Ascension! Jesus lifted up
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I woke up the morning of Friday, November 29th, with a vision: to build a viral video marketing campaign for the purpose of reclaiming the world for Christ and giving Him the best birthday present ever.
I began praying a series of novenas to every saint I could think of to help me in the work:
St. Gabriel the Archangel Novena
And, of course, the St. Thomas Aquinas prayer before Speaking, Writing, or Studying.
I put everything else in my life on hold and focused on creating the scripts. But on day 6, I realized I’d made a couple of critical errors in my work.
First, I’d failed to prepare people for how to handle success and the inevitable critics and adversaries bound to pop up in their comments section if they went viral. I also realized I'd not prepared them for what happened if they failed. Failing to prepare them for this could harm their mental health and lead the challenge to do harm rather than help people as I intended it to do, so I made sure to address these things.
Second, my video scripts were inconsistent in what they provided. I needed to give my videos a consistent structure by creating a show format. I reworked to revise the video scripts and, by my birthday, December 13th, I was ready to record.
Each day, for the next seven days, I worked to record, edit, and post the videos. I used Canva to create the thumbnails and packed as much valuable content in each video as I could.
Day 1: https://youtu.be/TLCrUVKltho
Day 2: https://youtu.be/UzN5R30UHs8
Day 3: https://youtu.be/795Lns1BIa0
Day 4: https://youtu.be/ITSnS-uCujk
Day 5: https://youtu.be/gEeYDDw00-k
Day 6: https://youtu.be/9axd8E_Bdao
Day 7: https://youtu.be/o4LrFZR-pA4
My initial attempt did not succeed in going viral, but that didn’t mean it was time to give up on the plan. It meant it was time to analyze the outcome and see what I could do to improve.
Day 8: https://youtu.be/Ba6nACeiLd8
As I sat brainstorming what I could do to improve, I decided I would try a 4-step plan:
1. Create a blog post to outline my plan and share my strategies with other Catholics who might also be interested in reclaiming the world for Christ.
2. Email the Catholic friends and family I know to recruit them.
3. Post shorts, snippets, and quotes from the series each day across a variety of social media channels.
4. Each week, do a recorded update for those who are following the channel to see how well we’ve done and how close we’ve come.
If you’d like to participate in this quest, here are the steps I recommend:
1. Watch all 8 videos (the first 7 plus the debrief on day 8). It should take less than 2 hours.
2. Follow along with the challenge but also make notes about what you think could be improved and offer feedback in the comments section.
3. Let people know you’re participating on your social media channels and encourage them to join with you.
4. Email your family and friends to let them know about the plan and to encourage them to participate.
5. Record your own viral videos and see what results you’re able to achieve.
Let’s make this Christmas Christ’s best birthday ever!
Award-winning international speaker and author, Brandy M. Miller is a Catholic revert. Raised in a culturally Catholic home, she left the faith at 16 in search of the truth and returned 12 years later when she found it right where she left it. Today, she is convinced that the Catholic Church is the cure to society's ills and is eager to help share the Gospel truth to those who have ears to hear it. When she isn't writing for or about the Catholic Church, she offers her writing talents to Catholics who would like help sharing their witnesses of Christ's work in their lives.
