#djpromotion

It’s become apparent of recent, well saying recent over the past years really that there are varying levels and expectations of those in the industry OR wanting to be in the industry.

There are the old school who know what they do, they do it monotonously liken its ingrained in their dna, BUT then there are a lot of newbies that just aren’t aware of what’s available to get themselves out there.

The SOCIALS:

To some a massive headache, to some the most useful tool on the planet. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram being the main 3 social media sites. With practice, these are great tools to be used. You can create events, do live video streaming, actually interact with a fanbase, don’t be a wallflower just watching the (Facebook) world go by. Follow those you admire and keep up to date with newest music. And possibly the easiest useful tool to help get noticed…. # yes, the simple hashtag, when tagging the right things in, people will notice.

The PROFILE:

If you haven’t got one, get one. BUT make sure the 2 are different, not everyone wants to see what you ate for lunch, or what you went to the cinema to see. So make it about your music and KEEP it about your music. Post your favourite tracks, favourite places to dj, go out clubbing, and In other words keep it RELEVENT.

The EVENT

So are you gigging? Playing out anywhere? On any shows? – IF you don’t tell people then no one will ever know! Not saying you have to create events for everything you do BUT nothing stopping your Facebook banner having your shows on, scheduled posts with when your playing, logo’d posters pinned to your wall. As much as you can say, “I do enough”…when you look at it…Do you? Or is there more you can do (90% of the time there’s always more)

The BRANDS

Now a contentious issue of recent times, and another part of expectation. A lot of people will expect/assume a brand they’re djing on will promote them, showcase them etc. WHEN in actual fact it’s the other way around. A brand nowadays has as much, if not more competition as you the dj, and therefore not just expects BUT also publicly states on their sites they want you to promote them. YOU make them bigger THEY will return the favour. Pretty much every radio station has a sentence or longer that states they expect you to promote your show on social media, some say tag the station or have the station logo on your promo material, so to some this is not new information. This is more a ‘standard practice’.

The MIUSIC SITES

There are a mass of music-based sites out there for you to upload mixes and tracks onto and stream/download to fans, let alone link to social media accounts. Mixcloud, HearThis and Soundcloud are the biggest 3 and free sites to use. All are simple, upload, add tags, tracklist and publish sites, then giving you a link or directly posting on your socials where people can then go and listen/download the music of choice. BUT don’t forget to promote the mix, everywhere to push what you do to listeners/new listeners. There are masses of sites out there dedicated to mixes ad free to use, so use them.

The COLLABORATION

What screams “listen to THIS”? Well if you ant that extra bit of coverage then get collaborating with someone, either look to guest mix on their show OR vice versa, sometimes they may have higher profile than you, so it can be beneficial either way to work together, that way there’s 2 people promoting the one event, therefore double the audience (in theory).

As well as double-teaming on collaborations, look for new artists music, Soundcloud is great for this, you find a new track that blows your mind, and all you do is contact them artist, ask if you can use and win, win you have a grateful artist of getting some airplay, and again doubling the promotion base. Some of the best tracks or remixes you will ever hear come from artists you may have never heard of, there are dj’s out there that only use brand new, unsigned artists work and work closely with those artists to gain all round and increase the listeners overall.

The ACTIVITY

I have mentioned this above BUT its that important, its worth talking about again. Bering active is the most important thing about any artist especially nowadays in a world where everyone is an artist and the competition has never been so high.

Keep your social media pages up to date, there’s nothing worse than going onto an artist’s page in April and seeing their last post as December the year before.

If you have nothing to post, go and make a mix or teaser track to post, keep the listener base updated.

Post when you have gigs or shows coming up, tag in the brands your working with, post your track of choice, monthly top 10, inspiring images/quotes, anything that keeps your page updated and listeners know you’re doing more than nothing.

Get LIVE; using the Facebook live video, Twitter, Instagram video apps, they are free easy to use tools, which give a more realistic connection to any fan/listener base.

Be REAL

Yes most radio shows are pre-recorded, BUT that doesn’t stop you being on air when your show is on and giving a ‘live experience’ chatting in any forum or chat room with anyone listening in. post your tracks, people often hear a track and want to know what it is, so tell them. By being on air whilst your mix is on gives you something of an extra edge in the interactive experience.

THEN use the radio show pages to post your mix IF/WHEN its uploaded onto a mix site, this helps those who missed it, catch up with it. Also use ant other pages/groups you’re in to do the same, spread the word.

So, in short you have to put in the work, to get what you want from what you do. Never assume, always read the fine print and if ever in doubt, the biggest and best tool to use is quite simply… ASK.

Compared to years ago, social media influence within the dance music scene is as now as paramount as it ever could be. With the ‘brand’ names using social media more and more to promote their events, give the latest news and updates, in real time and be far more interactive with their fanbase.

When you look at all the social media platforms, it not hard to see why the ease of social media promotion is a key factor, and relatively (for the most part) cost free.

Whether Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MySpace, Pinterest, Tumblr or Google+, each have elements and tools which make promotion easy, quick and worthwhile and of course making it easy to keep in touch with the dance music scene.

Take Live Nation for example, which have just posted their sixth consecutive year of record growth. Quoting CEO Michael Rapino

“Fans around the world can now discover, follow, share and embrace artists, creating greater demand for live shows. We believe the live business will continue to have strong growth for years to come as fans globally drive demand, artists are motivated to tour, and technology drives conversion."

So as the consumer looks for more ways to interact, the bands out there are answering, and by Live Nations Russell Wallach (President of Live Nation Network) own account:

“Whether it's through Facebook or Twitter or some other platform -- all of a sudden all of those people can meet at the show, and they can know where they are at the show. Music is such a social environment anyway. Maybe we're creating special areas for all those people to meet, hang out, and they're going into it, they all have things in common, they're all passionate about that artist or band that's going to be onstage that night”.

So social media promotion and interaction is paying dividends and proving to be the key factor for growth in all areas. There are those that fear online music in general, but when you enhance the social media aspects, the fear does go away pretty quickly. Quite simply social media is classed as the biggest marketing platform in the world. Statistics say it all when in 2016 Facebook had 1.6 billion users, Twitter 325 million and instagram with 430 million users. Since then, those figures are already looking to easily be doubled by quarter 3 of 2017.

Its free marketing, connection building with fans and listeners, gives point of contact and allows you to mass promote in every avenue. With those tools the scene has never been easier to be part of the full journey of a show, a gig or an event.

Avicii began a campaign, an Instagram interactive story. The campaign was created to promote Avicii’s new album: Stories, and to showcase the wide variety of songs on the record, ranging all the way from hip-hop to techno. The campaign received over 222,000 likes during the first five days and became a hot topic, trending all over the web.

The most important part of the campaign, which showed the social media influence, following and interactivity, was when all 14 tracks from the album all went into the top 100 on Spotify. www.avicii.com

From another artist perspective, take James Kiedis and one of his most recent tracks this year The Kraken. It was seen over Facebook alone on a daily basis by followers of his page, and also showing daily updates as to where it sat in regard to charting. On a personal level, as an artist, he hit some great milestones. One of the Top 50 Best Selling Artists of the quarter and Best Newcomer position 6. Plus, getting further interactive with his following, James offered to do a live Q&A with producers via Facebook, again building on the interaction perfectly. And in his own words on the importance of social media helping to get noticed and their benefits:                                                                                                                                                “Socials are an absolute necessity for today's promotion. The ability to promo a short clip alongside a live video or even an image is essential to building hype ahead of and during a release. Once they hype begins to build it can easily snowball as has been the case with one or two of my releases.                           Some campaigns have had a greater impact than others but yes socials are my primary means to promote my productions and myself as an artist. I can't see that slowing down”. www.jameskiedis.com

Then take a mixed review from Dj/Producer D1 of the CTDJ’s:                                                   “There was once a time where you had to go to a Record Shop or buy a magazine to find out what was happening on the clubbing scene, which dj’s were where and what music was coming through. The evolving of social media, Facebook being the biggest influence, has meant that what is on ‘everywhere’ has been in front of your eyes 24/7 until recently. Currently social media had become such a money making business that unless an event pays a lot of money to promote with them, you see less and less, meaning smaller events can’t get the reach and great nights are failing on numbers. This of course is as well as the ability to have your favorite dj’s in your house now for cheap or free without having to go out. Media sites such as mixcloud, soundcloud etc. can provide a current soundtrack to your house party. So for the entire good Social media can do, it can also damage a scene by the overkill of content. It will be interesting to see if it continues along the same path or a new generation of party goer’s will rely on it less to embrace the real world of being a clubber”. www.facebook.com/CTDJs.hard

And then you have Dj Tom Bradshaw whose Killswitch radio show has been gaining strength since 2011. His simple goal of sharing his passion for Trance, whilst showcasing some of the best up and coming and world renowned names in trance has become synonymous with some great social media activity and engagement, which has expanded his global listener/fan base. Recently Tom celebrated a milestone with his Killswitch show with its 6th birthday and a 24 hour Trance Energy Radio takeover which showcased some of the finest in well known talent (Judge Jules, Paul Van Dyk, Fred Baker, Allen Watts, Jordan Suckley and many more) – the social media promotion was vast, interactively teasing the listener base and keeping a constant update on the shows, the line up, time slots and who was playing and when. Trance Energy mirrored this perfectly by promoting each show, live when it was airing. The results of this can be seen not only on his Facebook BUT also on his Mixcloud listener numbers: www.mixcloud.com/DJTomBradshaw

And take Judge Jules own comment on social media promotion:      

"I think it's safe to say that this has changed completely. It's hard to imagine a world without social media nowadays. Everything used to rely on print media, radio or word of mouth, but now you can have the whole world just a few clicks away. Sites like Facebook and Twitter, plus dedicated music sites, have created a global village that enables us to connect, engage and interact with people all over the world. Sharing music and events news has never been easier”. www.judgejules.net

So as proven above, social media, promotion and marketing does exactly what is needed for a vast majority of artist and dj’s out there. It connects fans and listeners to their favourite artists, allows event/gig attendance, in person, in visual only or over the airwaves. It connects, it allows interaction, and most importantly, it works.