Charles Sue-Wah-Sing

How do you generate an online audience that will faithfully follow you online?

To generate an audience you need to build reach and be consistent in producing content. You need people to talk and sharing your content. But you have to think like a content creator and not like most DJs who are more concerned about posting mixes for self-promotion and showing off their skills (like me – LOL!!). If you’re going for a pure play online approach like a radio station then you have to think like a radio station. Music is your content. I know many peeps who listen to mixcloud or spotify or other streaming audio programs to hear music they can’t find on regular radio.

What I like about DJ Homei’s idea is that he is thinking about his mixes as content. It’s like how a web site would think about putting up stories about whatever. If that’s something his peeps want cool.

How would I build his audience?
1) I would make a simple web site and brand it. There’s tones of free ones out there. This is helpful to be found outside of FB using search to create awareness.
2) Use sites like Mixcloud or whichever to post your music. With Mixcloud you can link your posts with tools like WordPress for example.
3) Create an accompanying FB page. Not your personal one. You need one where people not in your network can find you also. And your listeners may not be interested in your goofy kitten pictures, or where you took your girlfriend last night etc. Again Mixcloud has an API or a way to link content to FB.
4) Start a Twitter account. And link Mixcloud to that too.
5) Spread the word (online or offline).

The idea is to create content on a variety of platforms that will help increase your reach across networks. This way you’re leveraging your friends and your friend’s friends etc.

If this is Homei’s approach he will need to produce content on a frequent basis that his audience begins to rely on it. You can’t post one this week and not post another for two months. People will forget about you. The golden rule to build an audience on YouTube is to produce content frequently and share it.

I could go on. But those are some basics. Like I said in earlier posts it is a lot of work.

Dude, my day job is in strategic online marketing, social and web applications. Outside of my day job, I’m currently doing side projects on YouTube, Facebook and Mixcloud. Not all for DJing. I have a FB page for my YT channel and in one month gained 100 likes. And I’ve reached thousands of view on YT. But I’m talking about cooking. Lots of people love to cook.

One thing you need to think about – do your FB friends share you’re musical tastes? I have close to 400 friends on FB. But I would say maybe less than 50 of them are into house music and/or are DJs. I know statistically less than 1% would post a response. So I don’t expect to get high response because Personal friends on FB are more inclined to respond to what’s relevant to them – cute puppy photos, foody shots etc. Your Mixcloud responses are good because you’re talking to other DJs or music enthusiasts or FB friends who have clicked on your posts. They want to hear music. The other thing I would suggest to do is not use your personal FB account to promote your music. Instead create a page as a musician and promote your music that way. Using pages you can personalize it, invite peeps to “like” your page and track who’s listen vs just liking your individual posts. I’m in the early stages of my DJing project and next year I’m focused on growing on my online audience and create more events. But I know it will take some work (eg. regular posts, sharing, inviting friends to my page, offline word of mouth etc.). Don’t be discouraged. Keep it up!!!