Next Pope Will Inherit An Established Social Media Presence With Room To Grow » Who could have ever imagined that communicating with the Pope would become as simple as it is! Pope Benedict XVI is all set to retire at the end of the month as he leaves behind his greatest legacy – his twitter handle: @Pontifex Communication between the church and its followers was getting scarce and, then almost out of the blue, the Vatican made an attempt to remedy the situation; first it introduced its official website news.va and then it has turned its aim towards personal interaction with the public at large (to be precise, it has turned its aim towards social media presence). You can ask questions directly to the Pope via the hashtag #askpontifex and also become one of his 2.5 million online followers. In the age of digitization, the church has made its move to strengthen its roots by gathering mass support and providing transparency within its governing entities. The next Pope, with a world of followers, will have to preserve communication between the Vatican and the social media world.  While just entering the realm of social media was considered a success for this Pope, the next pope will have to do more for the same label. The Vatican, currently operating without a single dedicated social media professional, has room to grow both in terms of followers and in its practices. The #askpontifex Q&A, for instance, did not contain identifying information about those asking the questions, leading some to initially believe The Pope was asking questions to himself and then answering them. The dialogue from the @Pontifex account has also been limited, without a single @mention included in any of The Pope's 34 tweets to date.
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