Old dog, new tricks…

So this blogging every week thing is turning into a quite a personal challenge, but one i’m hoping to push through on. But i really wanted to blog about the how things have changed for the modern day DJ. Its a little ranty now i read it back but i think the jist of the frustration is there.

Back in the 90’s marketing used to consist of flyers and posters and back then the most efficient forms of getting yourself out there were word of mouth and awareness. Still is imo. Even back then we knew that if you distributed your flyers and posters for 20 km around where the event was you could still budget for 5% return on your marketing. So 10,000 pieces of paper would equate to 500ppl at your event. Pretty lousy return really.

Now days with social media and the like its become even worse and harder to impress people to get them to come to your gig/event. With the advent of Myspace and Facebook artists thought they had struck the marketing gold mine. You could chat directly with you audience and let them know what was going on and could get an instant reply to gauge your success. But EVERYBODY did it and we are all left with a flood of FB invites to events that maybe 5% of people will actually bother with.

Even if you have a profile/group/artist page FB will only allow you to reach 10% of friends/like base! 10%! Unless of course you boost your post by paying FB to promote it for you. Even event invites have now been limited to 500ppl only and good luck trying all those fancy invite codes which are being written out by FB quicker than the coders can develop them.

It the main reason i spend more time on Twitter than on FB. I feel like a commodity on FB where i feel like a person on Twitter. But where may you ask is this all going?

It means that after 20 years in the business the best way to get yourself out there is do get off your ass and get out there. Put yourself in the public eye and make your persona accessible to people. It hacks me when venues insist on FB invites. Personally i’m far more inclined to check out a SMS or MMS invite now, because it reaches me personally! It speaks to me, and is not a “reply all” option.

But at the end of the day to be a success in DJing you have to write your tunes. There is no better business card to represent yourself and what you do that your own tracks. The day of the DJ are gone, you have to be a DJ/Producer with a skill to get yourself out there to have any impact.

So with that i’m hitting enter and plugging myself into making tunes….

Check out my soundcloud page for some of my new stuff.

Hopefully this blogging thing turns into a weekly info set.