The pope will visit Washington, DC this week. Of course, DC gets all atwitter when such an event occurs. Last week, ScienceLogic CEO (and client) Dave Link quipped to me, what if Barack Obama talked to the Pope about Social Media (image by jurvetson).
What if indeed? Obama’s use of social networks to drive a grass roots groundswell has been impressive, and noted by political media.
I imagine he would tell the Pope these three things:
1) 
For big organizations like ours, it’s all about distributed communications. While you are the Pope and lead the Catholic church, you have to understand it’s about being local. So a Pope blog won’t really make a huge impact. What can you do to enable your local diocese? Power in social media comes from the bottom up.
2) Social networks are critical to getting the word out. We are part of more than a dozen social networks and use those to activate our people on the front line. The Catholic Church has a great opportunity to connect with millions of people on many social networks. Get out there and speak with people on their terms.
3) You can’t be the center of the effort. The Church is more than the Pope. My campaign is more than me. I don’t pretend to write my own posts. I don’t make my voice the center of our social effort. As the presidential candidate, I am already out front representing my entire team. And when I do need to use social media, I often use other blogs, like the Huffington Post. So let your people do the talking, and make appearances only when necessary and in the right venue.
Of course, Obama might just say this:
This is a great piece of information about the power and nature of social media. Obama’s social media campaign is one to watch to really understand the tremendous potential of social media.
Thanks!
Maria :-)
Geoff, not sure if you are aware but Fr. Sean O’Malley, Cardinal up in Boston, has had a blog for some time now (www.cardinalseansblog.org/) and has actually talked to the Pope on two occasions about blogging.
I still disagree a bit with folks’ take on Obama’s social media prowess, as I’ve blogged about most likely ad naueseum at this point. However I do think that religions use of social media, like any large organization, could be a very powerful tool for community engagement.
/kff
The Church sure can use a better social media program. If you think about social media and technology around traditional media (newspaper, tv, radio, etc) – we can see how not embracing social media is reducing their ability to reach their audience (esp. newspaper). Now take a traditional and slow-to-move organization that has existed for centuries in the Church, and you can begin to fathom just how big of an opportunity the Church is missing.
What’s more, there are so many people and groups out there already helping to spread the Church’s message. My old RA from Catholic University, Gene Monterastelli, for example, has the APeX Ministries (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8346141300). There are counselors, activity groups, etc. If the Church could somehow tap into that more directly, promote it, and get-the-word-out through social media, we could indeed see a very different kind of social engagement from Catholics than ever before.
Lastly, about Obama, social media has helped his candidacy. But he talks in the attached video about “institutional players” not meaning as much because of people being empowered politically through social networks. His statement is absurd. Obama is part of a political institution, and to suggest that people are empowered over lobbyists or that their support is more important than a governor of a state or others in Democratic Party is insane. How many bloggers does Obama have introduce him at political events? They may have an influence in keeping his costs down as he points out (I’m sure Hires would love it if I created a social network touting root beer and reduced their marketing budget), but that does not lead to breaking the political establishment…(no free root beer for me)… The only way to do that is vote for someone who is not part of an institution to begin with…