The Butcher

I’m writing this letter on a Monday morning over a cup of Folgers coffee and several handfuls of Pepperidge Farm pizza flavored goldfish. After a nice relaxing weekend at my dad’s house, I was super stoked to get back to the KR forums and check up on my recent post where I asked KR podcast listeners what kind of shows they wanted to see in 2012. With over 50 views the thread only contains one lonely response. (Thanks Boomer.)

I was immediately inspired to write this article in an attempt to capture how I’m feeling at this very moment. The scene in Jerry Maguire where Jerry wakes up in the middle of the night and writes his mission statement comes to mind. I’m writing in the heat of passion, in my underwear, and I may be scouring your inboxes later looking to take this article back. Hey, at least I’m leaving with a (non-flavored) goldfish.

But I’ve always been honest with the Killer Reviews community, so what the fuck...

I feel a large amount of the Killer Reviews readership is being lazy. Thousands of people visit Killer Reviews regularly for our exclusive content. And why not, there’s a shit load of it. The problem is (in my eyes anyway) is that a tiny percentage of these thousands actually give back to the community. By giving back I mean: take the time to share an article or news story with their friends on Facebook or Twitter; leave thoughtful comments on blog posts or articles; join our community by creating a profile; leave a review on iTunes for the podcast or click the banners from our sponsors.

I realize that these thousands of people have no obligation to do any of the above. I also realize that I allow all this content to be viewed for free. I get this. And if having Joe Schmoe continue to rape and pillage our content is the way it’s going to be then so be it, but at least read the rest of this blog post. I think you owe me that much Joe.

Recently I published two podcasts and on these podcasts I asked listeners to do two things: First, simply leave a review for the show on iTunes. Considering Killer Reviews was nominated for best podcast of 2011 in DeadLantern.com's Splatcademy Awards, my second request was that you go there and vote for us. Good News!...The latest KR podcasts were downloaded over 2,000 times within the first week. Bad News....not one new iTunes review came from it. More importantly, this makes me question how many people are showing their support by voting for us in the Dead Lantern awards.

At this point I don’t know if we’ve won or how many people voted for us, but it would be a shame not to win this because the majority of our listeners didn’t want to take the two minutes to vote. Also because I sure would love to post a banner to the homepage that reads “Voted Best Horror Podcast of 2011.” Same goes for iTunes. We could be number one for the search term reviews if just a tiny percentage of our listeners took the time to leave a review.

Let’s be 100% honest here. I would love to win Best Horror Podcast of 2011 along with being number one in iTunes. It would sure be something to boast about. But more importantly, obtaining these two goals would drastically increase our audience base which is most important to me. Allow me to explain further.



Power in Numbers….

My dream with Killer Reviews has always been to be one of the larger movie websites on the internet. I don’t need to have the most traffic, nor do I need to become rich doing it. I just want to be respected amongst my piers and to have a large audience (10,000 plus) enjoying our content. We’re getting there, but it’s been and continues to be a long and hard battle. I feel like I and the rest of the Killer Reviews staff work night and day for even the tiniest bit of increase in quality traffic.

The truth of the matter is that the growth of Killer Reviews is really in the hands of you guys, our readership. Think of the change that we could make if every one of our readers tried just a little harder to be a more active community member by sharing our news stories with friends on Facebook or leaving a review on iTunes. Not just reading forum discussions, but commenting on them as well. Leaving comments on blog posts and articles. Or how about simply telling a friend about the website?

Never forget this… The more people get involved with the community, the more other people will get involved with the community. It’s a snowball effect and once it’s gets rolling, it really gets rolling.

Several weeks back I received a nice letter from a new podcast listener. He’s an electrician that listens to the show while he works. He said something that just made my day - “I just really love movies and this podcast has been something I have needed in my life for a long time.” This is pretty much the best compliment someone can give me. They need Killer Reviews in their life. I’ve heard this a number of times in recent months.

I feel there are thousands of people out there that need Killer Reviews in their life and the only way we’re going to reach them is to grow as a community. How much we grow is really up to you guys. So please make a conscious effort to be more active in the Killer Reviews community. If everyone does a little, it will go a long way. And it all comes back to you because we’ll be able to deliver you even more awesome content. Help us help you…

So who’s coming with me?