SALT LAKE CITY — With a boost from the high-profile ad slot at the top of Web giant YouTube's home page, the Easter video at the heart of the LDS Church's Holy Week social media initiative drew roughly 2 million new views over the weekend.
By Monday afternoon, the "Because of Him" video had 3.95 million views in English and 1.28 million more in Spanish. The total of more than 5.25 million was up from 2.6 million on Friday evening.
Most of the new traffic arrived on Sunday — Easter — by design.
The media campaign launched April 13 — Palm Sunday — used email, Twitter and Facebook to distribute banner ads and daily memes — "The world is filled with second chances," "The grave has no victory" — and the video to illustrate the belief of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Easter and in Christ as the Son of God.
“Easter is the celebration of Jesus Christ rising from the dead on the third day — a truth not only at the core of our faith, but also at the heart of answers to the deepest questions of the soul,” said Greg Droubay, director of Mormon.org, in a statement released last week. “We’ve launched this Christ-focused initiative because we want to be a resource for those seeking second chances or wondering about death after losing a loved one.”
On Easter Sunday, the church promoted the video on YouTube's home page, both in English and Spanish. YouTube's home page draws more than 100 million visitor's per day.
Here's what the ad looked like on Sunday. Clicking on the ad brought up a condensed, 30-second version of the three-minute "Because of Him" video that pointed to the longer version and to a website, Mormon.org/BecauseofHim.
For more on the campaign, see the Deseret News story on Friday and the church's press release.
Email: twalch@deseretnews.com