Monday memory: 4,872 shares

I just told people a local Chick-Fil-A gets it.

I was in Chick-Fil-A this past Friday for my usual weekend-starting lunch and I spied their Memorial Day setup. It reminded me of something I did five years ago at that very location: I posted a photo of the same setup on social media.

A photo taken at the Chick-Fil-A in north Salisbury, Maryland in May of 2019. The great thing was I could have taken the exact same photo in 2024.

Aside from the leap day, the 2019 calendar was the same as 2024’s is, so I took the photo on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Turns out that was pretty good timing, because by that evening it had maybe 150 shares which was pretty impressive to me since I have about 1,300 social media friends.

But the next morning when I woke up and checked things out I noticed there was now a “1K” next to it. Somehow, without even trying, this photo had gone semi-viral. I’m not sure who shared it to give it so many more shares, but whoever did was making it work. (Maybe it was CFA themselves?)

The upshot of it is: my little random photo got 4,872 shares - I checked on this past Saturday since I had to find the photo as it’s not on my computer and that phone I took it with is long since gone. And I did nothing to promote the photo at all - just put it up on a Friday afternoon as a complement for my local Chick-Fil-A (which I actually misspelled as “Chik-Fil-A”.)

My point is twofold: it’s a pleasant memory reminiscent of my “Rushalanche”

and it shows the power social media still can have to spread the word. That’s why I still promote my posts there despite the fact my stats only usually show less than 10% of my readers come from there - sometimes that 10% becomes 80% when my post reaches over 1,000 people.

Over the last couple months my family has enjoyed an occasional Bible study, led by a member of our extended family who spoke at my mother-in-law’s funeral. In this case, it’s not necessarily a matter of being a missionary but more of iron sharpening iron, like Proverbs 27:17 says to. And that made me think of my final point.

I write in a lot of places besides here: while The Patriot Post is the largest and most well-known, there are a few social media pages where I try to share my wisdom as well as comments on some of my friends’ and fellow writers’ Substacks. Sometimes it’s more in the role of missionary for my political and spiritual philosophy and sometimes it’s an effort to sharpen iron.

But part of the joy of doing this is that unexpected boost at the most random of times, seeing 4,800 shares of a photo or a memorable day where over 5,000 people were introduced to my writing. (And I can’t even fathom the possibility of seven figures for The Patriot Post.) It’s not made me rich or remotely famous, but that’s not the point anyway. It’s about pushing things in the RIGHT direction, and sometimes these efforts are rewarded in tangible ways.

Have a blessed Memorial Day, but don’t forget why we’re doing it.