Pope Francis is now officially on instagram as @Franciscus and in only an hour he has nearly 200k followers. Veuer’s Sloane Glass tells us why he joined:
From the NYTimes: In the three years since Pope Francis joined Twitter, he has attracted more than 25 million followers in nine languages. On Saturday, the pontiff added a new app to his social media mix: The pope joined Instagram.
When most people join a new social media site, they find their first friends and followers by scrolling through their email address books or cellphone contact lists. But because this is Pope Francis, his arrival on Instagram was heralded several days in advance by a Vatican news release.
“Instagram will help recount the papacy through images, to enable all those who wish to accompany and know more about Pope Francis’ pontificate to encounter his gestures of tenderness and mercy,” Msgr. Dario E. Viganò, prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications, said in astatement.
The pope, formerly known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now goes by the Instagram name @Franciscus, which is Latin for “Francis.” According toVatican Radio, the pontiff’s decision to join Instagram comes one month after he met with the company’s chief executive, Kevin Systrom.
