UPDATED: Pope on Twitter, gains more then 150k followers in under one day (English)

by Christian Fictoor · Published 3 december 2012 · Updated 4 december 2012

Pope Benedict XVI has found his way to Twitter. In under one day the account @pontifex (English) has gained more then 150.000 followers. When you add the other @Pontifex accounts (in other languages): @pontifex_es, @pontifex_it, @pontifex_pt, @pontifex_de, @pontifex_pl, @pontifex_ar and @pontifex_fr the total amount of followers exceeds 210.000.

UPDATE 4th of december: the @pontifex accounts now total more then 500.000 followers (in only 2 days!).

With the Vatican struggling to keep their churches full new strategies are needed. Reaching young believers is proving to be difficult and although social media are a complex phenomenon for an organization that not always likes to have everything out in the open, the Catholic Church is not ‘a stranger’ when it comes to implementing new media in their communication efforts.
In 2009 the Vatican launched www.pope2you.net, offering an app called “The pope meets you on Facebook”. It also allows the pope’s speeches and messages to be uploaded to smartphones. In 2011, the Vatican started its own news Web site Newsva.va.

The Catholic Church have always been ‘early adapters’ when it comes to using new technologies for their communication purposes. In 1896, Pope Leo XIII became the first pope to appear on film. In 1931 the Vatican founded Vatican Radio and in 1949, Pope Pius XII was the first to appear on television.

Back to the new Catholic presence on Twitter. The Pope will not post himself but will engage and approve the content. Via the hashtag #askpontifex twitter-users can ask him / the Vatican questions. Starting on the 12th of December thep Pope will start posting answers to the questions posted.

Pope Benedict is not the only religious leader to use twitter. Other religious leaders have found great success with this network like The Dalia Lama (@DalaiLama), Rick Warren (@RickWarren), Joel Osteen (@JoelOsteen).

Of course we’ll monitor the @pontifex account closely: how will it fit in the total communication strategy of the Vatican? What social networks are next? And maybe the most relevant question: will the Vatican gain more believers through implementing this social media network?! The pope seems to think so. Last year he wrote that new media and social networks offered “a great opportunity”.