About This Course

How to identify your brand, your style, your KSP’s. Roger Sanchez discusses his own career path and stresses that essentially the importance of understanding who you are and then creating and pushing out your own brand, is key to starting out. 

Then creating as much relevant content and consistently getting it out there on your social platforms to create your own following. The bottom line is that these days you can be your own radio station and record label. Use these platforms to create your own social media presence, following and establishing your brand. But you must be prepared to put in hard work.

You will learn how to:

• Identify who you are 
• Start developing your own brand
• Brand development 
• Market your own brand 
• Identify your brand
• Break into the music industry
• Create content 
• Push content out on social media platforms consistently
• Build your own followers and fanbase 
• Develop content 
• Research where your online audiences spend their time
• Consistently push content out in those places 
• Keep informed of the fast and every evolving online platforms 
• Look at some big names in music Instagram pages to see what and how they post
• Seek help from your team where you can
• Freelance some work that might not fall within your skillset 
• Build a strong social profile with content
• Create your own local following
• Start your own events
• Promote yourself! 
• Put out your own music on the right social media music platforms 
• Create content - focus on balancing it out and creating the right content
• Work hard at consistently posting 
• Create and put out your own podcast
   

Lessons:

1. Identify your Brand

Who are you? DJ/Producer/vocalist? You need to figure out who you are -

Who you are is the brand - Roger is helping you develop your brand and will teach you how to market yourself, which means you have to develop your brand - you want to develop everything of that aspect to develop the brand what you do and who you are is your brand- you want to market it in such a way that you can get it out there and reach the right people. 

What is the brand? House/Techno/Trance/EDM music? You need to work this out as this aspect identifies you to this brand. Roger is known for house music and technical DJing and Latin elements which form Rogers cohesive brand - when people go to see Roger they know what they’re going to get. A musical component that identifies them within a certain parameter.

2. Breaking into the industry

After you’ve figured out who you are, i.e. a hip hop DJ, i’m into streetwear and I’ve figured out who i am… how do you break into the industry? Roger explains when he started he used to play on the streets of NYC, put on his own parties, sell mixtapes on the streets (with no permit!) The way Roger made his name was- he used to put on his own events,  he went to record labels to introduce himself and promote his own events, he physically go into bars and clubs and tell them he wanted to put on a party there and they would explain what their parameters were, he went and got together a street team to help promote it, when he started producing music, he had to go to the individual record labels, create a demo, send in cassette - chase down people to get them to listen to his demo, with the sole purpose that they would then pay for some studio time for him and develop it into a real production. That was the Producer side of it. 

With his DJ career he started with street hustle going out there and promoting his own events. Through that he developed his own following in his own City, then they came to clubs and he developed this as his base. These days it's different- digital age- means the internet has taken over the visibility of where you are going to be seen. The bottom line is you want to be visible and have your stuff heard! You want to be heard and see- your brand out there- focus on your strengths! Work out where your strengths and talents are! Ie Is it that you're great at blending or very technical- make sure you focus on these aspects as part of your brand

3. Creating a strategy & Team

Who is your audience? Where does your audience hang out?

Figure out who your audience is ie house/techno- identify where they are giving their attention and spending their time, ie chat rooms, particular night, which online communities they hang out in, and focus on pushing your content out in these places

Invest in developing a team:

One of the most important aspects of developing that content is having a Team. Many people have the misconception that they need a manager etc to start off with, but for this stage in your early career, it's brand development and visibility. Get someone you know who is great at taking your photo, or if you can do it yourself them great, but at some point, you're going to get very busy, so it would be great to work out friends that have skills that could help, then you help them when content goes out ie filming you in your bedroom doing your mix- these videos are well received on facebook etc - much of this depends on how you feel comfortable creating your content. You need to find a team to help you execute. Execute on your own too- create the mixes and videos and post. The most important thing with posting is consistency! Really

Invest in Learning:

Invest in how to make the digital side of marketing work for you- Facebook and Instagram ads are cheap right now, Roger suggests using a post of yourself playing a mix, or a minute of you playing a track in your room, if it’s something that you want to look at, invest $20 on a Facebook  and Insta Ad target your audience- target it say to a uk fan base first then to a wider international audience to help develop your visibility. There will be a bit of content that resonates with your audience. Roger talks about a time he played at a festival in India- someone filmed him Live into a Facebook feed that then received over a million views, which sparked more views on his channel just from one bit of content! Your visibility and presence in the marketplace.

Keep Evolving:

Gone are the days you had to physically hunt people down. Now you can find all info out on social media - venues, industry people etc-  you can now find them and target them with your content and do it consistently. Nowadays promoters and labels want to know about your followers and numbers. Instagram and Facebook are main platforms but tomorrow it might be a different app or platform that opens up- have to be constantly watching to movement  is in different social media platforms that will help you really penetrate and capture your audience

4. Instagram Teardown

Instagram = a lot of traffic and attention for people in the Music industry. Different platforms work for different industries but for music Instagram is great.

Roger uses Black Coffee as an example - 1.6 million followers. When you look at posts- a mixture of lifestyle and events posts. People want to know about you! Roger’s social media managers advised him that flyers on Insta don’t get as much attention as something you post that is more engaging - like photos of your pet for example- something interesting about you. When he referred earlier to building a team he also meant that they can help you navigate through the SM platforms.

5. How to build a business Part 1

Become Your Own Promoter

Roger points out that outsourcing some of your work to freelancers is just another aspect of team building. Part of the approach of the strategic overview about how you're going to develop your brand to market is about team building. There was a point in Roger’s career where he had Managers and Agents etc now he discusses that he still has an agent but he manages his own career. He talks about how he has built a team around him, he has someone that can advise him legally, an accounting team that helps him with taxes, social media team, a record label - he’s making sure that he’s in the driving seat. Roger raises the point that DJs at the start of their careers don’t have a manager- and you don’t need one! He points out that if you manage and build your own career and get yourself to the point that a manager will seek you out, you’re already happening. You have to build yourself up to a point. Then Managers can possibly take you to the next stage.

Build Your Profile

He advises on having a long-term goal- that you want to build your following, I want to develop my visibility to the point that they ask me to come to your venue. Start from a grassroots approach, if no one is knocking on your door yet, you open your own door! Create your core team, start doing your own local small promotion, start in a local venue, promote your own event. You have to build your profile, with your social media presence and your content and your core team to then bring in people.

Make Your Own Gigs

Roger discusses creating your own parties, even if you can’t secure a local venue yet, have a Boiler Room party with your friends, at a friends house and get someone to live stream it, and make some interesting content from it. The point of this is to get some traction from the content, to develop a following from it and develop visibility to show you have so many followers etc which begins to give you a platform to market and reach out to the different markets and promoters you want to reach.  

Develop Your Local Following

A consistent way to brand your sound is to create productions- create your own music- like Spotify artist direct - you don’t need your own label these days- SoundCloud has it, MixCloud has it. You can download software programmes and create your own music, post them consistently and frequently on these platforms- once a week a mix, twice a month a new project or a new track, and  you will begin to create this core following, use facebook and insta promotion money to reach the audience that listens to the type of music you’re making. Start targeting the genre of music on social media where those people are spending time.

Start your Own Label

When you start releasing your own material, eventually something will catch and will drive followers to you. Hard work, non-stop and personal investment. He suggests that from 8pm-1am after work (day job) if you can, do your mixes and your postings, and spend $25-$30 on promotion, and do this consistently, you will see a growth in your audience and a development in how your career is going to grow.

6. How to build a business Part 2

Roger suggests that not only should you be posting daily, but twice or thrice daily where possible, but that what you post is important. A balance between music and brand execution- a balance between 1. music production or DJing side, 2. personal and 3. then a lifestyle post. Look at what is catching your attention and what you're looking at to help you work out what to post. Roger states once a day at a minimum, to develop your brand, but more if possible. Also there are stories on Instagram and Facebook live- but all of this is a lot of work, so you must be prepared to put the work in. 

Roger is creating his own content but he hires a team to help him post as he may be on a plane etc they all plan the posts together - but Roger generates them. He talks about going round Amsterdam and taking photos and building personal content with his girlfriend, he again points out that the personal is also important, people are interested and want to know who you are because that’s who they’re investing in. Frequency and consistency is also important. Roger posts flyers in his Instagram as they are up for 24 hours and then you can repost in Insta story a couple days later. He explains that many flyers on your insta feed might not be so appealing. Make your posts what is interesting to you and keep it consistent. He suggests that those who don’t yet post need to start!

7. Live Q&A

• How do you get your email read by labels?
• Demeer released a track on Stilt Records - track as a hat down on your show - Demeer wants to know how to get back on the label? And how to get in touch with Roger? 
• He has had a couple of tracks released on ibounce Records, since then he's got himself lost in learning new tricks and watching tutorials, and not spending enough time in the studio. He asks Roger what the best formula for getting on with stuff is?
  
• Early in Roger’s career he was selling mixtapes on the street of New York, at what point did he realise that you'd net the right people to network with 
• Roger’s opinion on why it’s worth joining the Get Booked Academy if anyone is sat on the fence?  
• He’s been DJing for 25 years, does he need to move into producing, in this day and age is that the next stage? 
• Tim explains that he has been doing a bit of this and hitting up SoundCloud and MixCloud but that coming from the 90s is producing the way forward djing as in the 90s it was all about your technical skills … is this still the way forward?
• Will there be a US base for DJGL?