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State of FOF Jan 12, 2019 djalex Public
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This annual newsletter gives me an opportunity to talk about everything that I accomplished with Four on Four in the past year and what the upcoming year will bring for my fans.
A big thank you from DJ Alexander and Four on Four.
As a final note, I want to thank all my fans and all the positive feedback you've provided to me while listening to my mixes over the 2018 year. Thank you! As you can see there's plenty more work to do as we make Four on Four better in 2019 with more great music and more great mixes. So I'll start by kicking off the new year with the next great Four on Four Radio edition #35, coming out this weekend!
DJ Alexander
2018 In Review
018 was definitely a busy year for me personally (I bought a house!) which took away from some of my progress with Four on Four. The music front, for one, took a slower turn and my best intentions to produce more music mixes than the year before didn't come to fruition. Still, I did produce 8 mixes, of which 4 were Four on Four full-on exclusive mixes with the rest being released as part of the Four on Four Radio series. The last edition of Four on Four Radio series published in 2018 was edition #34, and we've got more editions to come in 2019! In 2018, the Four on Four collection grew to to a total of 50 mixes. Fans listened to my mixes 4,034 times and favorited them 148 times.
From a mix perspective, 'Shikodachi' was the big hitter for the year making it to Mixcloud's 19th position in the global big room house charts and getting all the way to 22nd position in the global big room charts. Other exclusive mixes like 'This Is My Section', 'Gioca Sole Mio' and part two of Shikodachi: 'Kibadachi' all received listens but nowhere near where Shiko did. Out of all my mixes, the EDM genre consistently topped the charts more than any other genre with one of my older EDM mixes from 2017, 'Dirty Vegas', topping the mark at 556 listens.
Irrespective of content, my follower count on Mixcloud doubled from last year reaching over 250 fans! In contrast, the Soundcloud channel did not produce any significant fanbase as I would have expected - that will be looked at going into 2019 as I try to extend my fanbase even further.
Possibly the most important thing that I did in 2018 aside from music was to produce the Four on Four logo - this is the foundation for Four on Four's brand and establishing a connection with my fans on something unique they see and electronic mix quality they can continue to recognize. The logo is here to stay but in 2019 I will bring some work forward on cleaning up the logo and creating some color and format variations of the logo so that it can more easily be used on mix covers and news articles.
In 2018 I did an incredible amount of work on the Four on Four Portal with several functional releases being rolled out through out the year. All this work was with the intention of establishing a robust channel that my fans could use to find, listen and download all my mixes. For me personally, the portal is an invaluable tool as it helps me find music in my collection very quickly when I'm putting together new mixes. It also allows me to see trends in labels and begin determining music content that I consistently like or that my fans like.
In summary:
1. Early in February, seeing the need for tracking all the work being planned and done to the Portal in quick succession, I formalized the documentation framework for change management. This brought the concept of formally documenting fixes and enhancements for each release. Functionality to expose those release notes in the Portal was then rolled out so that users could read about the latest enhancements. February's release (version 4.6) also I introduced functionality to support the concept of record labels and searching music content by their labels.
2. In May, version 4.7 was rolled out with music compilations becoming the big theme. This required major cleanup with many of my music albums being fixed to show their music content correctly and in order. This cleanup needed to happen first as it was a dependency for a follow-on enhancement that would take place later in the year. Functionally, compilations were rolled out with a big featured called 'Producers' which was specifically intended to address DJ compilations produced by major DJs where albums could contain tracks from various artists or bands.
3. In July, a major release hit Four on Four Portal with version 4.8 coming to the table. the whole site was re-architected to use a framework called Bootstrap to make the site mobile-friendly and consistent from a look and feel perspective. Search functions were introduced with both a search bar and a quick search to quickly find tracks, albums and bands. Album covers, music label logos, news carousels and Fontawesome icons were all brought forth to make the Portal more visually appealing and more engaging.
4. In November, I rolled out another set of minor enhancements that album small were very powerful for site engagement: continuous play on music playlists, seek functions and content count previews to quickly see how much content is on the site but also how many songs are part of a particular album, band or label. For this release
I'll close this note on the fact that FOF's music library surpassed the 4,000 music track mark this year which is a notable accomplishment and will drive one of the new goals for 2019. Well done FOF!
From a mix perspective, 'Shikodachi' was the big hitter for the year making it to Mixcloud's 19th position in the global big room house charts and getting all the way to 22nd position in the global big room charts. Other exclusive mixes like 'This Is My Section', 'Gioca Sole Mio' and part two of Shikodachi: 'Kibadachi' all received listens but nowhere near where Shiko did. Out of all my mixes, the EDM genre consistently topped the charts more than any other genre with one of my older EDM mixes from 2017, 'Dirty Vegas', topping the mark at 556 listens.
Irrespective of content, my follower count on Mixcloud doubled from last year reaching over 250 fans! In contrast, the Soundcloud channel did not produce any significant fanbase as I would have expected - that will be looked at going into 2019 as I try to extend my fanbase even further.
Possibly the most important thing that I did in 2018 aside from music was to produce the Four on Four logo - this is the foundation for Four on Four's brand and establishing a connection with my fans on something unique they see and electronic mix quality they can continue to recognize. The logo is here to stay but in 2019 I will bring some work forward on cleaning up the logo and creating some color and format variations of the logo so that it can more easily be used on mix covers and news articles.
In 2018 I did an incredible amount of work on the Four on Four Portal with several functional releases being rolled out through out the year. All this work was with the intention of establishing a robust channel that my fans could use to find, listen and download all my mixes. For me personally, the portal is an invaluable tool as it helps me find music in my collection very quickly when I'm putting together new mixes. It also allows me to see trends in labels and begin determining music content that I consistently like or that my fans like.
In summary:
Looking Ahead to 2019
2019 will be a big year for Four on Four. All the work I did in 2018 sets the stage for me to be able to find and produce great content quickly and consistently in 2019 and have another great channel (FOF Music Portal) to communicate with my fans and grow my fan base. This is all supported by the work that I did to establish the Four on Four brand. That brand is here to stay and will continue to serve me and my fans well in 2019.
For starters, I've been taking a look at the news content from Four on Four with the intention of standardizing it to a few discrete publications. Specifically I'm framing up a new series called 'Four on Four Essentials' which highlights and discusses selected music tracks chosen and recommended by me and which are worth keeping in any DJ's collection. I've already rolled out a new menu option for 'News' on the Four on Four Portal and changed some of the news articles retroactively to be part of that series. Any new exclusive FOF mixes, new mixes for the regular FOF Radio edition or new FOF Portal upgrades will be continue to be announced in the news channel like they do today. Along with 'FOF Essentials', two new series will be introduced starting with 'FOF DJ Toolbox' which will include how-to-guides on everything from physical gear to DJ software and how to best leverage that software as essentials for the modern DJ. The second news series will be 'FOF Pulse' which gives you highlights on events happening in the music industry around Southern California but also with major DJs and electronic music around the world.
From a growth perspective, this year I am setting some very specific goals for Four and Four intended to drive more content, more fans and more listening activity from my fans. These goals take into consideration the growth of FOF from prior years and they account for areas where it has not done so well and needs to do better:
From a branding perspective, as I mentioned earlier, I'll be creating new variations of the existing logo for mix covers and any advertising I do. I also plan to record some new dj drops for mixes and make mixes more interactive in general with more discussion by me during the DJ set. I also intend to run paid promotions and various ad campaigns on the 6 exclusive EDM mixes being released this year and will target ads to specific states around the country which tend to listen to EDM more than others (e.g. Maine, Missouri, South Dakota, and Alabama).
In 2019, the existing channels (Mixcloud, Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter, YouTube, FOF Portal) will all be brought up to par music-wise so that the collection of FOF mixes can be found anywhere. This will take a significant amount of work but should help with FOF exposure and fan base growth.
From a Four on Four portal perspective, the goals are as follows:
For starters, I've been taking a look at the news content from Four on Four with the intention of standardizing it to a few discrete publications. Specifically I'm framing up a new series called 'Four on Four Essentials' which highlights and discusses selected music tracks chosen and recommended by me and which are worth keeping in any DJ's collection. I've already rolled out a new menu option for 'News' on the Four on Four Portal and changed some of the news articles retroactively to be part of that series. Any new exclusive FOF mixes, new mixes for the regular FOF Radio edition or new FOF Portal upgrades will be continue to be announced in the news channel like they do today. Along with 'FOF Essentials', two new series will be introduced starting with 'FOF DJ Toolbox' which will include how-to-guides on everything from physical gear to DJ software and how to best leverage that software as essentials for the modern DJ. The second news series will be 'FOF Pulse' which gives you highlights on events happening in the music industry around Southern California but also with major DJs and electronic music around the world.
From a growth perspective, this year I am setting some very specific goals for Four and Four intended to drive more content, more fans and more listening activity from my fans. These goals take into consideration the growth of FOF from prior years and they account for areas where it has not done so well and needs to do better:
Triple the FOF fan base to 800 fans or more Publish 20 FOF mixes (all house or EDM), with 6 of them being exclusive EDM mixes and the rest part of FOF Radio Edition Have at least 3 of my mixes hit the top global 20 in the Mixcloud charts Double my total listens on Mixcloud to at least 12,000 listens Double my total favorites on Mixcloud to at least 300 favorites Perform at least 3 live shows
Increase the FOF inventory to 6,000 music tracks Fix the mobile experience which is currently not functionining as well as it should and make it consistent across the various FOF portal menu options Roll out 4 releases containing various enhancements and fixes Roll out a major feature called 'Ratings' which allows for ratings of mixes, music tracks and other radio shows from other DJs
In Summary
As a final note, I want to thank all my fans and all the positive feedback you've provided to me while listening to my mixes over the 2018 year. Thank you! As you can see there's plenty more work to do as we make Four on Four better in 2019 with more great music and more great mixes. So I'll start by kicking off the new year with the next great Four on Four Radio edition #35, coming out this weekend!
DJ Alexander