Pope hits 1 million Instagram followers in 12 hours

Pope Francis hit one million Instagram followers in only 12 hours after launching his account on Saturday.

The pontiff’s first post is a photo of him kneeling in prayer with the message “pray for me” in nine languages.

The pope’s Instagram account, with the handle “Franciscus,” broke a record for getting one million followers — the previous record was 24 hours held by David Beckham.

The account, which will be separate from the official Vatican account, will be maintained by Vatican personnel.

The launch of the pope’s account came weeks after his meeting with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom.

During the meeting, Systrom and the pontiff, talked about “the power of images to unite people across different cultures and languages.”

Systrom was at the Vatican on Saturday to witness the pope firing off his debut post.

The pope’s new social media account was launched during the third anniversary of his papal inauguration.

The pope’s social media presence includes Twitter with 8.9 million followers since May 2013.

Sources

Digital Trends
Yahoo
CNN/WGNO/ABC
Image: Yahoo

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