Catholicism has a new communications (or maybe marketing?) channel. Starting on December 12th, Pope Benedict will start sending out personal tweets via his handle, www.twitter.com/pontifex. @pontifex and his office say that the tweets will be spiritual in nature, perhaps more of a "thought leadership" / content strategy vs. one to "acquire new customers" to the Catholic faith. It will be interesting to see how the Pope uses the channel to release immediate information and viewpoints on current events. Furthermore, given that Catholicism has 1.2 billion followers worldwide, the world will also be watching to see if Benedict can attract more fans than the current leader, Lady Gaga, who has 31,783,001 followers.
According to the article, this is not the papacy's first foray into digital media:
"In 2009, a new Vatican website,
www.pope2you.net,
went live, offering an application called "The pope meets you on
Facebook", and another allowing the faithful to see the pontiff's
speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods."
Kind of makes you realize, if a group as arguably conservative as the Catholic Church can dabble in new media, what other conservative or buttoned up industries could also take similar risks?
For more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/12/03/technology/03reuters-pope-twitter.html
-Rebecca Canan
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