Step 1: Mix Your Ass Off!

The mix you plan to create for your promo needs to be the best of your ability; for this reason, you’ll need to give it your all – as if you’re performing in front of a crowd and everything is on the line.

Mix your ass off! The plan is to deliver the best of your ability because you’ll want to create something that people will remember, share and comment on.

You may want to keep your mix to around 20 minutes since most club and label owners are very busy but if you want to truly go for the fans – keep it around an hour.

To the point: Dig out all of your best tunes, try your best tricks (without being gimmicky) and create a mix that blows the socks off people.

Step 2: Give It A Listen

Much like any piece of work you create; you need to back and give it a few listens and be prepared to edit or redo the entire thing.

Much like a post (such as this one), pieces are rarely spot-on the first time through. You may pick up very little subtleties that you didn’t catch while mixing such as off-set beats, clicks, harmony and more.

You can bet that if you hear it – others will. You want to strive for perfection so keep your mind open about remixing your set to tighten it up.

Step 3: Packaging Your Mix

After your mix has been completed, it’s time to export it into a variety of formats so you can share it online and offline; here’s a few ways that I’d suggest:

• Creating a CD – Load up a program like Audacity and master out the sound, chop off the ends and then burn it off onto a bunch of CD’s so you can send out and hand out to people.

• Encoding an MP3 – While in Audacity, save the mix as a FLAC file but also encode it to MP3 so you can share it on sites like MixCloud and the various other websites that let you upload music.

• Create a YT Vid – Chop up your mix into 10 minute chunks and put it up on Youtube as well. YT gets a TON of traffic so you may as well take advantage of it. Throw in some great visuals and you’re game!

Try to get your mix into as many formats as possible so it can be shared and listened to on any number of players: computers, iPods, radios and more.

Step 4: Promoting Your Mix!

The next step in creating your promo mix is to promote the hell out of it. Your mix may be the most amazing piece of work in the world but if it doesn’t get heard than it doesn’t mean much; try some of these:

• Share it in Forums – Jump on forums that share your music and create a thread that talks about your mix; be open to feedback so you can touch up your mix and create a better one next time.

• Get on the social circuit – Use Twitter, Facebook and other social networks to share the hell out of your promo mix. Have your online friends do the same by telling as many people as possible online.

• Launch a blog – Start up a blog (or website) where you can upload your mix and talk about whatever you want (much like this one).

Like any piece of content, dig around into other websites and methods you’d normally use to share information; just this time it will be your mix.

Step 5: Making The Most Of It

Now let’s get down and dirty to make the most out of your DJ promo mix. Don’t just stop at creating and pushing it out there; leverage the hell out of your abilities to get it heard:

• Share it all the time - Every opportunity you get, try to share your mix. Talking to someone? Share the mix. On a forum? Share the mix. Promote the daylights out of it like everything is resting on its success; because it is!

• Ninja promote it – Every party you go to and people you run into – give out a CD, tell them about your mix or throw a few CD’s into people’s car. If they’re coming back from a party than they want something to listen to: let it be your mix.

• Point people back to you – Write your email on the CD, include a link in your mix and generally let it be known where people can find you; don’t expect them to magically discover you, make sure you’re known.

Think of your mix like a product you created for your business; don’t settle for a one-off promotion. Try to continually reference it whenever possible and make the most out of it until you either land a deal or create your next promo mix.

Where To Go From Here

The idea behind your promo mix is to create the best possible work you can. You realistically want to continue mixing during the creation and promotion but try to keep it as a definitive item to identify who you are.

Think of your DJ mix as your legacy; even if you don’t immediately land anything from the early promotion, people will still be able to find it later on especially if you share it online.

If you’re looking for a great set of videos, guides and tutorials for learning how to create an amazing mix, learning beyond the basics and even promoting yourself than I would recommend the following:

This post is part of the ‘How To Create A DJ Website’ series, you can find other parts in the links below:

• How To Create A DJ Website: Setting up WordPress [Part 2]
• How To Create A DJ Website: Content Creation [Part 3]
• How To Create A DJ Website: Promotion & Networking [Part 4]
• How To Create A DJ Website: Monetization [Part 5]

By the end of the series, you’ll know everything that needs to be done to start your own DJ website.

Why you should build a DJ website

Before you begin, I want to cover a few questions into why you should create your own website.

Sure, there are plenty of other websites that can host your mixes, create a community and help you land gigs but at the core of your own site you have much more control over your content, community and the direction you’d like to take it.

In essence, you can do the following:

• Upload any number of mixes at any length
• Share tons of photos and videos
• Engage with your community through comments and email
• Promote your next gig or event
• Sell your own work or affiliate with others
• Talk about whatever’s on your mind

The possibilities are endless when you have your own site; it’s like claiming your own little niche on the web. If this sounds interesting or something you’d like to try out and run with, get ready because you’re about to learn just that.

Step 1: Choosing a domain name

A domain name is what you’ll be typing into the address bar – it’s the name of your website.

Example:

• Digg
• BeginnerDJ
• CNN

For your website, there’s a lot of ideas that may be running around your head into what name you should go after. Most of the time, it’s going to be your DJ name (Example: DJShadow.com) but it can also be something that’s really meaningful to you as a message (Example: PsyrebralCore). It’s all up to you.

When choosing a name, think it over for some time because after you purchase your domain it’s going to stick for a while. You don’t really want to change your domain name over and over again because it will not only confuse people but it’s part of your overall branding (how people perceive you).

Recommended Reading: How to choose a domain name for your blog

Step 2: Claiming your domain

Even if you aren’t technical, claiming your domain name is actually quite simple. I highly recommend either:

• 1&1 Domains
• GoDaddy

Domain names will generally cost you between $6 – $12 each year.

Note: Strive to grab a .com name because it’s easier to remember overall and looks more professional.

It’s actually quite simple, you just type in your domain name within the input box, claim which extension you’d like (.com, .net, .org) and fill out the rest of the information to complete the transaction. You’ll be given many offers during this process but just disregard them and snag your domain – we’ll be doing everything else afterward.

Recommended reading: How to register a domain with GoDaddy – this shows an almost exact process as you would with 1&1.

Step 3: Buying website hosting

Once you have your domain name, you’ll need a host for your website. A host is where you’ll be placing all of your files and, well, hosting your website. Although you can buy hosting through each of the domain registrars, separate web hosting is great in terms of flexibility if you ever choose to expand.

Out of all of the web hosts, I personally recommend HostGator although 1&1Hosting does an excellent service as well. I’ve been using HostGator for years now and haven’t had a problem yet; it’s affordable, has a simple admin back-end and can host unlimited domains (in-case you want to have multiple websites at a later time).

Hosting will cost you roughly $120 – $150 bucks for the entire year but remember that your website can help bring in so much more in terms of community and additional gigs (which well make up for the small investment).

Recommended Reading: How to choose a good web host

Step 4: Setup your domain and hosting

Okay, now that you have your domain name and hosting locked down, you’ll need to do a few technical steps in order to get your website online.

These basic steps will be about forwarding your domain to your hosting (basically tells your domain to point to your hosting), additional steps in actually putting up the code and visual part of your website will be in the next part of these series.

For now, you just want to get everything situated before you dig into creating your website.

Recommended reading: How to setup a domain with Hostgator – within 1&1 is a DNS change setting as well, it’s the same process but with different UI.

Conclusion

Up to this point, you’ve learned where pick up your domain and hosting and how to link the two together. It may take a few hours before your hosting is configured which makes this a great stopping point for now.

In the next part of this series, you’ll be learning how to install WordPress on your domain, go through the process of grabbing themes, setting up plug-ins and getting everything situated before publishing your content.

If you’ve made it this far, my hats off to you because you’ve just made a huge leap in terms of your own promotion. I’m not going to lie, you will need to put forth the effort to work on your website but in the end you’re going to have a blast. Until next time.

If you need help with setting up a domain and hosting, try contacting me:

I can be reached through my email murraylunn (at) gmail.com.

I’m also available on Twitter as Muxxex or Murlu

Promotion isn’t all bad – just think, you’re spreading your awesome mixes to those that may not be able to find them on their own!

So this brings us to the real question: “how do I promote myself as a DJ?”.

There are many different ways for DJs to promote their mixes, skills and business.

For each of these, some may work better for the type of DJ you are. For example, business cards will work better overall for mobile/wedding DJs while promo CDs will work better for those that are trying to make the circuit.

With that being said, let’s take a look through some of the ways you can promote yourself as a DJ.

DJ business cards

Do you need a business card for DJing? Some of you actually do.

As mentioned earlier, not all DJs will need a set of business cards but for those that treat their DJing as an actual business, such as mobile and wedding DJs, it’s important to get a set so you can hand them out at networking events and to potential clients.

A DJ business card should have the essentials:

• Name
• Contact information
• Simple description of what you do

The best business cards are often the most minimal. There’s no need to go super extravagant by adding in a paragraph of text; this only distracts the potential client – just get them the basic information.

Use every opportunity to pass out business cards. If you’re playing at a party, leave a stack on the DJ booth for people to pick up. Hand out your business cards to people that come up to talk. Slip a few into the gift baskets at weddings.

Your business card is your chance to hook people so you can tell them more about your services. Don’t try to make the sale up front, wait for people to call or email you; then begin to setup some form of business.

For design inspiration, how-to’s and where you can get business cards, check these resources:

• Business Card Design: 100+ Creative Examples, Useful Tutorials and Templates
• 400+ Creative Business Card Designs
• 11 Tutorials for Business Card Design
• 18 Smokin’ Hot Business Card Designs
• 60 Most Beautiful and Creative Business Card Designs

Promo mixes on Youtube

As I touched on before with creatineg a tenminmix, Youtube can be a great way to promote your mixes and your persona.

Creating a video is very simple, requiring only a pocketful of money to sport for a video camera but if you want to go simple, you can always just record your mixes and place it to a picture.

Youtube recently included a simple video editor which covers the basics of editing the front and back of your video which should be fine if you’re doing a consistent mix.

However, the main benefit you can gain from Youtube is when you can show yourself. Since many promoters and viewers are also looking for personality, being on camera can have very powerful effects to your promotion.

After you’ve uploaded a video, be sure to add it to your own blog or website. Try to get your friends to embed the video or share it on your Facebook page.

Make sure you also set a download link so people can snag your mix and listen at a later time. Just name the file with your name and possibly contact details like email address so people can contact you at a later time.

Another bonus is if you take your video and use Tubemogul to distribute the video across the net on dozens of other video websites.

Here’s a few resources to get started with video:

• How to use Youtube like a pro
• The right way to use Youtube
• Creating promo videos for Youtube

Putting your mix in the cloud

Want a truly powerful way to promote your DJing? Try hosting it on various mixing websites such as Mixcloud.

The user base for many of these websites consist of highly passionate music fans which will share your mixes with others. Additionally, users can easily embed mixes right into other websites so their community will find your mix, starting the process all over again – promoting the hell out of you!

With your mix now hosted in the cloud, you can also link to it within your Facebook, Myspace, forum and other various web profiles around the net. The more you can place your link, the more chances people will find you.

Make a truly amazing mix and your link will spread virally; thousands will come to listen and recognize your name. Who knows, maybe a promoter or club owner catches wind of you and gets you on board.

Start here when getting your mix online:

• 7 File sharing websites to upload and promote your DJ mix

Creating a promo CD

Are tapes and CDs the thing of the past? Well, maybe tapes but CDs can still certainly do wonders to promote yourself as a DJ.

Although you can greatly benefit of using online websites and services, you can’t hand out an MP3 at parties and events. At these parties, your CD can be land in the hands of many people.

When playing your mix, just like business cards, leave a stack of CDs for people to come up and grab. Whenever your mix is breaking down, throw a couple promo CDs to the crowd. Also remember to chat with people afterward and slip them a CD – all additional ways of promoting your mixing.

The mix is the most important part of your promo CD. Don’t make it too long because people don’t have all the time in the world but not too short either.

The design of the promo CD can also play a large role. Although the mix is the most important part, an attractive design will get people intrigued and egg them to pick it up and hold onto it.

If you have questions about how to record your DJ mix to MP3 to later be burnt to a CD, check out these resources:

• How to record a DJ mix with Audacity
• A great Youtube video showing you how to record with Audacity
• How to create a promo CD cover for your DJ mixes

Build your social network

Want to know the best way to promote yourself as a DJ in this day and age? Social media.

Yup. Faceboo, Myspace, Twitter plus the thousands of other social websites – you have to get out there and spread your mixes like a wildfire.

Start with your friends, ask for them to tweet, like and share your mixes with their friends.

From there, reach out to other people on this network but without being spammy – cause no one likes getting those random invites from people they have no idea who they are.

If possible, remember the names of people you meet at parties, friend them and accept their friend requests. Build your online brand, promote, promote, promote.

The more followers and friends you get (in a non spammy way) the more chances your mixes will be spread across the net. Additionally, others will see that you’re starting to take off and take notice; this is the idea behind building a tribe around yourself.

Tips for Twitter and Facebook:

• 35 Twitter tips from 35 twitter users
• 100 best Twitter secrets
• 50 power Twitter tips
• How to use Facebook: 5 tips for better networking
• 52 Facebook advertising tips and tricks

Building word-of-mouth buzz

Word-of-mouth is still a great way to promote yourself as a DJ; this is done primarily through one method: creating a kickass set of mixes.

People don’t want to talk about DJs that don’t bring the ruckus so it’s imperative that you give them something worth talking about.

Try out new tricks, throw down raw tracks, surprise people and blow their socks off whenever you mix.

If you did it right, people will talk to their friends about your mix. Burn it to CD and listen to it in the car. Tell others whenever they are asked what DJs they recommend.

Get into the minds of your fans!

Although these tips are aimed at business, you should take these into consideration as your DJing is essentially just that:

• 16 things you can do yourself to create word-of-mouth for your business
• How to create buzz with word-of-mouth marketing

Signup for DJ related websites or create your own

With a website, you have two things available to you:

• Create your own website
• Join a DJ community

The first, creating your own website, is the most powerful because you can brand every aspect. You can add tons of images, upload whatever you want, talk about whatever and keep everything all in one area.

Alternatively, if you join DJ websites, the large existing community will be a great starting point to promote yourself as a DJ. These websites have thousands of other DJs and fans of the music constantly searching for new music and people to connect with.

If you’re particularly tech savvy, you could build your own website with resources from Smashing Magazine or using templates on ThemeForest.

Definitely try starting with Mix.DJ and work your way from there – with over 100k members, it’s a great place to start.

Going old school: flyer’s and posters

A previous post here on BeginnerDJ talked about promoting clubs with flyers; much in the same, you an use these same tactics to promote yourself as a DJ.

You can get a huge stack of flyer’s for a few bucks or print your own.

Distribute the hell out of these all over the place. Pin em to the wall, hand them out at parties, leave a stack at local events.

The limits are endless – just use your imagination.

Check out UPrinting.com or VistaPrint for online companies that can print your flyers. They’re cheap and will have your order ready fairly quick.

Try out advertising: online and offline

If you’re really wanting to spread your promotion like crazy (and not afraid to spend a bit of money) you can try your hand at online and offline advertising.

Although it’s a little risky – it’s also platforms that not many DJs are jumping into.

Google Adwords doesn’t cost a whole ton and because not as many people are bidding on keywords related to your mixing the cost is going to be fairly low.

You may also want to try out radio ads or even TV ads but at that level, you’re probably going to want to have an actual business for weddings; something where you’re going to be making a big sum of money per investment.

Here’s a few reads to get you started with online advertising:

• 25 Adwords tips and tricks
• 9 tips to write effective Google Adwords Copy

2 books to help you learn DJ promotion

There are written books on the subject of creating a successful DJ business including a ton of different ways to promote yourself – gasp! real books!

These are definitely worth your while:

Why promotion is key for successful DJs

There is a great argument of content vs. marketing. In terms of DJing, there are clear benefits of being able to promote yourself – you get to reach a larger audience.

This doesn’t mean that your mix has to be lacking; you need to put your best effort into creating a memorable mix before you spend all your money and time to promote yourself as a DJ.

Once your mixing is down, use your time wisely with many of these tips to begin promoting yourself and your mix.

Take each step at a time; start with one of these techniques, master it and begin working on the next.

Each of them work well together: creating a promo CD and handing it out with business cards, etc, etc.

Once your word is out there, start the process all over again with a new mix. Build, build, build.

And when you’re on the top, give a shout out to Beginner DJ.

Image by: VinylSearcher

What am I talking about? The 10 minmix on Youtube. I’m sure you’ve seen a few but have you ever considered the impact it’s been creating within the DJ community?

Bedroom and beginner DJs around the world are utilizing Youtube to shine and show their mixing skills by uploading a ten minute mix of their best work.

Want to do the same? Read on…

Introducing The TenMinMix

10 minutes, that’s all the time you’ve got to show your best work. Doesn’t sound like enough time? You’d be surprised because it’s becoming one of the best methods for beginner DJs to show off their skills in mixing.

Yes, 10 minutes doesn’t give you a lot of time to dig deep into your music collection but it will hold the attention of many viewers that will watch your video over and over again.

Want a perfect example?

Whoa-B created a 10 minute mix of Dubstep which has now reached well over 1 million views. Beat that!

But why does it work so well? Internet users want bite sized content, they’re in for a quick fix, many people don’t have time to listen to a 1 or 2 hour mix. The ten minute mix is the perfect allotted time for people to get into the music without the heavy emotional investment of listening for hours on end.

There’s Plenty Of Room To Show Off

Think of your ten minute mix as an elevator pitch. You only have a few minutes to show off your skill before someone bounces to the next video. You’re going to need to pull some crazy tricks out your ass to keep them engaged.

Even within 10 minutes, you have enough time to throw in a handful of tracks. Don’t let the tracks ride out, switch it up constantly, throw on effects and your own personal flare.

Include A Download Link

Want to really get people to know your name? Include a download like so people can save your mix, put it on their mp3 player, send it to others and save it for the future.

Use websites like RGhost, ZShare and Rapidshare to upload the mix – or check out these 7 file sharing websites to upload your DJ mix. For bonus points, put your mix on a website which pays you every time someone downloads. Just think, if 1 million people watched Whoa-B’s mix and only 10% of them downloaded from the link, you could pull in a nice bit of side income.

Check out this post about getting paid to upload files.

How To Record Your 10 Minute Mix

Got a web cam? Probably. If not, invest some money in a quality video camera or high definition webcam.

Microsoft actually makes a very inexpensive HD webcam for just over $50 called the LifeCam. Set up your camera to record your set, spin and upload directly to Youtube.

With the advances and inexpensiveness of technology, you should be kicking yourself in the ass for not taking advantage of this great opportunity to promote yourself.

Socialize It

It’s hard to get someone to download your set or even visit a streaming service. However, people are inclined to check out an actual video of your mixing.

Video isn’t going away, every day more people are watching videos over reading and listening to web content. It’s passive content.

Jump on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, share your links, embed them everywhere you go. You want to promote yourself don’t you?

Bonus points if you upload your video elsewhere using Tubemogul. This services lets you blast your video to dozens of other video websites and even lets you track to see how many people are watching.

What You Can Take Away From All This

Think of your tenminmix as the perfect portfolio piece. Want to impress a club owner? Skip the demo mix and shoot them an email with your video that now has a million views. I bet that’ll get their attention.

Hell, create a series of videos. Ask your watchers and subscribers what kind of mix they’d like to hear. Every week throw up a new video for people to watch and promote. You can be that person that has a regular show on Youtube.

Don’t wait for it, the time is now. Get on Youtube and start mixing.

Got a tenminmix to share? Post it in the comments below.

Promotion allows a beginner DJ to make their way from the bedroom to the real events at clubs and festivals.

The internet gives the beginner DJ great opportunies which were once a hassle and downright cutthroat.

By promoting your mixes on Youtube, you will be able to gain a broad audience and following, eventually guaranteeing your success.

In this post, I’m going to show you a few tips and tricks on how you can promote your DJ mix on Youtube.

Setup Your Youtube Account

First things first, you need to set up your Youtube account.

Your Youtube account should reflect your style and brand. Branding is very important and in this case, it will be your DJ name.

To begin, visit Youtube and select ‘Create Account‘.

Next, fill out all of the available information.

Fill your ‘Username‘ with your DJ name, this will ensure that whenever someone visits your Youtube channel or watches your video, your name is right in their face.

Over time your name will get stuck in viewers heads which will help you promote yourself and your DJ mixes on Youtube.

Now that you have your account setup, let’s start promoting your DJ mixes.

Record A DJ Mix

The next step you’ll need to do is to record a DJ mix.

Because Youtube only allows you to upload a total of 10 minutes per video, you’ll be creating a ‘Ten Min Mix‘. These small mixers are excellent because it gives people just enough time to enjoy your mixing and listen to a solid block of tunes.

You can create a video two ways:

• Record your set using the output on your system or program then trim it with tools such as Audacity
• Record yourself mixing in front of a camera with your webcam

Although a simple audio recording will suffice for your DJ mix, the goal we want here is promotion and that means you need to display yourself and your actual mixing, therefore you should record a video.

I highly recommend the Microsoft LifeCam. We have a couple of them at work to record videos, they’re excellent. They shoot HD and have a pretty decent built in microphone.

Because you’re on video, people can begin to recognize you. If you play at local parties, people will be able to easily spot you because you are in their face at the party and whenever they’re watching videos online.

Your ten minute DJ mix should be absolutely flawless. You only have a few seconds to catch someone’s attention when they click your video so skip the whole introduction and jump right into your mix. You could always do a shout out during the mix or add a subtitle with your name – extra branding!

When you’re mixing on Youtube, don’t over do it with crazy tricks, keep it simple but solid.

Create a playlist that is going to wow people, so they stick around and listen/watch the entire DJ mix.

Promoting Your DJ Mix On Youtube

There are dozens of methods to promote your DJ mix on Youtube.

The best one’s I’ve found are:

• Piggybacking off other popular videos with video responses
• Linking your videos on your own blog and sharing it on social media such as Facebook and Twitter
• Promoting your video with Youtube ads and promoted videos
• Proper video optimization

Let’s break down this list for a second.

Piggybacking is simply using your video as a video response to other popular videos. You should try to keep your video responses to relevant videos, don’t post your mixes on something such as a cute cat video, it doesn’t have relevance.

Cross promotion with your blog and social media is a smart choice for beginner DJs that try to build a following on Youtube. You may already have a website, blog or social media accounts so take advantage of them, share your video anytime you post one.

Youtube offers people the ability to advertise and promote videos. This can be a little costly depending on which category or where you want to place the video but if it leads you to success, it will all be worth it.

Finally, you should aim to optimize your video the best you can. You don’t have to learn all the wizz bang tricks of SEO and other techniques, just make sure you title your video with relevant keywords.

If you are mixing Dark Psytrance, title your video something such as Dark Psytrance Minimix. Additionally, you will want to use tags that are relevant to your video such as DJ mix, mixing, beatmatch and others.

Proper combination of video optimization will help you show up in regular search results as well as higher ranking within Youtube.

Now that you’re uploading your DJ mixes on Youtube, it’s time to begin building a following and further promote yourself.

Building A Following

What you’ll want to do is upload a few of your mixes (only the best ones) so if someone enjoyed one of your mixes, they can continue through and watch the others.

Although a mix video alone can bring in quite a few viewers a great trick you can do to begin gaining subscribers is to upload music, videos and other tidbits of media when you’re not showing off your mixing.

Some channels have thousands of subscribers simply from the miscellanious music videos they’ve uploaded over time, this is the idea behind subscribing. Your goal is to build your subscribers so each new mix will shoot to the top from hundreds of views.

As you build your subscribers, you’ll also begin to reach higher and higher on the Youtube search results.

Whenever possible, interact with your subscribers and don’t be ashamed to ask them to help promote yourself.

Ask local subscribers to come out to parties you’re DJing at, tell them to share it with others or vote for your videos on social bookmarking websites.

You don’t have to be pushy but your intent is to promote yourself, which will push some of your buttons at times if you feel uncomfortable being in front of the spotlight.

Keep updating regularily, talk to your subscribers and help promote one another, it will all payoff in the end.

I’ve Uploaded My DJ Mix, Now What?

If you continue to produce great DJ mix videos, subscribers and top the charts you’ll soon have leverage to talk to people that would have ignored you previously.

If there is a local club that has an open DJ slot, try your best to snag it. When you talk to the promoter or club owner, you’ll now have additional influence over other DJs simply because you can tell them how you have a great following on Youtube.

Simply saying “I’m big on Youtube” isn’t going to open every door for you but if you can get your subscribers and friends out to the clubs and parties, you’ll really start to get some kickbacks. Numbers talk volumes, use it to your advantage.

Final Tip

You don’t have to stop at just Youtube to promote your DJ mix.

Websites such as TubeMogul allow you to submit your video to dozens of other video websites for free.

You’ll be blasting your video all over the web to even more people. Remember though, Youtube has the largest userbase so if you want to focus on any one in particular, stick with Youtube.

Hopefully these tips will help you get on your way to begin promoting your DJ mixes on Youtube. Think of all the success you can achieve just from uploading a few videos of what you’re probably doing in your freetime anyway.

Go forth and promote!

Do you have a DJ mix on Youbue? Share it with everyone in the comments below.

Creating a CD cover in Photoshop is easier than ever, with the help of these tutorials you should be on your way to making some great mix CDs.

To view the tutorials, just click on the pictures

Step-by-Step Tutorials

There are quite a few CD cover design tutorials floating around on the web.  These tutorials should help you get an idea on how you can create a great CD cover to use with your mix and promo CDs.

All you will need in order to make these cover designs is a copy of photoshop and a bit of imaaaaaagination.

Video Tutorials

Video is by far one of the easiest ways to learn how to create a CD cover in Photoshop. Much like hands on, you’ll be able to see the design process, get some good ideas and start working right away.

Use these videos to help design your CD cover and improve your promotion. A great CD cover will help make a memorable impression to all the people you pass them out to.

Inspiration

In case you are stuck in a rut trying to figure out how you want to design your CD cover, take a look at these links for a bit of inspiration.

• 100 Obscure and Remarkable CD Covers
• 99 Best Designed Album Covers
• Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Album Covers

Play With It

Photoshop is a very powerful program, your design potential is seemingly limitless. Try to create something that stands out, something that will catch someones eyes and begs for them to play the CD.

Who knows, maybe you’ll start to build a fanbase. People may end up uploading your mix and further promote you. You may even land a few gigs through your mix cds.

Hopefully this collection of Photoshop CD tutorials will help inspire you. Don’t forget that your mix is still the most important but just like a business card, you should always be thinking of ways to make an impression.

Good luck!

Have another CD design tutorial or video? Have you created your own mix CD covers? Share it below in a comment – don’t be scared!

As an aspiring DJ, you probably wonder how you’re going to promote yourself and get people to listen to your mixes. Thankfully, there are plenty of websites available which allow you to upload your DJ mixes and share with anyone willing to listen.

Because you don’t have a record label to help promote your mixes, you’re on your own.

However, the great thing about the internet is there are always people searching and talking about music, you just need to jump in and tell them about your own. There’s nothing quite like sharing DJ mixes with friends – knowing it’s your own mix.

The following are 10 file sharing websites where you can upload and share your DJ mixes.

SoundCloud

SoundCloud is one of the best sources to upload your DJ mixes.

One of the best features of SoundCloud is the ability to place your tracks you’ve submitted right onto your profiles and websites using an embed code. If you can’t embed your mix, you can still share it with the share link.

The additional benefit of sharing your mixes on SoundCloud is the built in analytics to see how many times it’s been listened to and downloaded.

Rapidshare

Rapidshare needs no introduction, it’s been around for what seems like forever.

Rapidshare is one of the main file sharing websites which made it standard for easy uploading and tiered downloading access.

All you need to do is select your file, hit upload and then you’ll be set to start sharing your DJ mixes with anyone you want. The only problem with Rapidshare is that files are deleted within a set amount of time and there are limits to how many times you can download from Rapidshare per hour.

RGhost

RGhost is perhaps my favorite of the simple upload file sharing websites.

What makes RGhost so great -  it’s very straight forward, there’s no captcha, a preview for songs and it’s very fast. Many people upload electronic music mixes to RGhost as well which makes it a great place to hear some of the latest sets from your favorite DJs.

Dropbox

Dropbox doesn’t fit in as much compared to the other one click file sharing websites.

Instead, Dropbox allows you to set up an account and download a small program on your computer where you can drop your files into the …box.

Once your files are on your dropbox, you can share them with anyone else or remote log in to retrieve them on another computer. Another great thing about Dropbox is that it gives you so much file storage to use – 2 gigabytes!

Uploaded

Uplaoded.to has seen quite a bit of change since coming onto the Internet scene.

Like other file sharing websites, it’s very quick and easy to upload a file and share. One of the cool things about Uploaded.to is that you can early money for a set amount of downloads which works great if you have people coming back to listen to your mixes.

MediaFire

MediaFire comes highly recommended from many Internet users.

The main draw of MediaFire is that it gives you so many unlimited options such as upload/download and storage. Although you do need to create an account to use MediaFire, you will also get stat tracking and direct links for your downloads which will be very helpful when sharing.

MegaUpload

MegaUpload is another website that is highly recommended for uploading and sharing DJ mixes.

With MegaUpload, again, it’s very simple to upload and share your files. MegaUpload has a lot of great options for uploading and downloading as well with their toolbars. If you plan to upload many DJ mixes, MegaUpload gives you plenty of space to work with.

So, there you have it.

Hopefully this list of file sharing websites will allow you to upload and share your mixes with people willing to listen. If you invest into an account, you’ll be able to save your files from any deletion which would be great if you became successful and wanted to let people listen to your old stuff.

Got a mix? Want to share it? Submit your mix to BeginnerDJ!