The Pope is blogging and your Preacher is tweeting you to pray

Just read Pope Benedict XVI message for the 44th World Communication day that will be held Sunday May 16th, 2010. The 265th Pope of the Catholic Church has been a strong proponent of social media and supporter of  priest using social media to spread the Gospel. Last year he introduced The Vatican on youtube, Facebook, and iPhone apps to spread the Church’s message. Pope Benedict has made it personal and has labeled it Pope2you.

It looks like the Pope’s Catholic priest will have an Iphone, Twitter account, and a Facebook page;  now your preacher can really know what you are doing Saturday night ( For those bad habit Catholics).

The Vatican has made Social Media a priority in 2010 and their message is very clear, all in their organization should be blogging, tweeting, and participating in Social Media to take their message directly to young people.

Small excerpt from the entire message from the Pope.  January 24th, 2010

The increased availability of the new technologies demands greater responsibility on the part of those called to proclaim the Word, but it also requires them to become become more focused, efficient and compelling in their efforts. Priests stand at the threshold of a new era: as new technologies create deeper forms of relationship across greater distances, they are called to respond pastorally by putting the media ever more effectively at the service of the Word.

What does it all mean? For both the young people  and the Vatican, Social Media is here to stay as the preferred way of communication. The Vatican understand that like any other business they have to participate in social media and have their preachers  producing real time information for believers, writing blogs, and planning events for the purpose of producing institutional brand integrity.

The real challenge is if a young believer is going to add their priest as a Facebook friend.

Just a thought

Divifilio

Follow me via:

http://twitter.com/TheDivifilio

2009 was not the year of the PIG or the TIGER!

This year we hated the Pig from May until November due to H1N1 then December came and entered the Tiger “the Pig  must love Tiger right now“…Gatorade just announced that they are dropping Tiger Woods but blames low sales. Who will be next to drop Tiger Woods in midst of  this social media blood bath that include non stop tweets, youtube and so on..no major business wants to be associated with millions of tweets talking negatively about Tiger Woods that has a direct association with their brand(Gatorade in this case).  A very important element to a brand are its associations and that is why Tiger Wood’s sponsors  such as Nike , American Express, General Mills and Gillette are evaluating their direct association with Tiger Woods specially during times of budget constraints and low sales….

I wonder what the Chinese Calendar has in store for 2010

Just a thought “Divifilio”

http://twitter.com/thedivifilio

Lets keep it Viral and not referring to H1N1 or maybe it is like H1N1

With many platforms and more that 350 social networking sites having a viral marketing strategy shouldn’t be a difficult task but more than ever I find myself with the questions of learning more about viral marketing so the H1N1 2009 pandemic is not such a bad idea to learn about viral marketing. So lets compare H1N1 to a viral marketing strategy. How did H1N1 become a viral sensation, lets get a Timeline; It started around March of 2009 in a small village in Mexico ( Viral Marketing Strategy usually starts small) by 28 April 2009: Seven countries are now reporting confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu: the United States, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Israel and Spain( viral marketing campaigns if done effectively has the potential to grow internationally very fast just like H1N1) by 7 May 2009: Worldwide confirmed cases are now at 2,371 it is a world wide phenomenon with media attention and everyone afraid of my compadres.  19 NOVEMBER 2009 | GENEVA — To date, WHO has received vaccination information from 16 of around 40 countries conducting national H1N1 pandemic vaccine campaigns. Based on information in these 16 countries,  around 65 million people have been vaccinated. ( A viral marketing campaign has potential just like H1N1 to be very pandemic if  it has an aligned marketing strategy, viral campaign, identified potential customers, connect with people, track behavior, and have measurable results)

To make sense of Viral Marketing just like H1N1 it has the potential to spread  very quickly if the  right strategy is chosen and can be controlled. Set goals that can be reached and have quantitative data that can create value.

The main element to remember is not to be like H1N1 and do not target everybody that comes across!!

Thanks for reading

Divifilio