The recent visit of the Pope to the country broke Twitter records, showing the Roman Catholic Pontiff’s immense popularity in the country and how Filipinos have turned to social media to openly express their love and appreciation for him.
Prior to his coming to the country, the Pope had over 17 million followers across his nine accounts in different languages. During his visit to the Philippines, his @Pontifex account added over 365,000 followers between Jan 13-20, 2015.
Based on a report that Twitter shared through Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), one of the social media company’s telecom partners in the Philippines, there were more than 3.3 million Tweets related to the Papal visit from January 13 to 20, 2015. The number of Tweets reached its peak on January 15 at 6:30 PM when the Pope arrived in Manila – with 3,664 Tweets per second.
Data generated on the Pope’s past Twitter activity also showed that 7 out of his top 10 most Retweeted Tweets are related to his official visit to the Philippines and an 8th Tweet is related to a call for prayer for those affected by Typhoon Haiyan which hit the Philippines in late 2013. In addition, four of the top five most Retweeted Tweets from @Pontifex account are in the vernacular language.
Shared experience enabled by social media
Announced two days before the Pope’s arrival, Twitter and Smart teamed up to provide free access to the popular social networking app for the duration of the papal visit, from January 15-19, 2015, to allow more Pinoy netizens to follow the Pope’s account (@Pontifex), get real-time news and updates, send wishes using the #DearPopeFrancis hashtag and participate in the social media conversation.
Many mobile Internet users in the Philippines registered and availed of the free service. Meanwhile, in a social media report shared by TV5, the #DearPopeFrancis hashtag was shared by almost 380,000 users and reached 3 billion impressions worldwide from December 1 to January 19. It was surpassed by the related #WeLovePopeFrancis hashtag popularly used from January 18 to 19 which was used by almost half a million users and reached 2 billion impressions worldwide. Both hashtags were amplified by TV5 through their social media campaign which was also supported by Smart.
