Pope Rocks Social

Are you checking the social media box with a " we have a Facebook page, a Twitter account and Instagram, and my people do that stuff" ? It's nothing without a well defined strategy. Check this out from WSJ's CMO Today:

REAL-TIME POPE: You probably won’t be surprised that when Pope Francis visited the U.S. last month he had a large entourage with him. But did you know Team Francis travelled with 11 creative folks from the public relations firm Golin--and that his handlers enlisted the likes of Bette Midler to tweet on behalf of his holiness? In fact, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for the first time put together an elaborate social media strategy for the Pope’s six day visit that encompassed activity on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, reports CMO Today. The effort included outreach to 120 social media influencers as well as the creation of real-time GIFs and videos--all part of an effort to reach digitally inclined Americans and young people during a time when organized religion is losing devotees. Did it work? Well, in terms of social media interactions, the data firm Sysomos tracked 73 billion mentions of the Pope on social media during his U.S. visit, compared to 66.5 billion references to the Super Bowl during the big game earlier this year. As for whether that led to more religious interest among Americans, that’s harder to track in real time.