How do you promote your iRiffs?

[ClintTrax]

Hi!

I'm totally new to making my own iRiffs and I was wondering how some of you more popular folks out there promote yours? I put the word out on Facebook and e-mail friends and family, but besides that I really have no idea how to get my iRiff (shameless plug! http://www.rifftrax.com/iriffs/how-quiet-helps-at-school) out to the world.

With that, woot for my 8 sales so far!

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Clint

[J Garth Wilcox]

I made up a bunch of flyers and handed them out at the local comic con this past weekend. Will be putting them out at other conventions I go to.

Also posting links on facebook any forms I'm part of.

Look, here's a link now: http://www.rifftrax.com/iriffs/basement-dwellers-riffs/gung-ho

[Hor-RIFF-ic Productions]

It's really really really hard.  We post on multiple forums both MST3K and Horror related and IMDB, myspace, facebook, twitter (ugh).  We also handed out flyers to all the local halloween stores this past month and at the Des Moines Zombie Walk. 

The best promotion you can get I think is having great tracks.  If they're great people will like them and tell others and do your promoting for you. 

[mr.b.natural]

Offering some kind of full-version-yet-free iriff helps.  Like a short or in my case a whole movie on YouTube or other site.  Doing the best you can with audio/video is a must and being funny doesn't hurt though it isn't required.  I haven't tried flyers myself but from what I've observed many fans of Rifftrax don't even know iriffs exist.  What would be nice would be some kind of coordinated attempt to tap into that market as it is the most likely to enjoy iriffs.  Also, granting your iriffs for free to forum members in exchange for ratings and comments is another common and effective way to boost views.  It is important to keep in mind that iriffs are a very small and bloated market.  Relatively speaking one iriffer can have "a lot of sales" but that's when compared to other iriffers.  When compared to other retail industries, or even official Rifftrax, the numbers are miniscule.  So I'm warning you now, you won't get rich from iriffs.  Be prepared for disappointment as well, just in general.  The more modern the movies you do are the more people will buy and the more performers you have in your group the better the odds people will give it a chance.  Being active in the community really helps and the more you give others ratings/comments the more apt they are to try your stuff.  Good luck.

[stansimpson]

Being active in the iriff community helps.  And a banner is good to have too. 

My favorite advice:  "Don't count on your family and friends".  This was surprising both in that it goes against expectations and that I wasn't the only one who was affected this way (family and friends are helpful... just nowhere near where your expectations are). 

Wasn't there another thread like this?

[RoninFox]

Yeah, I'm sure I remember a thread with pretty much the same exact question, but it was from awhile ago.

I've been pushing myself, personally, to do more with myspace and facebook and so forth, but it can be slow to build up people that way unless you're very active with them.  I used to have a website that I'd try and point to that'd link back to the product pages and have more info in general, but 1) most of it was pretty pointless in that it just directed people right to Rifftrax and 2) It was a Geocities site, so it got largely ignored, and recently deleted as Geocities died.  I've also considered printing up fliers and stuff like that to put up around local bulletin boards and those tables full of stacks of fliers at music and bookstores. 

Since I started my Zazzle store, I've also been wanting a way to make business cards and have them included in every purchase.  They don't quite have that set up though.  That's one way Utilikilt does it's marketing, I know.  They include a nice stack of business cards that you can keep in your pocket.  Wear your kilt around, and if someone asks about it, you can give them one of the cards that came with it.  Would be nice if the same thing could happen with "What the hell is that Wizard Master shirt about?"

[fireyf]

Next time there's a Rifftrax live, bring fliers and hand them out.  Wish I'd done that at the last one.  Like Mr. B said, most riff fans don't know we exist, which is odd since the featured iriff is on the main page right along side the featured rifftrax, short, and rifftrax presents.  If there's one thing I've learned working in a supermarket though, is that most people aren't very observant.  ex.  "Where's the butter?"  "On the shelf in front of you that you've been staring at for the past 10 minutes pondering that question."

[poobah103]

Releasing lots of iRiffs helps. I feel like a lot of groups release one iRiff, then decide to call it quits when it doesn't hit big right away. In general, I feel like people with lots of iRiffs under their belts are either really good at it, or they're doing it as a labor of love, and both of those things automatically make a riff that much more enjoyable.

 Of course, you still have to resist the temptation to just crank out unpolished iRiffs just to generate new sales. Having 1000 iRiffs won't help if all of them have terrible sound quality or lackluster writing. But typically, a person who does this in their spare time because they want to, who writes riffs because they genuinely have fun with it, not just to generate sales for themselves... those are the people I like to listen to.

[ShortFilmCynic]

Usually, it comes from the work that you put into it. I really have no answer to this other than shameless self promotion and the like. I still am fascinated at the fact people are willing to purchase my work. I never came into this venture looking to make serious money. This is just a tool that I use for analysis in my graduate work. It keeps my observations sharp and my creative juices flowing in between academic papers.

[MICRORIFFS]

Does anyone know how featured iRiffs are selected / generated?
We still don't know how or why "Don't Copy That Floppy' ended up as a feature,
but "Floppy' sales did well after that exposure ..and helped our other riffs a bit.
Even WE got sick of seeing that guys' face every time!
God bless Superman.

[RoninFox]

I don't think I've ever seen a definitive answer on how featured riffs are chosen, but I get the impression its someone or a group of people at Rifftrax selecting them manually.  Perhaps someone in the office was impressed with your sample.  I know the featured slot gave my Nightmare on Elm Street 3 riff quite a boost.

[fireyf]

Usually, not always, but usually the featured iriff is in the last weeks top seller list.

[stansimpson]

I assumed it was one person (most likely a mod) who is choosing the featured iriffs.  Just my assumption of course.

[tygerbug]

  You ask people to watch your Riffs, and then they don't, and you cry.

  Easy!

[SJP]

I promote them by...um...well...hmm...

Pretty much, all I do is come on here and announce them.  I should definitely advertise them a lot more heavily, since like everyone's said most people don't know they exist, but the problem is, I absolutely, positively hate using sites like MySpace and Facebook.  I actually signed up on a Facebook account to look up something about a writing group, and the next thing I know people (who are people I know, granted, not complete strangers) start friending me and going, "When are you going to put something up on here?"  Well, to be honest, I never planned to.  I try to be a nice guy whenever I can, I like people, and I would love to advertise things that I do for people to see, but I simply do not enjoy jumping onto social networking sites.  I like forums and that's about it.  And as useful as it might be, I still view Twitter as one of the impending signs of the Apocalypse.

So, yeah, advertising's hard for me.  Not because I wouldn't like to get the word out about the stuff I do (believe me, more than anything else, I'd love to share what I've made, especially if it makes somebody laugh), or because I don't like making ads (I'm planning on doing a pretty wacky one for Ice Pirates, compared to my other samples), but because I just hate actually having to prostitute myself out in ways or in markets I'd rather not actually be using.

And for the record, I'm in my 20s.  I love and embrace technology.  But if it makes any sense, I also hate mp3 players and what they've done to lower the common denominator of music quality and what we'd be willing to pay for it, so if that helps make sense at all...