The Vatican Pulls A Social Media Trifecta As Pope Benedict XVI Sends His First Tweet

3 Comments 29 June 2011

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The Vatican has embraced the digital age with gusto, launching a new web portal for all things Catholicism at News.va. Initially the portal will be available in both English and Italian with additional languages to follow. Visitors will have access to news via Fides News Agency, L’Osservatore Romano Press, Vatican Radio and CTV videos that cover issues concerning Catholicism as they occur around the globe.

To mark the occasion and drive home their commitment to reaching the faithful anywhere in the world, Pope Benedict XVI sent out his first Tweet.

Dear Friends, I just launched http://news.va. Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI.

The Vatican’s new social media push is quite impressive and shows a level of polish and coordination that old media could learn from. With the plethora of Android tablets available, the Vatican chose to have Pope Benedict XVI send his first tweet from the iPad. If that is not a ringing endorsement of Apple’s dominance of the post PC market, I don’t know what is.

The Vatican wanted to send a message today and we got it loud and clear, they are ready for the digital age.

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http://www.awebguy.com/ Mark Aaron Murnahan

I wonder if they will eventually move on to the destined-to-be-popular Papal iPad giveaway. Now that would be some fun social media.

I can see the tweets now … “The Pope tweeted from my iPad. What’ve you got? #iPope ”

BTW: That’s Papal (as in Pope) … not PayPal (as in Pay Pal). Darn the luck. Somebody already owned the official papal website.
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  Hi Mark,
  
  Outside of the photo-op, I don’t think the Pope got tech savvy all of a sudden. But as a marketing initiative they capitalized on his celebrity status to great effect.
  
  I’m sure Dan Brown is dreaming up a new best seller just from that photo.
  - http://www.awebguy.com/ Mark Aaron Murnahan
    
    Heck, I’m dreaming up a best seller from that photo. I can imagine a number of great titles already!