explorations. While golf courses have been open all this time, I decided not to golf because I am still a bit worry about the risks that are playing out in my head. This left me quite a bit of time during the weekends. And I needed to fine something else to do.

I know many people have turned to things such as baking or cooking to fill up the extra time. However, I simply do not have any interest in either skills. Therefore, I needed to pick something else. And watching many YouTube videos, I decided to become an internet content provider.

When I first told my wife this idea, she started to laugh really hard. I understood why she thought this was silly. I am not young, good looking, funny nor skillful with cameras — all the prerequisites to successful internet personalities. But I told myself that this would be that time to try something different. Something so different from my past experience so that I might learn something I wouldn’t otherwise have tried.

First thing I tried was YouTube. I put my iPhone on a tripod and filmed myself typing a way on a project I was working on. I then had to teach myself how to edit videos and add a music track to it. I even learned to create a thumbnail image. After that I uploaded the video to the new YouTube account I just registered. It was a simple and quick one-minute video but I was really proud of what I have accomplished. Anticipating that the video would fade into obscurity but it was surreal to come back a few days later to see that people actually watched the video — and I even got a thumbs-up for it. So far I have uploaded more than ten videos and have gotten more than a handful of subscribers. I am not qualified to be called a YouTuber but I sure am happy about the results so far.

Photo by Free-Photos on Pixabay

Next thing I attempted was creating a blog website. I bought a domain name, registered a hosting account and installed WordPress onto the site. About that time I also discovered Adsense — and I thought why not put some advertisement on my website like many sites did. After reading the application requirements, I started writing posts to fill the website with contents that Google would deem qualify for advertisement. This one proved to be challenging. I was rejected multiple times but a few months later I was able to receive an approval for the program. After more than twenty blog posts later I was really happy that I could actually accomplish this — and I have made a whopping one cent from the advertisement income.

I wished I had come upon this sooner — but I found out that I actually could have built my website on Google’s cloud computer platform for FREE. The process is actually very complicated and time consuming. However, for a free hosted website with WordPress backend, a few hours really were not bad at all. Since I already had a website, I used the Google platform to create another WordPress website to host a place where my friends and I could post silly things.

Feeling blissful about the the few new things I have tried so far, I next decided to try affiliate marketing — more specifically the one by Amazon. This method is actually an easier way to generate some money from a website. However, there is a 90-day probational condition and a certain number of sales transaction has to be recorded in order for the applicant to stay in the program. And this is where I needed to learn SEO really quickly to drive more traffic to my website. Luckily there were a lot of useful resources on the internet to help me with this seemingly foreign concept to me. I was able to increase the traffic to my website and fulfill the requirement to pass the probation with the affiliate program.

Photo by sanuas on Pixabay

The latest I have stumbled upon was Medium. Other than blogs and social media, I had no idea that there is such a place for people to write and share their thoughts or experiences. Generally I write pretty decent emails and reports so I think I could probably contribute to this writing platform. More importantly, I could also use this opportunity to improve upon my writing skills. This is my second entry into Medium and I hope to continue contributing.

Nine months into my haphazard “internet content creator” experience, I have to admit that I am pretty darn happy about what I have been able to accomplish. And having to spend a lot of weekend hours to come up with things to write or film, I do now understand the hard work famous people had to put into their daily lives. And believe me, to become successful is really hard.

Through these experiences I really had a lot of fun. And I am glad that I decided to try and learn these new things that have not done previously. I will continue to add more materials into the various new things and perhaps I will get better at them.