Tdiii Talk

For almost an entire year, my Spotify listeners and streams declined, but something happened in July of 2022 and things started to trend back up.    And not only did my Spotify listeners and streams start to grow, but I started to see more consistent pushes on Discover Weekly as well.    I have tested a lot of different strategies to grow on Spotify, but this year I really cracked the code.    Here is the best Spotify growth strategy I found in 2022.  Watch the original video on my YouTube channel.  Like this episode? Hit me up on Instagram (@tomdupreeiii) and let me know what you thought! 

We all know it’s tough to make money on Spotify.    Streaming royalties are notoriously low across the board, and Spotify doesn’t even claim the top spot on that list.    But despite the low payouts, earning money from streaming is still a goal worth pursuing (not the only goal, mind you, but a goal nonetheless), so let’s examine three scenarios to find out what it takes to achieve financial success on Spotify.    Time for some math.

If you want to be a great artist, you have to be a great communicator.  To achieve this, here are three fundamental skills I believe every artist should work to perfect that will transcend genre, age, and audience.  1. Learn to write.  Everything starts with writing.  Putting ideas down on the page helps me to clarify my thinking and crystalize ideas worth sharing—tweets, captions, song lyrics—all of it moves the needle.  If you’re not writing every day, I highly recommend you start. Write poetry, keep a journal, write lyrics—write any and everything you can think of.  A strong writing habit is foundational.  2. Learn to tell a great story.  Stories are a fundamental expression of humanity. We are drawn to them.  Your music tells a story. Your lyrics tell a story. Your content tells a story. Everything you do is an opportunity to tell a compelling story about yourself, your work, or the world around you. Whatever the format, a good story will always win.  3. G

A great idea is worth sharing, and a great piece of content that communicates that idea well can pull someone into your world and create a fan for life.  But sometimes even good ideas fall flat if not seen by the right person, at the right time, in the right place.  That’s why I always use my content more than once—I repurpose it.  There are four primary types of content that people consume online: audio, video, text, and images.  I do my best to post a combination of all four, but not every idea is conveyed equally across all media, which is why it’s important to me to communicate that same message on as many platforms as I can.  And the best way I’ve found to do that is to start with one.  My content generally starts as text. I am constantly taking notes and writing down ideas in the Notes app on my phone, and since I always have my phone on me, this little system works great.  Once I’ve decided I want to share an idea online (and because text is my initial weapon of choic

Establishing strong vanity metrics on Spotify is really not that difficult, especially if you don’t care how you do it.  Fake followers, massive bot-driven playlist ads, and even legitimate streams from countries that don’t serve your long-term growth as an artist can make your artist profile look quite impressive to the untrained eye.  But if you’re like me, and you want to share your music with real people who truly enjoy the work you put out into the world, you’re going to want to do your best to avoid those pitfalls.  Here are the three biggest red flags I look for:  1. Which countries are listening?  I am always watching where my traffic is coming from on Spotify, especially as a result of my ads.  These days, I am primarily advertising in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, but regardless of where my ads are being shown, whether in a select few countries or on a global scale, I am looking at the relationship between those countries on Meta’s ad pla

Building a career in music is tough, but if it’s where your heart truly lies, if it’s the place where you feel called to share your gifts with the world, there are few things more rewarding than seeing your passion come to life.  As a full-time musician for nearly 15 years, here are 12 things I have learned along the way that will help you no matter where you are in your journey.  1. No one can do it for you:  I can’t tell you how many artists I see that want the “secret” or the “hack”. Do you want to know the secret? It’s this: work.  2. Small gains are the biggest wins:  Incremental progress is the name of the game, and the biggest unlock is showing up every single day for a long period of time.  3. It takes time:  Success in music doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re lucky, it will only take a few years, but for most of us, it will take much more than that.  4. When in doubt, release more music:  Music is content, and content is a volume game. More will always be

You’re only one song away from changing your life.  But sometimes that song isn’t your newest release.  Releasing music on a regular basis is an important aspect of building a body of work as an artist, but turning out single after single doesn’t mean you need to abandon the work you already have.  According to Spotify’s recent Fan Study, roughly three-quarters of all streams on the platform are now coming from an artist’s catalog, which Spotify defines as songs over 18 months old.  This means the work you released two years ago stands to earn you more streams, listeners, and revenue than the song you just put out.  Think about that for a second–the longer your music is out, the more powerful it becomes.  This sort of changes the game on new releases. Rather than thinking of a new release as an opportunity for a song to go viral, it might be better to think of it as a hook to reel in new listeners so they can discover the rest of your work.  I push new music and my catalog w

When it comes to music marketing, more money generally equals more opportunity, but that doesn’t mean you can’t win if you don’t have a load of spare cash lying around.  Even though spending more money to market your music can drastically improve the outcome of your campaigns, there are alternative ways to extend your reach as an artist.  If I only had $100 to spend on a new release, here’s what I would do:  First, I would run a conversion campaign and target a global list of countries, likely prioritizing Brazil, Mexico, and Chile because I know there are tons of engaged music fans in these countries that I can access for a much lower rate than I can in, say, the US or the UK.  Next, I would keep my targeting open, all the way down to age 13 to capitalize on a lower CPM for my ads right out of the gate.  After that, I would create an artist playlist, something like “This Is Tom DuPree III” and place my new track right at the top of it.  Because I’m operating on a limited budget,

Every social media platform plays by the same set of rules.  Sure, the algorithms are all a bit different and they each have their own “thing”, but by and large, they are all relatively the same.  The main idea is this: what you put in is what you get out.  And while success on any given platform may vary depending on the style of content that’s prioritized, if you truly want to grow on your social media platform of choice, there are three main ideas you’ll want to remember:  Quality, consistency, and engagement.  Step one: quality.  People don’t care about what you can do. They only care about what you can do for them.  As a creator, it is your job to figure out what kind of value you can deliver to others on the platform(s) of your choice.  When people get value from your content, they are more inclined to stick around for more content in the future because they believe it will bring them value as well, thus creating a positive feedback loop.  And since every soc

Most artists struggle to grow on Instagram.  Organic content on the platform is free to post, but it is difficult to do it effectively and consistently, which is why many artists struggle to see the gains they want.  While not a replacement for a strong organic content strategy, paid advertising can help you to increase your rate of follower growth while you work to unlock the organic content system that performs best for you.  To boost my audience growth on Instagram, I like to use what I like to refer to as an Instagram Growth Campaign.  This simple ad recycles content I already know works to drive more traffic to my Instagram profile.  This can include:  - Reels  - Feed posts  - And even ads I’ve run for growth on Spotify  Additionally, I’ll be sure to have a link to my music in my Instagram bio, so my new followers can go deeper and listen to my music if they like what they find on my profile.  Paid advertising is not a replacement for a solid organic cont

Building your artist ecosystem is a way of systematizing your output so you can record music, create content, and build and monetize it in a relatively automated fashion.  But it can be overwhelming.  With all of the tools available–websites, email, social media, link-generators–how can you know which one to choose?  Well, I’ve done a lot of testing (as I’m one to do) and have found an easy and relatively inexpensive tech stack that works wonders for me.  For my artist ecosystem, I prioritize four things:  - A website  - A landing page generator  - A single social media platform of choice  - My email list  For my website, I use Carrd. Carrd allowed me to get my website up and running so much faster than every other option I tried.  And, as a musician, you really don’t need much more than a single landing page anyway.  For my landing page generator, I use ToneDen.  Not only does ToneDen seamlessly create music-centric landing pages, but it also gives

Have you ever built an ad campaign for a new release only to have it launch with skyrocketing costs and underwhelming results?  I certainly have.  It’s heartbreaking.  You’ve spent all this time on your song, you’ve saved your money, you’ve done your research, and you’ve set up your ads precisely as they should be, only to be met with disaster on release day.  Few things are more frustrating than watching your hard-earned money trickle away without knowing the cause of it, and while it can seem impossible to troubleshoot a floundering release, the performance of an ad campaign really comes down to three factors:  Targeting, visual creative, and your song.  Targeting is the first point of impact for your campaign. If you get this wrong, you can bottleneck your reach and destroy what might have otherwise been a successful campaign.  When in doubt, go wider and let Facebook’s platform figure it out for you.  Next, visual creative.  In short, have a great album cover,

I used to struggle with creating content on the internet. No matter how hard I tried, I could never quite get on top of it.  On a daily basis it seems, I would inevitably hit that moment of panic where I would think, “oh no, I haven’t posted anything today,” and I would have to scramble to come up with something.  For years, I watched other creators turn out videos, pictures, tweets, and more with regularity, wondering how they did it without missing a beat while I consistently struggled to keep up.  But everything changed when I figured out how to create content systems that allowed me to get ahead of the curve and stay there.  Instead of constantly playing catchup, I began approaching content creation like a part-time job, a side hustle that only required a few hours per week to execute.  I would set aside time for myself to build out my content on a regular basis, focusing on one main idea and then building everything else out of that.  Additionally, I took advantage of schedu

When I started sharing my ideas online, no one paid attention to what I was doing.  If you’ve ever posted a single thing on the internet, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  For me, it took about 18 months of consistently posting to YouTube before people finally started listening to what I had to say.  For what felt like forever, I would post video after video, only to be met with a handful of views on each.  I burned out several times and considered giving up altogether, but one day, seemingly out of nowhere, people began to watch.  And that’s when the magic really happened.  Not only did they watch, but they began to ask questions.  Once I had gained the attention of a few, I began to pay attention to what they wanted and simply did my best to deliver.  Three years ago, I never would have considered a career in marketing, but the people asked, and I listened. Now I run a full-fledged marketing business with solutions for my audience at every level.  From he

Making money from a career in music is tough, no matter how you slice it, but it gets much easier when you create a system of diversified, music-based revenue streams.  From selling streaming to sample packs, live streaming to live shows, there are a lot of different ways to earn a living while doing what you love–creating music.  Here are 15 ways to make money from music.  Watch the original video on my YouTube channel. Like this episode? Hit me up on Instagram (@tomdupreeiii) and let me know what you thought!

No matter how good your music is, if no one knows about it, no one will ever listen. You have to tell people about your songs. You have to market your music.  While there are many music marketing methods available, three stand atop the rest: posting organic content, paid advertising, and email.  These are the 3 music marketing methods every artist should be using.  Watch the original video on my YouTube channel.  Like this episode? Hit me up on Instagram (@tomdupreeiii) and let me know what you thought! 

I recently ran a test to boost my song's video views using YouTube's advertising platform. Not only was it easy to set up, but the results were great as well.  By using YouTube's simple advertising interface, I was able to drive 4,000 views to my video in just one week.  So let's walk through the results of this music marketing experiment, and I'll show you how I used YouTube ads to promote my music.  Watch the original video on my YouTube channel.  Like this episode? Hit me up on Instagram (@tomdupreeiii) and let me know what you thought! 

There are three primary metrics that we want to track on Spotify–streams, listeners, and followers–and growth in each category is not identical to the others.  If we want our streams to increase, we have to prioritize that. Same for followers. Same for listeners.  But how do we go about getting more streams on Spotify? How do we get more followers on Spotify? Or more listeners on Spotify?  Here are 3 proven tactics to help you grow your streams, your listeners, and your followers on Spotify.  And if done correctly, these three strategies will help you grow FAST!  Watch the original video on my YouTube channel.  Like this episode? Hit me up on Instagram (@tomdupreeiii) and let me know what you thought! 

Your website is the cornerstone of your online presence as an artist. It is the place where your fans know they can come to connect with you, register for updates, or even make a purchase from your online store.  Every artist should have a website. If you don't have one, now is the time to make that happen.  One of my favorite platforms for easily building a slick and effective website is Carrd. Carrd allows you to get up and running with a full website in a matter of minutes.  But sometimes, the stock templates just aren't enough. The good news is that, with just a few lines of CSS code, we can customize our Carrd website to look precisely how we want it to.  This is how to create a floating header (and a floating footer) with Carrd, so you can have an effective, professional website in no time.  Watch the original video on my YouTube channel.  Like this episode? Hit me up on Instagram (@tomdupreeiii) and let me know what you thought! 

Have you ever wondered how to gain Spotify listeners in specific cities around the world? Say, the top cities where your favorite artists are getting listened to?  Me too, so I set out to find out if I could grow my fanbase in the cities around the globe where I really wanted Spotify followers and Spotify streams. What began as an experiment to find the similarities across the top artists on Spotify ended with a system to grow my fanbase precisely where I wanted to. This is how I hacked my top 5 cities on Spotify.  Watch the original video on my YouTube channel.  Like this episode? Hit me up on Instagram (@tomdupreeiii) and let me know what you thought!