A few days ago, I noticed the latest Where is Matt? video on YouTube. In these videos, Matt is shown in various locations around the world, dancing in various exotic and urban locations, often with natives.
The videos are extremely simple, don’t require tons of professional equipment, crews, or even much more planning than “where to next?” Matt speaks quite a bit about how he’s made these videos, who’s helped sponsor him, and more on his site and elsewhere (he recently did an AMA (‘I am A’) on Reddit about his videos and life).
All of his videos are full of positive images, positive emotions, and seem to touch just about everybody who watches them.
Many Catholic PR people, journalists, and marketing specialists have told me that it’s hard to get people’s attention with positive news, and I agree with that, to a point.
It’s very hard to take a boring story about a school getting an award and make people interested in it. In fact, I would recommend schools, parishes, dioceses, etc., don’t even post such stories to their communications channels, because they make people ignore further communications (nothing’s worse than a lost subscriber!).
But it’s important for Catholic organizations to broadcast positive stories and messages. The key is to make sure that the messages you broadcast affect people’s lives. Matt’s videos are amazing because they show us how small the world really is, and destroy our individual (often deficient) notions of certain populaces.
Take your story, make it personal, and share your joy. Focus on basic emotions and feelings of happiness, helpfulness, and love, and people will enjoy your positive press release. Jesus was both bold in his message and relatable, both when speaking to thousands and when speaking to one—you should be the same.