I assume that now that the Pope has sent his first tweet, during the most holy of times for the Catholic Church and for that matter most Christian Churches, Twitter is no longer a fringe communication tool and has reached the mainstream. Is it now not only social media but also religious media? I wonder how many times the Pope's tweets will be retweeted? Any guess on what his Klout score will be by the time Lent rolls around? Regardless of what the Pope tweeting means to a host of people, lets be clear, he is not the first religious person to tweet, maybe the most famous, but certain not the first.
What I take from the Pope tweeting is a couple of insights that several other people smarter than I have been saying for a long time. First, social media is not a strategy. An organization has to have a marketing and communications strategy. Twitter, Facebook, Pininterest (for the life of me I don't understand this one), Instagram, etc all should be considered in a solid marketing and communications strategy as should all of the other sources of media.
The second point I think this shows is that social media channels have to work with all of the other channels of communication. The Pope will not be advocating a Twitter mass to replace the obligation of attending weekly mass and I doubt if any of the sacraments will be administered via Twitter but I am certain he will be extolling all of those people who belong to his faith to do those actions.
Finally, I don't think he will be ending of the traditional media efforts the Catholic Church engages in such as radio, TV and print. Twitter, Facebook, etal, are all great tools to make a marketing and communications strategy complete. Too often I think organizations are convinced they need a separate social media strategy and for most, that is just not the case in my opinion.
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