TORONTO – “Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter,” read the first tweet from former Pope Benedict XVI, sent in December, and with that he blessed nearly 1 million followers via the social network.
Benedict’s tweet marked a new era for the Vatican and the Catholic Church, one that reflected a modern, tech-savvy attitude.
Aside from being the first to tweet, the former pope was known to be fairly computer-savvy, had a YouTube channel and even an iPhone app called Pope2You.
But since Benedict’s resignation, the Twitter account @Pontifex sits idle while cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church start the process of selecting a new pope on Tuesday. Once elected, it will be up to the new pope to choose whether or not he will tweet from the account, which has garnered over 1.6 million followers to date.
The question is, will he?
Jaigris Hodson, social media consultant and instructor at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ont., feels he will have no choice but to tweet thanks to the former pope’s history with social media.
“There is going to be tremendous pressure to keep this up and I don’t think it’s enough to just use traditional media sources anymore.”
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The new pope will take the reins at a difficult time for the Roman Catholic Church; Benedict’s resignation, making him the first Pope to step down in 600 years, came as a shock to the church’s followers.
The church has also been dealing with its fair share of controversy, including sex abuse scandals that have created a bitter taste in the mouths of those loyal to the church.
All things considered, the new pope is likely to be bombarded with questions regarding his new role and the state of the church and, with social media being an easy to access public forum, he is likely to get the most questions from online followers.
Hodson stresses that the new pope should stray from the traditional one-way messaging that Benedict previously used with his Twitter account.
“With any of my clients I would say you are limited if you have a one-way message all the time and it doesn’t matter who you are – there is benefit to be gained from listening,” said Hodson.
How can the new Pope extend his reach on social media?
The key: a team dedicated to social media response, says Hodson.
The social media consultant suggests that the church invest in a team that can data mine tweets and give the Pontifex advice on who the best people to respond to are, or where he should be investing his outreach to get the most bang for his buck.
Social media expert and social content strategist at ad agency Grip Limited Patrick Tomasso agrees that engaging the community is the next step for the pope on social media.
“The opportunity that is still present for this new pope is how he will engage with the community; looking at the cardinals that are currently active on Twitter, there hasn’t been much back and forth dialogue with their followers,” said Tomasso.
“In the future, I would be interested to see if people could make small connections with the pope – imagine getting a retweet or a reply from him. At Grip, we emphasize with our clients that the true power of social media comes through engagement. The success of the new pope lies in how the church handles social: by strengthening their connections with engagement.”
Should the Pope join other social networks?
Is there a chance we could be seeing the pope posting ‘selfies,’ or pictures of his lunch on Instagram any time soon?
“Instagram is growing among young people – if he wants to reach young people. But, Pinterest is probably growing among people who might already be part of his audience and this would allow him to reach out to them,” said Hodson.
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