These DJ’s had the help of very clever IT people ensuring every possible coding was in place to gain as many clicks as possible. Gaining new virtual; friends, I likes, Youtube hits has become a major priority over the actual music or DJ skills, it’s a trophy status to say ‘hey look I’m popular’ so you must follow or book me. Effectively you’re building and creating a virtual superstar.
So surly this should be my answer to the aforementioned question?

Yes it works in the short term, but at some point behind all this ‘in your face’ marketing you have to come up with the goods to back it up. People will get sucked in quickly, but also leave just as quickly if you don’t impress them. At this time of year we see a massive amount of disillusioned DJ’s and producers trying to figure out where to go in their careers because they haven’t made it into a popular poll, or kept their high placing. Again they used all the tricks in the IT book to gain support, but it didn’t happen. Here lies the danger. If you base you career on heavy marketing or a ‘number’, once the marketing starts to fall on deaf ears or you lose that precious number placing, you have no other form of substance to fall back on; the results can be disastrous and we see many fall.

My advice still stays the same; be original. Produce and play the music that you actually love and have a passion for. When in the studio, don’t make music for others to play on their radio shows, make it for yourself and something that you would actually play. Having your own sound becomes the most valuable asset you can ever own, because it’s unique to you because no other DJ or producer can create what you have. It puts you in an extremely powerful position. The world is currently saturated with copy cat DJ’s and producers, these guys and girls make the same mistake thinking if they jump on the most popular music style it will fast-track their careers. It doesn’t. You just sit with thousands of others doing exactly the same thing.
Learn everything possible about your art. If producing, then teach yourself how to actually produce, this way you can take those ideas from your head and translate them into physical music. This way you are creating your own sound dynamically. There are thousands of tutorials online, Youtube is your friend here.
It goes the same for DJing. Learn how to open a room professionally, how to hold a crowd. How to handle every possible scenario a live dancefloor can give you. This can make a difference between you getting rebooked at your first gig, or not.