Club invites earn big bucks
Keyboard-savvy uni students paid up to $150 a night without working up a sweat
Forget stacking shelves or washing dishes — students are earning up to $150 a night from the comfort of their own home by inviting their Facebook friends to clubs.
Auckland CBD’s Impala night club has found a way to utilise millennials and their vast social webs, by getting them to create door lists for them for Friday and Saturday nights.
Kelsey Moller, 20, who is in her third year at Auckland University of Technology, started working as a promoter for the club when it opened eight months ago as she knew the owners.
She did it for about three weeks then started managing other promoters and now has a team of 50 young people.
“I’ll give them the event details, then they’ll go and invite all their friends on Facebook, say, 100 people,” Moller said.
I’m sure some of them are using this to pay off student loans. Kelsey Moller
Every club-goer ticked off the door list, who has been invited by one of the promoters, earns $5 for the student, before tax, based on a 20 per cent rate system.
“If they get 10 people through they get $50, if they get 20 people through they get $100, and if they get 30-plus they get $150,” Moller said.
“Doing this and making $150 [a night] would take you maybe an hour, absolute maximum, over a week.”
It’s work promoters can do in their pyjamas at home or on the bus — as long as they have access to the internet, Moller said.
She said it was often difficult for promoters to explain the job to their parents, “especially if they’re not on social media”.
“The majority of promoters are either students or have just left university. I’m sure some of them are using this to pay off student loans.”
Josh Plummer, 20, said he “consistently made $150 most nights” last year when he lived in Auckland University’s halls.
“There were always a lot of people going out, and getting 30 out of 300 people to come on a list is quite easy.”
Plummer said the job’s flexible hours made it attractive.
Impala operations manager Thommy Simmons said students were “more of an indirect marketing tactic”.
“It’s better to come from a peer than a company. . . It’s not like Auckland has a shortage of clubs or late night venues, but we’ve already established ourselves in eight months as one of the hot spots.” Auckland University department of marketing lecturer Dr Rebecca Dolan said students were “a lot more relatable, and that comes down to them being a bit more authentic”. Dolan said companies often aimed to use people who already look like customers. “There is a lot of advertising clutter now, so targeting someone you want to be like can break that clutter.” She noted businesses should be cautious when using student voices. “It’s very new. There’s not a lot of regulations, and not much benchmarking around paying people.”
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