More than 3.3M tweets recorded during PH papal visit

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines broke Twitter records during the visit of Pope Francis from January 15 to 19, as Smart Communications Inc reported more than 3.3 million tweets related to the papal visit.

“Whether physically present during the papal activities or not, we were able to share our warm welcome and amplify our voice to converse with other Filipinos and Catholics all over the world through Twitter,” PLDT and Smart public affairs head Ramon Isberto said.

Tweets related to the pontiff’s visit peaked at 3,664 per second, 6:30 pm on January 15, the day Pope Francis arrived in Manila.

Smart reported that the number of tweets reached its peak at 3,664 tweets per second at 6:30 pm of January 15 when Pope Francis arrived in Manila.

“Here’s a part of our nation’s digital footprint, a digital imprint of our singular papal visit experience,” Isberto said.

A crowd estimated at a record 6 million braved Tropical Storm Amang (international name: Mekkhala) to attend the Mass celebrated by Pope Francis at the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park on January 18.

‘Golden tweet’

 The all-time “golden tweet” (most retweeted tweet) for the Philippines also came from the Pope’s recent Philippine trip through his @Pontifex account on January 16.

Ang Pilipinas ay patunay ng kabataan at kasiglahan ng Simbahan.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) January 16, 2015

This tweet had nearly 76,000 retweets and almost 90,000 favorites.

It is also the Pope’s most retweeted tweet to date from the @Pontifex account.

 A tech-savvy evangelist, Pope Francis amplies the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings through social media.

The Pope is the second most followed world leader on Twitter.

Prior to his Philippine visit, Pope Francis had over 17 million followers across his 9 accounts in different languages.

During his visit to the country, his @Pontifex account added over 365,000 followers from January 13 to 20.

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.

An 8th tweet is related to a call for prayer for those affected by Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) that battered the Philippines in November 2013, and the pontiff’s visit to the typhoon-hit Tacloban City on January 17.

In addition, 4 of the top 5 most retweeted tweets from the @Pontifex account are in the vernacular.

#DearPopeFrancis

To get real-time news and updates, send wishes to the pontiff, and participate in social media conversation, Smart teamed up with Twitter during the papal visit to provide free access to the social networking app.

The #DearPopeFrancis hashtag was shared by almost 380,000 users and reached a billion impressions worldwide from December 1 to January 19, a TV5 social media report shared.

It was surpassed by the related #WeLovePopeFrancis hashtag from January 18 to 19 used by almost half a million users and which reached 2 billion impressions worldwide.

To date, Twitter has 284 million monthly active users around the world with 80% of them on mobile, thus making it an essential social medium worldwide, particularly for such massive events like the Philippine papal visit. – Rappler.com