Pope embraces social media: will it help?
Pope Benedict plans to text thousands of young Catholics during World Youth Day in Sydney in July; the church plans to also set up a Catholic social networking site and use digital prayer walls. The goal: make the Catholic church more relevant to younger churchgoers.
Good for the rather conservative Catholics to use new ways to connect — especially in view of the declining number of members of the Catholic Church in many Western countries like the United States and Belgium. According to a recent Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life study:
Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes. While nearly one-in-three Americans (31%) were raised in the Catholic faith, today fewer than one-in-four (24%) describe themselves as Catholic. These losses would have been even more pronounced were it not for the offsetting impact of immigration.
The question for the Pope, as it is for all marketers, is whether using social media tools can help attract and keep members without also changing the message and experience.
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May 8th, 2008 at 10:35 am
[...] Posted on May 8, 2008 by George Van Antwerp Lois Kelly posted an interesting entry on her Foghound blog about the Catholic Church beginning to use Social Media. This is an obvious reaction to the statistics she quotes about retention of active [...]
May 8th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
As one of the many former (and some might say, recovering) Catholics the quoted study mentions, this is fascinating news made more so because this Pope is extremely conservative. But if the medium is the message, as Marshal McLuhan suggested, this could be a fundamental change in relationship the Church itself many not fully comprehend. And that’s a big wow, and something worth watching.
And back to marketing…
Your last thought sparked a question: isn’t a change in experience a natural (and arguably inevitable) outcome when adopting social marketing? And can it be ‘planned’ or simply intended?
And in this case, isn’t it even necessary (change in experience) to stem the losses tide, regardless of the product or service?
Just curious…
May 9th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Hey Lissa,
Yes, yes, yes. A change in experience is a natural outcome — and I think necessary to stem the losses. What people love about social media is the ability to connect and help other people with shared affinities. Facilitating a way for Catholics to connect with other Catholics (vs. “the church”) might be a game changing strategy for the religion, done right.
Lois