Second Most Tweeted Event in History – The Pope

Users of Twitter may have felt recently that their feed was dominated in earlier this year by posts about the new pope. The new pope, Pope Francis I, is the first pope of South American origin. It is surprising perhaps that it has taken this long due to the large Catholic following within the continent. The election of the new pope has been marked as the second most tweeted event in history up to date.

Twitter announced on February 4^th that the site had bore witness to 7 million posts in relation to the ascension. The site went on to state that it expect the number of posts to increase dramatically before the close of the day. At the peak of the tweeting on the topic, a total of 132, 000 tweets per minute were reported to have been posted on the topic. However this was insufficient to topple Twitter champion Obama. Who in November of last year boasted an astounding 237, 000 tweets per minute. Reports have stated that an astounding 20 million tweets were sent regarding the president on the election night.

If the recent papal election is unable to topple Obama’s Twitter supremacy, then it is doubtful that an event will for the foreseeable future. Regardless of this Francis I, has received a respectable second in the Twitter popularity charts. Other events which received high numbers of tweets per minute include the announcement of the Spice Girl reunification tour. The tour amassed 116, 000 tweets per minute at the peak of its popularity. Another event to receive widespread Twitter popularity was Usian Bolts gold medal victory in the 100m. The event at its crescendo achieved 88, 000 tweets per minute on the website. Both of these events occurred during the London Olympic events last summer.

The social media analysts at Topsy, recorded a slightly higher score for the new pope. Claiming at his peak he achieved 137, 000 tweets per minute. The company went on to claim that it witnessed 4 million tweets, following the announcement of the papal election. These four million posts Topsy claimed were witnessed an astounding 15 billion times over the subsequent hours. During the election the papal election found its way into the top ten trending articles after Francis I victory was announced. The analyst’s at Topsy produced a graph to show where the tweets were originated from. Unsurprisingly a large percentage came from Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s home nation: Argentina. However the 19% of tweets from his home nation were overwhelmed by a majority of tweets from the USA who account for 22%. Surprisingly, the papal homeland of Italy accounted for a mere 3%, only 1% ahead of the largely secular UK.

The initial tweet from the new pope was unsurprisingly waited for in anticipation. The pal page had before the election deleted all of its posted content from the Pope Benedict years from the social media platform. The initial post of Francis’s ascension to the throne of St. Peter has been widely re-posted. The number of re-posts currently stands at 68, 000. Again Obama holds the record for re-tweets. Amassing an astounding 812, 000 re-tweets for his post election victory picture of “four more years”. The first tweet sent by Pope Francis. read “Dear friends, I thank you from my heart and I ask you to continue to pay for me. Pope Francis.”