The unexpected success of the Vatican's social media strategy may seem like a miracle. The Roman Catholic Church has long been associated with all things traditional. The Church's top leaders have been buying their clothes from the same retailer for 220 years. His greatest decisions are announced to the world via different colors of smoke rising from a chimney above the Sistine Chapel. Overall, the Church doesn't appear to be the kind of organization buy email list that would flock to Twitter and Instagram as part of a global social media strategy. But that's exactly what the Catholic Church has done in recent years, building a social presence that now has significant influence on several major platforms.
The social media-focused Vatican News service, launched in 2010, now has more than four million followers on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Through a Twitter strategy focused on spreading positive messages of hope directly buy email list related to Church teachings, Pope Francis himself has nearly 18 million followers on this platform alone. But this substantial online presence should not be seen as a case of religious leaders giving in to cultural temptations. It's all part of a smart strategy designed to help the Church maintain its relevance among the people, creating channels of meaningful engagement that help the organization achieve the same goals it has pursued for centuries.
And this social presence is not limited buy email list to the Vatican itself: representatives of the Catholic Church around the world have been called to use social media as a channel to fulfill the mission of the organization. "The Archdiocese of Los Angeles' digital marketing team is focused on a higher purpose: evangelism," says Christine Warner, Senior Director of Digital Marketing for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (and, alongside, a contributor to the content standard ). "This mission is at the heart of what we do. As a non-profit religious organization, we do not sell product or seek to make profit. Media from Religious Education Ministries, this is to bring Christ into our communities." St. Peter's Basilica sky view