South African companies such as TomTom, 1Life and Telesure have partnered with new micro jobbing platform M4JAM (money for jam) to make over 100,000 micro jobs available.
M4JAM, which goes live on Monday 11 August, is a digitally enabled micro jobbing platform hosted on WeChat, which allows companies to allocate simple micro jobs to thousands of ‘jobbers’ across the country and pay them via M4JAM and MTN Mobile Money. Microjobs are a very small paid task which can vary in duration from a day to a few hours.
Easy work for easy money
The startup will launch with jobs offers from TomTom, Here Maps, Telesure’s Hippo, 1Life Direct Jenus Health, and MyLawyer as well as around 20,000 ‘fun jobs’ with WeChat and M4JAM in which new jobbers can carry out simple tasks and earn R15 a time, as they learn to use the platform. Those who opt to tell their friends about it on social media stand to earn another R5 each.
M4JAM co-founder and ‘Chief Jammer’ Warren Venter said big-name brands are showing enthusiasm for M4JAM’s cost-effectiveness, and its ability to offer personal interaction with jobbers on the back of a ‘warm referral’.
“Each client company puts a minimum of 1000 jobs on the system at each time and jobbers can earn between R15 and R30 per job”
“Many of the micro jobs will take the form of market research, giving companies more accurate, effective sampling than using traditional survey methods,” says Venter.
“They might carry out surveys where a person walks through a shopping area and asks people for information. These methods are typically quite costly and the results are hard to validate.
“Using M4JAM enabled by the WeChat platform, the results will be available online in real time, and the brand can tweak questions during the survey for better response base if necessary. This is a very low cost, low risk solution, and it offers massive distribution in areas where they typically couldn’t get responses easily in real time.”
Each client company puts a minimum of 1000 jobs on the system at each time and jobbers can earn between R15 and R30 per job.
Smartphone jobbers
Venter expects high levels of interest in microjobbing from smartphone owners looking to supplement their incomes, such as students, stay-at-home parents or pensioners. M4JAM expects to have around 200,000 jobbers registered by the end of the first month as news for the microjobbing service goes viral.
The microjobs themselves are simple, he explains, and generally take only a few minutes to complete. “Jobs for the Telesure stable include completing short surveys, and other jobs for well know FMCG companies involved paying mystery shopper to visit their stores, where jobbers answer questions relative to in store customer service.”
“It is about job creation and entrepreneurship, independence and accessibility”
Regular jobbers will be rewarded by moving up the rankings and earning more per job they complete based on the quality of the jobs they complete.
Mobile money
Through the MTN Mobile Money partnership, microjobbers can accumulate their pay in an e-wallet and cash it out at a Pick ‘n Pay or Boxer store, paying R4 for this transaction.
Keith McIvor Head of Business Development at Etie Mobile Money says “It is about job creation and entrepreneurship, independence and accessibility. It is an exciting venture that Mobile Money is proud to be a part of and support.”
“Needs drive innovation in emerging markets. M4JAM is geared to deliver an innovative employment platform through mobile channels like WeChat with a basic need in mind, empowering the unemployed to find a micro job by simplifying the engagement logistics and red tape faced by all South Africans,” says Jon Hoehler, Co-chair of global community Mobile Monday South Africa.
