Pope has most clout on Twitter: study

Cent News - AFP, Jonatham Fower, 2014-06-25

Photo Credit: Alain Jocard/AFP

Switzerland - Pope Francis has by far the most clout of any world leader on Twitter because he is so widely retweeted, a study of political use of the social network showed on Wednesday.

With 14 million followers for the nine different language versions of his @Pontifex account, the cyber-savvy pontiff boasts just a third of those notched up by US President Barack Obama.

But that it not the key measure, said Matthias Luefkens, who steers the annual Twiplomacy survey.

"It's not the number of followers which is really important, but the reach, the engagement," he said.

The real benchmark is tweets retweeted by followers to their own network.

Pope Francis wins hands down, with his Spanish-language tweets retweeted more than 10,000 times on average, and his English-language tweets, over 6,400 times.

Obama's 2012 election victory tweet -- a photograph of him embracing First Lady Michelle Obama and the words "Four more years" -- was retweeted a massive 806,066 times.

But on average, @BarackObama gets 1,400 retweets.

Obama's use of social media is credited as a key factor in his landmark 2008 election.

The @BarackObama account, created in 2007, has 43.7 million followers, but is not a US presidential feed and is run by his political campaign staff.

The official @WhiteHouse account has over 4.9 million followers, putting it fifth in the global pecking order, just behind the account of India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has five million.

@White House was narrowly overtaken on Wednesday by @narendramodi.

"Modi's seen a stratospheric rise," said Luefkens.

Modi, the 63-year-old son of a low-caste tea seller, distances himself from the Delhi elite.

But he is notably tech-aware and has won plaudits from Twitter-watchers for his strategic deployment of it.

Indian officialdom's social media use is a hot topic, as Modi seeks to promote Hindi as the government's official language online, sparking stiff opposition.

While he speaks mostly in Hindi, used by some 40 percent of Indians, Modi's tweets are always in English, preferred for business in a nation with 22 official languages.

Modi, elected in May in a landslide vote, scored 24,000 retweets for his own "India has won!" victory message.

Otherwise, he averages 557.

Huge impact

Luefkens is a social media expert at communications firm Burson-Marsteller, which produces the Twiplomacy study.

He said that while television remains the key channel to hit the widest audience, Twitter is an increasingly-powerful tool.

"It helps you to broadcast, and if you broadcast to the right audience, that has huge impact," he said.

The social network enables politicians to create a sense of intimacy and even to interact with one another in public -- sometimes in an undiplomatic manner, seen in a Ukraine-themed tweet fight between the Russian foreign ministry and leaders from Estonia and Sweden.

Twitter is also a tool for leaders to follow one another mutually -- a statement in itself.

France's foreign minister follows 91 peers and world leaders who return the favour via his @LaurentFabius account, putting him at the top of the Twiplomacy table.

Next was the EU's foreign service account @eu_eeas, with 71 mutual connections, and the Swedish foreign minister, with 68 via his @CarlBildt account.

The @WhiteHouse and @BarackObama only follow three peers: the prime ministers of Russia and Norway, and the British government.

Despite taking to Twitter with gusto, politicians are light years behind celebrities.

Top-ranked stars' accounts include @justinbieber with 52.5 million followers, beaten by @katyperry, who has 54 million.

jwf/nl/lc

Pope Francis poses with young people in the Church of Saint Augustine in Rome
on August 28, 2013 (Osservatore Romano/AFP/File, Francesco Sforza)

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The Internet  - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification ("The End of History")

" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20,2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…  1 - Spirituality (Religions)

Number one: Spirituality. The systems of spiritual design on your planet are starting to change. This is not telling you that certain ones are going to go away. They're simply going to change. Some of the largest spiritual systems, which you would call organized religion on the planet, are shifting. They're going to shift away from that which is authority on the outside to authority on the inside. It will eventually be a different way of worship, slowly changing the rules while keeping the basic doctrine the same.

The doctrine of the Christ has always been to find the God inside. The teachings were clear. The examples of the miracles were given as an example of what humans could do, not to set a man up for worship as a God. So when that has been absorbed, the teaching of the Christ can remain the teaching of the Christ. It simply changes the interpretation.

The teachings of the great prophets of the Middle East (all related to each other) are about unity and love. So once the holy words are redefined with new wisdom, the Human changes, not the words of the prophets. In fact, the prophets become even more divinely inspired and their wisdom becomes even more profound.

You're going to lose a pope soon. I have no clock. Soon to us can mean anything to you. The one who replaces him may surprise you, for his particular organization will be in survival mode at that point in time. That is to say that fewer and fewer are interested in starting the priesthood. Fewer and fewer young people are interested in the organization, and the new pope must make changes to keep his church alive. That means that his organization will remain, but with a more modern look at what truly is before all of you in a new energy. It is not the fall of the church. It is instead the recalibration of the divinity inside that would match the worship that goes on. It's a win-win situation. The new pope will have a difficult time, since the old guard will still be there. There could even be an assassination attempt, such is the way the old energy dies hard. That is number one. Watch for it. It's a change in the way spiritual systems work. It's a realignment of spiritual systems that resound to a stronger truth that is Human driven, rather than prophet driven. …”