How to Make Money Online in Korea
While South Korea itself is generally quite welcoming to foreigners, living and working in Korea can be quite startling if you’re not used to its business-driven culture. One of the key reasons behind this is the general expectations of long office hours and a poor work-life balance for traditional job positions.
This can be especially daunting if you’re still a student in Korea and want to save up to travel or pursue higher education abroad, or if you’re a foreigner who wants to immerse themselves into the culture.
Luckily, there are quite a few ways to learn how to make money online in Korea and bolster your career. Read on to learn how to utilize your skills for an online income.
Benefits of Learning How to Make Money Online in Korea
While online businesses have developed a reputation for being part-time gigs or belonging to the draining “hustle culture,” you can build a full-time and enriching career while remaining online. But what’s in it for you?
Independence
South Korea has some of the most backbreaking office hours, with working from 9 to 6 being relatively common and overtime being almost an assumption for many positions. This might not feel like your purpose in life, and that’s completely understandable.
With an online job, you can leverage the presence of a global audience or differences in time zones to keep different working hours. Additionally, with some methods creating a passive income stream, you don’t need to maintain fixed office hours at all. Finally, being an independent contractor or a freelancer allows you to set up your own rules, which can be liberating.
Pursuing Your Passion
Did you grow up being told you’re good at art, dancing, music, sports, or something similar along those lines? Perhaps you’ve discovered you have a penchant for transferring your knowledge to others during group study sessions.
An online business allows you to make the best use of those talents and skills. If you’re smart about building your online presence, your job might not feel like a job at all.
How to Make Money Online in Korea as if You Were in the U.S.
While Korea has a bustling economy (being among the top 15 economies in the world), it’s a far cry from giants such as the U.S., Germany, or Japan. The median salary in the country is around $31,000 per year, which has a purchasing power parity of $50k in the U.S.
This means that getting a “foreigner” salary can be extremely lucrative, especially if you land a high-earning freelance job or gain a good social media presence to help you earn money online in Korea.
Tips to Make Money Online in Korea
In general, there’s no hard and fast rule on which career choice will make you the most money. Earning money independently is extremely dependent on your skillset, connections, and even your personality traits. With that in mind, here are some choices you might want to consider if you want to learn how to make money online in Korea.
Posting Educational Videos
There’s probably something you’re already good at and may not know it. Or maybe you have taken up a new skill recently that you’re eager to share. While there might be plenty of other people who also have those skills, there are scores more people willing to learn them yet. And that’s where you can come in.
Making a lesson plan and teaching someone in real-time (and in-person) can be extremely time-consuming with limited results. There’s always a feeling that you’re wasting a bit of potential by not casting a wider net. But what’s stopping you from doing so?
You can make educational (and interactive) videos that focus on parts of your lesson plan, giving your viewers comprehensive guidelines for learning the skill you’ve mastered. With a premium video-hosting platform, you can monetize those videos, converting your followers into actual sales. Your sales funnel can be created through social media apps and platforms (and Koreans use quite a few of them).
The process is simple. You make a series of interconnected videos, with shorter introductions or previews, and viewers can purchase the videos they want to watch. Before long, you’ve become a respected online coach with quite a following and have simultaneously started to earn money online in Korea.
Tutoring
While Korea ranks relatively high on English fluency in its general population, there’s always a bit of progress to be made. This is due to most English speakers being children and young adults as English has become a more common school subject. However, some older career professionals lack the English vocabulary and fluency necessary to cooperate internationally.
Teaching English as a foreign language in Korea in a school doesn’t come without prerequisites—you need a degree from an English-speaking college, an official Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) qualification for language schools, and a teaching visa — but it does have some benefits. If you obtain a teaching visa, you can get a portion of your rent paid for by the school — which can be a lifesaver since Korean rent deposits are backbreakingly high.
Private classes, on the other hand, allow you greater freedom of scheduling and a higher per-hour pay. There’s another caveat, though, as a teaching position at a school precludes you from (legally) conducting private classes. So, weigh your options carefully.
It’s not just English that can be in demand in Korea. If you know another popular language (such as German, French, or Spanish), you can make a lucrative career of teaching it to people who want to travel or emigrate.
But the possibilities don’t stop with teaching a language. You might also be able to find work in the translation industry, converting material from Korean to English and vice versa. Of course, a near-native knowledge of both languages is practically a must here, but it can be a lucrative career option.
Additionally, there’s always the option of being a private tutor for other subjects, such as math or sciences. If you’re a student in college, you can typically earn a decent salary by teaching the subjects you passed.
Freelancing
With the rise of online working, the idea of a traditional 9-to-5 office (or 9 to 6, in Korea’s case) is somewhat obsolete. If you have the skill set to work for a company abroad, you can get a salary that an entry-to-medium-level job in Korea can’t match.
The main industries that come to mind here are web development, programming, graphic design, and marketing. They’re all excellent choices with high job opening expectancies in the coming decade. If you’re already on your way to a career in these fields, make a portfolio and start browsing through openings. Before you know it, you’ve managed to learn how to make money online in Korea.
Alternatively, you can leverage your artistic or organizational skills for more part-time work, such as a virtual assistant, or a gig-based career on websites like Upwork or Fiverr.
Content Creation
As we’ve mentioned previously, Korea is no stranger to social media apps and actually hosts a few platforms you won’t find elsewhere. You can leverage one of them to become an influencer, whether to native Koreans or foreigners who want a slice of the genuine Korean experience.
The more modern approach to influencer marketing has shifted to favoring micro-influencers, people who have as few as 2,000 followers. If your social media has excellent interaction statistics, you can get sponsorship or partnership deals with various Korean (or even foreign) brands. Just like with the educational videos, make sure to create a community around something you know, you love, and you want to teach others.
You can also go the more traditional route of blogging or vlogging. Well-made blogs can be stepping stones to attaining a good social media presence or serve as precursors to making your followers trust your paid content.
Become a Tester
No, we’re not talking about applying for medical experiments (but, hey, there’s an offline money-earning idea there). There are a few online options here, such as testing video games, becoming a part of a support team, or even training new AIs.
The range of skills and qualifications needed for these roles can vary wildly, but it can be an interesting avenue for growth and a way to tailor your skills to a longer-term goal.
Complete Surveys or Use Apps
Perhaps one of the simplest ways to earn a bit of extra cash in your downtime is to use a survey website or app. The surveys can have various topics and take different forms, but they usually don’t take a long time to complete, and you can steadily work to earn a solid bit of change.
Additionally, there are more than a few cash-back or savings-oriented apps you can use. While they don’t help you earn money online in Korea, they’re a great way to reduce some of your expenses or earn you a free meal every now and then.
Get a Head Start on Learning How to Make Money Online in Korea With BlurBay
With all these tips to make money online in Korea, one thing’s for certain: the possibilities start and end with your skill and effort. If you develop your talent and skills and learn a bit about video editing, you can start making videos. Then, use a premium video platform like BlurBay to convert all that into a steady stream of paying customers.
