0

How to maintain your personal brand

The content we’ve put out so far has been largely focused on the technical aspects of DJing and producing. 

That only makes up part of what’s required to grow continuously as an artist. While the technical side is crucial, the promotional side carries a similar weight in determining your career trajectory.

We wanted to talk to you about maintaining your personal brand. Staying engaged with your fans and remaining at the front of their minds. Producing content that’s aesthetically and tonally beneficial for you. Continuing to grow your reputation despite the recent geographical restraints. 

As you’ll know, this is going to be centered around social media. The world is so intimately connected these days, and harnessing that power will allow you to weather this storm in style.

Staying active

This sounds trivial and we won’t harp on about this forever, but we wanted to outline what being ‘active’ really means.

There are 1 billion+ users on Instagram, 63% of which use it on a daily basis. It’s hard to envision but think of the amount of content these users are producing, sharing, saving, engaging with every single day – you need to be a part of that. 

Replying to fans, posting/reposting content, liking comments, tweeting, everything. With this newfound downtime, try and allocate a portion of your day to maintain your social media channels. 

Social media algorithms favor regularity – it’s kind of a perpetual cycle. The more you post, the more engagement you get, so the more you post and so on.

How to maintain your personal brand - creating engaging content

Creating engaging content

Users of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and the rest give a new piece of content on their feed two seconds of attention before deciding to engage with it while scrolling past. 

Two seconds. That’s all you have to hook someone in. 

Think about the kind of content you’re making. What genre(s) do you work in? How does that translate visually? What do some of the bigger players in the game have in common across their social media?

Most importantly: who are you making it for? 

It doesn’t have to cost anything, it’s just always worth thinking through. Make a plan, with every piece of content intentional and purposeful. Try and have an attitude of cohesion when going into it: how is this all going to fit together? 

For DJs, recording and live streaming routines are going to be a big part of this. Practice a routine, get set up with a good camera angle and backdrop. Make it feel as professional as you can.

If you’re a producer, you can record or stream your beat-making sessions. You can release the beats online, through platforms like SoundCloud and Bandcamp. You can make an artwork for the track, which you can post on your Instagram. See how it all links up? The more content you create, the bigger the yield you’ll get on resources to post to keep your fans engaged. 

This is going to take a bit of work and a plan to sort out, but try and take the time to make it count. It will make your presence on social media much more impressive. 

How to maintain your personal brand - try and keep up a variety of content styles

Try and keep up a variety of content styles

Users aren’t going to watch a different version of the same thing over and over. It’s unfortunate but it’s the way it is – you do it too.

Branch out on the content you’re making, so it’s not just mix routines and beat making sessions. Try doing a Q+A on Instagram live, film some Tik Tok skits and upload them. Maybe try a vlog of sorts if you’re into that kind of thing?

This sounds like more work than it actually is, as the routines and sessions will take the most production input by a long way. These will seem light by comparison and are just as effective as complementary content.

It doesn’t all have to be serious – your fans will appreciate some light-hearted stuff on their feed to take their mind off things and help them relax. Fans want to feel like they are being personally spoken to. 

Refresh your social channels, curate your feed

Now is a better time than any to look at your current presence on social media and curate it to match the brand you’re currently trying to project. Maybe archive some old content that you feel no longer accurately represents what you’re trying to do. 

Have a think about color schemes, the sort of feel you’re trying to convey when a user looks at your Instagram layout or Twitter timeline. 

This doesn’t have to be rushed – you’ve got the luxury of time to think about what you want to do and start making the right moves to get there. This will also make it easier to continue this theme with the new content you produce during this period. 

Practice. All the time

To wrap this up, let’s get back to the core of why you have an audience in the first place. Being a great DJ. Making sick beats. 

This is the time to hone your craft even further and come out the other side a level up from where you were before. Your fans will notice. 

You’ve been given this newfound time to spend on this. It’s obviously under terrible circumstances, but it’s a unique situation nonetheless. Create a positive outcome from this time. It’ll be well worth it. 

That’s a lot to remember, and it doesn’t have to happen all at once. We hope you take it on and make some waves in your community. 

We can’t wait to see you all out online.